Sentient Robots are Not Disposable Creatures

by Nicole Lo

I finished the Star Trek episode The Measure of a Man earlier tonight and have various thoughts bouncing in my head that I want to note down before everything goes away. The episode was very intriguing, and the core theme of this specific episode appears to be a continued exploration of humanity in robotics that we had discussed through the show Westworld. Although Westworld and Star Trek both contain human beings and robotics, the robots that are used as hosts in the theme park Westworld, was controlled by humans, had their memories wiped out on a regular basis, and their characteristics programmed, and encounters plotted by human as part of the “storylines”. Comparatively, Data from Star Trek, who was an Android created by a human being, was conscious of his own choices and was able to voice his opposition against an experiment that was to be done on him. The violent and brutal process of awakening in Mauve and Dolores was brought by their longing for freedom, whilst Data seemingly had no trouble with his freedom prior to the debate upon his identity, given the fact that he was a machine.

There was a quote from the show that stirred my emotion, which is “in the history of many worlds there have always been disposable creature. They do the dirty work. They do the work that is too difficult to do because it’s too difficult or too hazardous. … You don’t think about their welfare, you don’t think about how they feel.” In this statement, I find the usage of the phrase “disposable creature” interesting, as if those humans were seen as objects rather than living creatures like us. I guess that would make sense of the mentality of those who manipulated the “disposable creature”, in fact, the term immediately reminded me of American slave owners who considered slaves as properties and did not deserve any rights.

Lastly, I want to add that the transition of commander Maddox’s attitude was quite interesting, after he came to recognize Data’s successful demonstration of intelligence and self-awareness, which basically are two of the three qualities that Maddox considered as requirement of sentience. After the ruling that Data deserves the right to choose whether he would like to participate in an experiment that would potentially risk his life, Maddox changed the use of pronoun from “it” to “him” when referring to Data, it appears to be a small gesture, but I find it very powerful. It reflects the respect that was lacking while he assumed Data as a property of Starfleet. He was quick to correct his problematic view of Data as machine, which is courageous in my opinion. I believe Maddox’s open-mindedness to learn is essential in building an inclusive environment that is adaptive to robots in our society, as there has been increasing debate on the topic of robot rights, some see it as absurdity, while others a necessity. When it comes to ethics in logical and sentient machines, I believe they should not be treated as disposable machines because of their artificially made body, when they are like Data from Star Trek specifically, the ones that have independent thoughts and soul, and is capable of create bonding and memories with human. Although they are still machinery, both the logical and sentimental aspect of sentient robots deserve to be respected by human.