Modern science-fiction films vividly illustrate modern social issues and current attitudes toward the future. Based on the short story “Super Toys Last All Summer Long,” “Artificial Intelligence” takes place in the end of the 21st century at the United States of America. Spielberg 's film raises many questions: foremost among them, what does it mean to be a person? Degree of personhood is the status of how much a thing is a person depending on certain qualities. This theory concerns with matters such as citizenship, equality and liberty in our current society. In contemporary United States, the degree of personhood affects political policies concerning the mentally ill and access to firearms, or undocumented citizens and the access to health
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If a human’s appearance, intelligence, social status is not up to standard to what the community deems tolerable, a lesser label will be figuratively branded on them. One must ask, if we look to our inspiration for blueprints, who is we? A person must have enough respect within their societal structure for it’s opinion to be heard and be considered part of the we. In a peculiar scene when the protagonist of the film “Artificial Intelligence”, android child David, looks through the face of one his exact robot copies, the audience has to wonder if once that face has a body, will it be David? When is someone, someone? Contemporary United States uses information such as fingerprints and other unique physical aspects to identify individuals. Though when an individual is an exact physical copy, then memory, cognitive processing, or personality could be the separating trait. Once those aspects can be mechanically instilled on an individual, another form of separation must be formed to still be considered an individual. People have a low threshold of tolerance towards differences, therefore everything must be abruptly yet almost permanently categorized with labels such as educational status, sexual orientation, citizenship, physical/mental health or otherwise. Though tolerance seem to be correlated to the degree of personhood, one must not confuse correlation with causation …show more content…
The male android prostitute said he was a guiltless pleasure for he is a but a advanced sexual toy. Will it still be guiltless if the android looked like a child? The film’s infamous “celebration of life” constitutes a gathering of left-wing activists that publically and brutally destroy robots to emit human patriotism. Does our current society have its own celebration of life? And finally, David, a child whose only desire in life was to be loved by his mother yet condemned to death. Was David not a person worthy of
If a human’s appearance, intelligence, social status is not up to standard to what the community deems tolerable, a lesser label will be figuratively branded on them. One must ask, if we look to our inspiration for blueprints, who is we? A person must have enough respect within their societal structure for it’s opinion to be heard and be considered part of the we. In a peculiar scene when the protagonist of the film “Artificial Intelligence”, android child David, looks through the face of one his exact robot copies, the audience has to wonder if once that face has a body, will it be David? When is someone, someone? Contemporary United States uses information such as fingerprints and other unique physical aspects to identify individuals. Though when an individual is an exact physical copy, then memory, cognitive processing, or personality could be the separating trait. Once those aspects can be mechanically instilled on an individual, another form of separation must be formed to still be considered an individual. People have a low threshold of tolerance towards differences, therefore everything must be abruptly yet almost permanently categorized with labels such as educational status, sexual orientation, citizenship, physical/mental health or otherwise. Though tolerance seem to be correlated to the degree of personhood, one must not confuse correlation with causation …show more content…
The male android prostitute said he was a guiltless pleasure for he is a but a advanced sexual toy. Will it still be guiltless if the android looked like a child? The film’s infamous “celebration of life” constitutes a gathering of left-wing activists that publically and brutally destroy robots to emit human patriotism. Does our current society have its own celebration of life? And finally, David, a child whose only desire in life was to be loved by his mother yet condemned to death. Was David not a person worthy of