I, Human

                In this movie, a special robot, Sonny, proves to be more human than ever thought possible.  Brian Christian discusses Aristotle’s theory on souls in his book “The Most Human Human.” There are three different souls; the nutritive soul which plants, animals, and humans have, the sensitive soul which animals and humans have, and the rational soul which humans have.  I believe Sunny has all three of these souls based off of Aristotle’s definition.  He has a sense of himself and preserves his own life.  He can hear, move around on his own, and desires to understand what he doesn’t.  He also has the ability to do arithmetic.

                The fact that Sonny even has a name is unique in itself.  No robot has had an identity before.  They are all identical and uniform until Sonny, he has blue eyes.  Giving him an identity gives him a more human quality.  Sonny does not have a simple input = output system.  He is mindful of the conversations he is having.  He learns from Spooner the meaning of a wink.  This wink comes into play later in the movie.  He is able to express his intended meaning with his wink so that Spooner understands his plan.  It displayed trust between the two.  This expression creates an extreme blur between natural and artificial intelligence because he is able to express emotions.

                I believe Sonny would pass the Turing test with flying colors because of his expressive nature.  In the movie, he is still learning the meaning of a lot of things and learning to understand and interpret his emotions.  He does not understand why he is different.  By the end of the movie, I believe he could very easily win the Most Human Computer because he is so individualistic.  He has so many human characteristics that Dr. Calvin cannot stand the idea of destroying him.  He is such an advanced robot that she cannot make herself destroy him.

                This mercy obviously works out in their benefit because VIKI the main frame has decided to take control.  Like the computer in War Games, she does not understand that you cannot just murder people because that is the most effective way to operate.  They had to teach the WOPR futility, a skill that would have been very valuable for VIKI to learn. Fortunately, due to Sonny’s humanistic nature, he was able to revolt against VIKI and help Calvin and Spooner save the world.