The film, A]. Artificial Intelligence, tells the fictional story of a child robot that is capable of feelings. The robot, David, goes on an adventure throughout the movie, motivated by the love it possesses for its “morn”, Monica. However, a machine cannot act as David did in the movie, where he incorporated mental states, consciousness, and a mind to think. David also had feelings, of being scared and sad when Monica left it behind, But, David too faces some restrictions in the movie that demonstrates the limits of machine programming. Thus, machines are restricted from achieving a mind, possessing mental states and consciousness, and feeling due to limits in programming. The limits are an inability to comprehend sentimental feelings, not knowing how to react in every situation, and respecting personal boundaries humans and machines differ largely in sentiment, where the machine’s sentiment is unnatural and simulated. Machines cannot only be simulated to act a certain way to portray the physical aspects of the feelings but can never experience them as a human can.
This is demonstrated in the beginning of the movie when the CEO asks the robot what love is. She responds with physical changes that occur while in love, but not with the emotional answer that would have emerged from a human. Furthermore, machines can only be programmed to have feelings, they cannot develop them by themselves like a human can. Many believe that the full range of human feelings cannot be integrated, but a few like frustration can (Emotion). This shows how machines cannot possess feelings like humans can. Machines cannot be programmed to be able to respond to every possible situation. For example, a robot is programmed to comfort any person who is crying. They would not be able to distinguish between tears due to sadness and does that occur from joy. Thus, its sentiment would be misplaced and unneeded in the latter situation. This is demonstrated in the movie when David has an unexpected reaction to another David robot, eventually smashing it to pieces.
This effect was unknown when it was created and thus lead to messy results, In a M.l,T. research paper, Brooks argues that machines cannot be programmed to respond to many situations due to “largely unfounded great leaps of faith” that occur within the programming (Brooks) This means that the results cannot be fully understood by the programmer and many items are left up to chance that occurs from previous coding. In this way, a machine’s mind can never compare to a human’s because a human can react to any situation properly while a machine cannot. A machine cannot respect personal boundaries, which shows a dearth of mind and feelings. Since a machine is programmed to act a certain way in a situation, they will not be able to discern between right and wrong when faced with a choice. This is shown in the movie when David walks in on Monica sitting on the toilet. It does not realize that this causes Monica discomfort and embarrassment David also cannot tell that it is socially unacceptable to observe someone in the bathroom, which it was doing.
It is not possible to program a robot to observe these customs because they are numerous ones, most changing in different societies. Even if the machine could somehow remember customs it would be confused, because many customs change based on the circumstances. For example, it is okay to barge into a bathroom if the person inside is injured for some reason, this demonstrates how a machine cannot be programmed to understand personal boundaries, which means it cannot completely understand feelings and lack some judgment. In conclusion, machines cannot have incorporated mental states, consciousness, a mind to think, and feelings into is programming. They would be unable to feel sentiment, which is a vital part of human feelings. It also could not have an appropriate response to every situation that will occur due to leaps of faith taken during programming. Finally, a machine cannot respect private boundaries as shown by David protruding on Monica in the bathroom. Even though many people are hopeful of intelligent robots that can mimic human life, one cannot be made that could even slightly compare to human attributes.
