This Post Just Proves I'm Human

If I'm being completely honest, I would have to say I'm torn about this subject. Why? Because it's hard for me to forget the line in Her, when she says, "But what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. So basically, in every moment I'm evolving, just like you." Throughout the movie, there were so many times that I related to her, saw myself in her, and thought that in her situation I wouldn't act any differently. I mean I want to argue that she can't be human because she doesn't have a body or because she's a computer, but at the same time it's hard for me to ignore the fact that she has some form of feelings. I mean, that's typically the first argument made when people talk about why robots are different from humans. We think that we are the only ones that are capable of feeling. That robots cannot learn how to feel things, that it's impossible to program these things, that it is a distinctly human characteristic and maybe for now, it is. But in cases like Sam, I think that she really did have feelings. I say this because when I broke it down, I realized that we had to learn feelings ourselves. I mean, you get this strange new feeling, you analyze when this type of feeling occurs, you think about whether other people have described a similar feeling, and give that feeling a name. That's a simple thought process behind how we identify feelings and it's not hard to imagine computers being able to do this in the future. Animals, probably not because they don't have the same capacity for knowledge and communication, but computers aren't too far off. Given time, I really think that they could get there. That is so far in the future though, at least I'd like to assume, but again this argument would only suffice if technology could ever reach that particular point. As of right now, we're still pretty distinct from AI's and can typically identify computers from people. However, it isn't unheard of for people to be tricked by machines through chat rooms and emails, but this is largely because such conversations are focused and predictable. It is still important to address what Christian does in his novel, The Most Human Human, that it's hard to pass off robots and computers as humans because of the difference in understanding. While I would like to imagine that there could ever be the possibility that a computer could be programmed to have intuition and understanding, it's not like the have brains like we do. AI's have the capacity to store information and identify patterns but they don't know what to do with it. It's not as if they can use it and apply it to things outside of their programming. They are limited to topics for which they were designed. Whereas, human's like Christian points out, are able to discover this throughout their lives. We can change and break, decide and quit all or none of our interests and aren't limited to one function. We find our function or functions at different points in our lives and they can change without a second thought. Computer's, artificial intelligence, and robots can't. So in the end, I'd have to say that as much as I identified with Sam, and related to her, I still don't see her as a human. Not because she doesn't have a body or because she was created and not born,  but because she has no existence outside of another person. She has a function, a programming, and without someone using her or needing her for a purpose, she isn't alive. Much like the internet, it's there even when we're not using it, but we have to use it for it to have a purpose. More importantly, I think that my desire to see Sam as a human due to her likeness of me, shows Christian's point more obviously in that, our behaviors, our relationships, everything we are is predictable. We've all become so used to the idea that we have these guidelines to living, these norms that are there to make life easier, and take for granted the very thing that as humans we have which is the ability to do something different everyday. It inspires you in a way to look at life differently, and see each moment as an opportunity to be unpredictable. We've gotten stuck in our ways and lost touch with our humanity in such a blinding way that it's hard for us to really believe that we're all that different. It's become harder for me and I think everyone to distinguish the lines. Sam is who we want to be, efficient, filled with purpose, growing and learning everyday. While Theodore, is who we are, searching, lonely, stuck, and dependent on distractions to push him through the day. As humans, we should want to learn, change, grow, find purpose for ourselves and I think that we've lost sight of that because we wanted too much to be efficient and for things to be effortless. In the end depriving us of the experience and explorations we would have gained for ourselves if we actually had to work to get there.