Imagine if you will that as a biological species that has evolved over millions of years we finally figure out how to create a sentient being. An genuine self-aware android.

Let's further imagine that as the years pass we realize that time has run out for us. We realize that we have destroyed the ecosystem of spaceship Earth and we don't have the ability to save it. It's beyond salvaging. We also don't have the ability to leave the planet or go anywhere to save ourselves. As a species we're doomed.

However, we have figured out how to build sentient androids.

What should we do at that point?

Do you think we should build as many androids as we can, and teach them to even build more of their same kind?

Even as we die out as a biological species, we could give rise to a non-biological life form that could endure very harsh environments and live on to improve itself as an intelligent race.

What are your thoughts?

Would you have compassion for the androids? Would you have enough respect for life itself to try to keep it going even if it was for a totally non-biological life form that is quite differnet from our own biological species?

Or would you not consider the androids to be a valid form of life? Would you have no respect for them?

P.S. Saving humans is not an option in this hypothetical scenario. The ecosystem of Mother Earth has failed beyond repair. All biological life will cease to exist. Humans are no exception.

Would you offer your last years of life to labor for the sake of creating a race of androids to carry on sentience?

This post kind of reminds me of the movie A.I.

It reminds me also of a book i cant quite recall the name of..

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? something like that.


Edit - Google just confirmed it was called that, was written by Phillip Di c k.

The film Bladerunner was based on it.

I think it would be likely to develop compassion for an android if it displayed human emotions. But the knowledge that it is an android would make it next to impossible to love it like one would a human.

Battlestar Galactica

The basic premise here is "Would an artificial android human deserve the respect awarded to a human?" The mentioned book and later movie "Blade Runner" delves into this question deeply. The answer given by Philip K. Dick is that; No, even if we designed and created an android superior to humans, humans would not respect it." ... at least most wouldn't.

People can be smart. The human race, taken as a whole, is stupid.

is it a female android?and if so,does she has lifelike female "parts"?

I think this question could be more general in nature.

Should sentient beings have rights?

Then we would need to specify what qualities, what characteristics make up sentience.

I think we already have other intelligent sentient beings living on this planet now, and we do not respect, offer, nor allow basic rights to life.

Whales
Dolphins

**** the androids. Borg, maybe. and then.. **** them too.

Would said andriod have any respect for us?

If we built it would it not have flaws?

Very interesting Abra.

Yes, I would build androids, place in their databanks everything about us, where we went wrong....

If the android is actually "SENTIENT", then it is self-aware and I could have compassion. I can't feel this way about a toaster because it can't think, it just dries out bread. But a machine that can say as we do "I'm HERE", well, that's another bag altogether.

I would like it if we as humans could transfer our "whatever" we have into the machines, like in "2001", that way we wouldn't have to become extinct.

So, yes, build them. We always like to leave reminders of our passage, maybe something will come along after...?

Hey, there! Please google "Turing Computer", it's about a computer program, software what have you that can build replicas of itself and even IMPROVE the program and the end product. Very novel idea from the 1950's I believe.

Two of the androids in Blade Runner were Sean Young and Daryl Hanna.

Daryl Hanna "Pris" was a "pleasure" model. Sean Young's role was to be indistinguishable, in every way, from a human woman.

The movie was made in 1982 and, like all of Philip K. Dick's works, was far ahead of it's time.

With modern medical advances, much of what was considered an android at that time, is rapidly coming true and would be (and is) considered "medical advancements" today. Examples would be the growing of artificial body parts and the manipulation of human DNA for 'improvements'.

The great irony of the movie is that, in the end, the superior android (Roy), showed more humanity than mankind itself; and of course, Harrison Ford (Deckard) who had lost his love for humanity, found love with an android.

Androids already exist on a different planet in a different universe far away in a galaxy we cannot see with any technology we have today.

And perhaps ... for our own good.... it is better so...

Very good observation.

There are prominent cosmologists who seriously believe that there is a higher probability that we are likely to encounter a 'race' of androids (or animated sentient machines) before encountering other biological life.

Their reasoning makes a lot of sense actually. First off, if Relativity is true and it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light in this universe, (which currently appears to be the case), then it is highly unlikely that we are going anywhere, or that any biological beings are going to be coming to visit us.

However, it is possible that non-biological 'beings' or andriods could live for extended periods of time, travel large distances, and even survive conditions that would be fatal for any biological creture.

In fact, astronomers are looking for other planets where biological life could survive, or even evolve. However, a non-biological race of 'androids' could live on extremely barren planets, even without atmospheres or water. They could also inhabit planets that have extreme changes in things like temperature etc.

So a race of androids could be lurking on a planet that we would consider to be totally hostile to any kind of biological life.

In fact, in my scenario in the OP that's precisely what Earth would have become: A biologically dead planet filled with a race of Andriods.

Wouldn't it have been more cost efficient for the movie producers to hire a person to play Sean Young? Why build a very complex machine, with no expenses spared, for a two-our movie? They could have just cast Judy Dench and bingo, you got your humanoid Gynoid. Ops, you said it needed to be like a human.

No human, whether it's an arbitrarily chosen one from the population or carefully, is like a human. It's because we, humans, are still trying to define human nature.

Perhaps we ought to ask a very intelligent giraffe to design an android that is very humanlike.

One of the many points made in the movie Blade Runner was that the progression of medical technology will allow us to design a human far better than we are today. Bones that don't break, knees that don't wear out, far greater intelligence, etc. The Japanese just built an artificial woman. The creepy part is that this is the first try and it is awfully good.

The middle to the end of the short vid shows better views.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY8-sJS0W1I

zounds like Abra found Wall-E on On Demand for free
and has been watching it over and over...

Tap it! or Pass?

I like "Metal".