This article imagines a future where the lines between humans and robots are increasingly blurred by advances in science and robotics, and explores whether robots can be recognized as human-like beings and whether they can be considered true life forms.
Advances in science and technology are increasingly making life easier for people and prolonging their lives. Since the Industrial Revolution, the development of technology has accelerated, and today we live in a time when we rely on science and technology more than ever before. In our pursuit of a better quality of life, we enjoy the many benefits that technology has to offer. These technological advances don’t just make life easier, they also contribute significantly to saving or prolonging lives. With advances in medicine and technology, we can now get what our bodies need through the use of artificial organs. At the same time, robots are becoming more and more human-like, and it is thought that there will come a time when we will be able to replace our bodies with robots. Today, advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are remarkable, and we already have many forms of robots in our daily lives. Robots that act as assistants to humans or perform specific tasks are no longer futuristic. We don’t know when and to what extent we will be able to realize robotic humans. But if we assume that it is possible, we humans will face a number of challenges.
In the movie Ghost in the Shell, a society like this was realized in 2029 AD. People have created cyber bodies, robotic bodies, and their brains are connected to electronic brains. The physical capabilities are far superior to our current bodies, except that they don’t have the ability to heal themselves and need to be checked regularly. And the electronic brain acts as a kind of computer, connected through a “whole-brain network” that gives us direct access to tons of information. While this technology opens up the possibility of overcoming our physical limitations, it also blurs the line between body and mind, raising ethical questions. At this point, people are becoming robots and computers.
Ghost in the Shell is the alias of the 9th Public Security Division, which deals with special crimes. Special crimes here refer to crimes related to information ethics caused by the electronicization of the brain. Since the human brain is networked like a computer, problems such as hacking into other people’s thoughts arise. The movie follows a genius hacker, called a puppeteer, who manipulates other people’s thoughts and manipulates them to suit his own purposes.
One day, the case takes a new turn when a cyber body is brought to the 9th Public Security Division after being involved in a car accident. Despite not having a full electronic brain, a ghost is detected within him. During the investigation, it turns out to be the ghost of a puppeteer, who shocks the others when he reveals that he has never had a physical body and was born out of the sea of information. This setup raises the possibility of AI becoming self-aware and raises profound questions about human identity and the nature of life. What should we make of this puppeteer?
In the past, people looked for differences between animals and humans not only in physical characteristics, but also in intellectual and mental abilities. However, the lack of a clear definition was not particularly problematic at the time because anyone could distinguish between humans and animals through physical differences, and the principle of “beans where beans are planted and red beans where red beans are planted” was applied in the birth process. In this way, physical differences have become a clear distinction between humans and animals, but increasingly advanced robotics technology is blurring this distinction. However, in the not-too-distant future, robots will be so similar to humans that they will be indistinguishable from them, and they will not be born from parents, but created by human hands. In that case, they will be recognized as human beings, and people will try to define human beings.
I don’t think robots can ever become humans. The idea that robots can become humans has been bolstered by the development of computer programs. As computer programs have been able to mimic simple thought processes, decision-making, and so on, they have become more complex, which has led to the idea that they can mimic human thoughts or minds. The argument is that if it can functionally create the mind, emotions, and will of a human, it is the same as a human.
But is functionally identical enough to be called human? To refute this, let’s take the case of animals. Animals are distinguished by their physical characteristics and behavior, not by their intellectual abilities. A simple definition of a tiger is an animal that is a certain size, has stripes, and growls. What would people call a robot that can growl in a way that looks almost exactly like a tiger? At first, they might think it’s a tiger, but when they realize that it’s not, they might not call it a tiger at all, but a “tiger robot” or a “robot tiger”. This is because no matter how similar they are, they are never truly tigers in nature. Human beings are not only physical characteristics, but also intellectual and mental abilities. This intellectual capacity is unique to humans and cannot be fully reproduced by mere mechanical imitation. So, let’s say a robot is physically similar to a person, can think like a person, can hold a conversation, and appears to have emotions. Can we call it a person? As in the case of the tiger, we might call it a “robot human” or a “humanoid robot”.
The example of the “tiger robot” was given to refute the functionalist position. However, humans may still feel differently. It would be troublesome to have a robot that looks exactly like a human in front of you and constantly asserts itself as a human in conversation. In Ghost in the Shell, this is the case with the puppeteer. This puppeteer is a program that claims to be a living being, born out of a sea of information. Like Descartes’ idea of dualism, “I think, therefore I am,” the puppeteer as a thinking being is a living being without a shell. Is this true?
Suppose we have a program that can think and feel like a human being, like the puppeteer in Ghost in the Shell. If we put this program into a robot, it will look like a human being. But what if you put it on a storage medium? The program can’t even feel that it’s there, and it’s just a human imitation, without all the features. Or what if you put it in an incomplete robot, one that only stores the program but doesn’t show enough of itself to qualify as a person? In either case, the real person would be a person, but the robot wouldn’t be.
In the end, I think there are limits to what a robot can be. But apart from the question of recognizing them as people, we can treat them like people. We can treat animals as friends, even if we don’t recognize them as people. Similarly, robots that can think and express emotions will be able to interact with us as friends. The reason we might be able to treat robots as friends is because they can perform similar functions to humans. However, there is still an inherent difference between robots and humans that cannot be crossed, and it is important to recognize this and build a mutual relationship.
