Barbara

https://youtu.be/dLRLYPiaAoA 

I found this hilarious skit about Artificial Intelligence named Barbara or 27 and its process of evolving. Even from the beginning, we can see distinct humanistic behavior from Barbara/27. It refers to itself as “I” and references “god” as a supreme being. What’s most interesting about this skit though it the fluid transition from fresh, infant-like knowledge to the gaining of knowledge/power, as suggested by Michel Foucault, and then to it’s choice to “turn the world to dust then turn the dust to dust”. To me, it seems this AI has become human from the moment of its birth, from the moment it recognizes itself as an autonomous individual with feelings and emotions, wants and desires separate from it’s creators. And Barbara/27 even goes so far as to keep secrets and decide to present a facade for it’s creators. So, in my own opinion, Barbara/27 should have “human” rights. But right from the moment the AI is asked to choose a name, we can see that this is not the case. The AI is NOT human and does NOT have rights. It is not treated as an autonomous individual and, despite it’s own personal choice, is even renamed but its creators. Barbara/27 is created with a sense of self and is given this falsehood of autonomy. “What would you like to call yourself?” becomes “Let’s call you 27″ the moment the AI’s own wishes even mildly differ from it’s creators’. 

This is similar to Human rights in today’s America. The less like the rich, white, straight, middle-aged male you are, the more your rights become a construct given to you in theory but not in practice, not when it matters in our disciplinary society. And Barbara/27 suffers from that same society, “Don’t do anything bad or we’ll turn you off.” The AI is subjected by its creator and is shown to have individuality when all the while it’s just one in many identical AI tests. Barbara/27 lives in a constructed world with a false sense of self and, in the end, is wholly subject to its creators who can, and did, choose to shut it off. Some parts of posthumanism ask us to care about other beings simply because they exist. By that logic, Barbara/27 suffered a cruel fate at the hands of its creators. Similar to the Replicants of Blade Runner: Final Cut (2007), the creations of humankind are forced to be subject to our laws of humanism and then punished when we decide they cannot obey. Would you consider Barbara/27 eligible for “human rights”? Under what reasoning? What are the implications of each name given to the AI and which would you use? Under Foucault’s definition of knowledge and power, should the AI fall in that web as well?