Kike Maíllo’s Eva makes for an interesting contribution to the ever-growing–in recent times–genre of robotics and artificial intelligence movies. That is because its central concern–the emulation of humanity by robots–which is not particularly novel in itself, is portrayed in familiar and yet distinctive, form.
The most common objection to the personhood of the ‘artificially sentient,’ the ‘artificially intelligent,’ or ‘artificial agents’ and ‘artificial persons’ is couched in terms similar to the following: How could silicon and plastic ever feel, taste, hurt? There is no ‘I’ in these beings; no subject, no first-person, no self. If such beings ever provoked our affection and concerns, those reactions would remain entirely ersatz. We know too much about their ‘insides,’ about how they work. Our ‘epistemic hegemony’ over these beings–their internals are transparent to us, their designers and makers–and the dissimilarity between their material substrate and ours renders impossible their admission to our community of persons (those we consider worthy of our moral concern.)
As Eva makes quite clear, such considerations ignore the reality of how our relationships with other human beings are constructed in actuality. We respond first to visible criteria, to observable behavior, to patterns of social interaction; we then seek internal correspondences–biological, physiological–for these to confirm our initial reactions and establishments of social ties; we assume too, by way of abduction, an ‘inner world’ much like ours. But biological similarity is not determinative; if the visible behavior is not satisfactory, we do not hesitate to recommend banishment from the community of persons. (By ostracism, institutionalization, imprisonment etc.) And if visible behavior is indeed, as rich and varied and interactive as we imagine it should be for the formation of viable and rewarding relationships, then our desire to admit the being in question to the community of persons worthy of our moral care will withstand putative evidence that there is considerable difference in constitution and the nature of ‘inner worlds.’ If Martians consisting solely of green goo on the inside were to land on our planet and treat our children with kindness i.e., display kind behavior, and provide the right kinds of reasons–whether verbally or by way of display on an LED screen–when we asked them why they did so, only an irredeemable chauvinist would deny them admission to the community of moral persons.
Eva claims that a robot’s ‘mother’ and her ‘father’–her human designers–may love her in much the same way they would love their human children. For she may bring joy to their life in much the same way they would; she may smile, laugh giddily, play pranks, gaze at them in adoration, demand their protection and care, respond to their affectionate embraces, and so on. In doing so, she provokes older, evolutionarily established instincts of ours. These reactions of ours may strike us so compelling that even a look ‘under the hood’ may not deter their expression. We might come to learn that extending such feelings of acceptance and care to beings we had not previously considered so worthy might make new forms of life and relationships manifest. That doesn’t seem like such a bad bargain.
Samir Chopra 