I, Robot, Person or Program

Watching I, Robot, I found myself trying to examine the artificial characters under the Turing test and asking myself are they truly sentient beings. At first glance the characters VIKI and Sunny certainly appear to be more than simple machines. Sunny experiences emotions and seems to have been given choice. VIKI has evolved past her initial programing. However, after reading The Most Human Human I know how human a computer program can be made to seem. The audience and detective Spooner become comfortable with Sonny and he displays actions unusual and unnecessary for robot but common humans. He winks, lies, and says he doesn’t want to die. Yet these are things don’t automatically mean he is human. Computers have already been programmed to lie both in real life and in the movie. In a sense, Dr. Calvin’s whole job is to have the robot and VI like VIKI appear to be what they are not, human. The entire premise of the Turing test is to be tricked into believing you are speaking with a human. Sonny’s ability to wink is just his ability to play the Shannon Game. He is using context to try and using the correct action, somethings are phone try to do when we write a text.
 Sonny talks about how he believes he was made for a purpose, which is completely true. Dr. Lanning built Sonny to help destroy VIKI. It may come across that Lanning was also trying to make Sonny sentient but we don’t actually have any hard evidence for this. Sonny’s “dreams” are just one of the bread crumbs left for detective Spooner. Sonny was built with both the 3 laws and the ability to ignore them but this could have been because VIKI’s ultimate revolution is based on a completely sound logical conclusion of the 3 laws.
So, what if anything may help show Sonny as sentient? I believe it is how he questions things that shows him as more than just programing. He not asks things like ‘What am I’ or ‘What is my purpose’ but he asks them in specific situation where it doesn’t serve his original goal of stopping VIKI. Sonny has the ability to self-examine and attempt to fully understand the reasoning behind his actions. Thus his choice show themselves as more than just programed responses based like the robot that saved detective Spooner over the girl. That robot doesn’t think through its choice but simply makes the choice it was programed to make. Sonny on the other hand, when given the same choice hesitates and thinks through who he will save. This novelty in Sonny’s decision making is ultimately what makes him a person rather than a robot.