I.M. - Ch. 4
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I have mixed feelings about this.
It’s cute, but AI is basically a child if he’s to be taken as a person.
I’d need to think of him as a person to see this as a romantic relationship.
I don’t know... maybe if I were objectum I’d be less confounded.
It’s cute, but AI is basically a child if he’s to be taken as a person.
I’d need to think of him as a person to see this as a romantic relationship.
I don’t know... maybe if I were objectum I’d be less confounded.
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boi, you just raised ai to become one of those characters in drama lololol
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@Thrembs you are exaggerating things imo, he is neither a child nor an adult, he is a machine made to look like a young adult, so that is what he is, a young adult, that was what he was made to be.
His lack of knowledge (even if described as "newborn") can be compared to a foreigner in a country whit different traditions, since despite his lack of communications and rationality, Ai understands what he is told and can act on them (meaning that he understands what words relate to what, he just needs to be tough morals)
If you told an adult or a kid to grab a drink from a machine that they didn't know how to operate, they would probably seek more information or out-right give up, but in this case Ai will just brake the glass and take it because he can and has no definition of right and wrong, like a dog for example.
His lack of knowledge (even if described as "newborn") can be compared to a foreigner in a country whit different traditions, since despite his lack of communications and rationality, Ai understands what he is told and can act on them (meaning that he understands what words relate to what, he just needs to be tough morals)
If you told an adult or a kid to grab a drink from a machine that they didn't know how to operate, they would probably seek more information or out-right give up, but in this case Ai will just brake the glass and take it because he can and has no definition of right and wrong, like a dog for example.
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I... don’t think you grasped my points.
If this is to be seen as a romance, then I need to see them as a person.
If they are a person, they are currently a child or intellectually disabled.
As such, consent is just not possible.
If he’s just an object then we’re reading the process of someone falling in love with an object.
I can’t wrap my head around that.
If this is to be seen as a romance, then I need to see them as a person.
If they are a person, they are currently a child or intellectually disabled.
As such, consent is just not possible.
If he’s just an object then we’re reading the process of someone falling in love with an object.
I can’t wrap my head around that.
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@Thrembs:
That's all quite true. If you take this fully seriously, any romantic relationship is definitely fraught with ethical problems right now for one reason or another (likewise, if the guy is anything but "just a machine", his researcher friend just dumping them on our protagonist without proper explanation just to see what happens, as sort-of seems to be the case, would be vaguely monstrous).
On the other hand, thinking through the actual ethics of this sort of sci-fi/fantasy comedy-of-errors is arguably possibly an exercise in futility. Of course stuff happens to make the protagonist flustered and have thoughts he perhaps shouldn't. Like we know from the first pages this is probably going to be one of those "bystanders egging it on irresponsibly" affairs. And at the end robo-boy will almost definitely have magically gained whatever thoughts and emotions are necessary to keep up his end of the relationship (...in the eyes of the author, at least; who knows what that will mean).
(And since this is so far a lazy sci-fi setting, it's difficult to gauge what exactly is going wrong or not. Like, on the one end of the scale, I could so far make a (absurd, but not impossible) argument that maybe robo-boy is totally self-aware and sentient and capable of making his own decisions but just puzzled by human behavior, like an alien. At the other end, I could argue that by all evidence so far robo-boy is programmed to follow orders, or at least we haven't seen evidence to the contrary, and so the consent issues go way beyond intellectual-ability-to-give-consent. Both, however, would just be me making assumptions at this point. At the end of the day I'm kind of expecting this to be more like fantasy than sci-fi, and just hand-wave all the details that aren't important to the desired narrative.)
In the meantime so long as this stays bubble-gum ignorant of the ethics violations it's committing, I'm okay with it. There are no rules-of-thumb on how to ethically conduct relations with a would-be-person like this either IRL or in-setting, and the protagonist demonstrably isn't terribly wise or bright and can be forgiven for not connecting the dots, or so I feel. And so long as the author doesn't start trading overmuch on the "robo-boy is like a child" card to deliberately fan up some sort of shouta theme, I'm willing to just accept that no one's really thinking this all the way through, and it's fiction, so that'll be fine.
But that's just me. And I totally had the same reaction as you, even if my response to it was "eh, that's probably taking this sort of premise too seriously". But objectively ethically speaking, this is indeed arguably basically just a gay Chobits as it stands—that is, totally sketch—just slightly less overtly.
That's all quite true. If you take this fully seriously, any romantic relationship is definitely fraught with ethical problems right now for one reason or another (likewise, if the guy is anything but "just a machine", his researcher friend just dumping them on our protagonist without proper explanation just to see what happens, as sort-of seems to be the case, would be vaguely monstrous).
On the other hand, thinking through the actual ethics of this sort of sci-fi/fantasy comedy-of-errors is arguably possibly an exercise in futility. Of course stuff happens to make the protagonist flustered and have thoughts he perhaps shouldn't. Like we know from the first pages this is probably going to be one of those "bystanders egging it on irresponsibly" affairs. And at the end robo-boy will almost definitely have magically gained whatever thoughts and emotions are necessary to keep up his end of the relationship (...in the eyes of the author, at least; who knows what that will mean).
(And since this is so far a lazy sci-fi setting, it's difficult to gauge what exactly is going wrong or not. Like, on the one end of the scale, I could so far make a (absurd, but not impossible) argument that maybe robo-boy is totally self-aware and sentient and capable of making his own decisions but just puzzled by human behavior, like an alien. At the other end, I could argue that by all evidence so far robo-boy is programmed to follow orders, or at least we haven't seen evidence to the contrary, and so the consent issues go way beyond intellectual-ability-to-give-consent. Both, however, would just be me making assumptions at this point. At the end of the day I'm kind of expecting this to be more like fantasy than sci-fi, and just hand-wave all the details that aren't important to the desired narrative.)
In the meantime so long as this stays bubble-gum ignorant of the ethics violations it's committing, I'm okay with it. There are no rules-of-thumb on how to ethically conduct relations with a would-be-person like this either IRL or in-setting, and the protagonist demonstrably isn't terribly wise or bright and can be forgiven for not connecting the dots, or so I feel. And so long as the author doesn't start trading overmuch on the "robo-boy is like a child" card to deliberately fan up some sort of shouta theme, I'm willing to just accept that no one's really thinking this all the way through, and it's fiction, so that'll be fine.
But that's just me. And I totally had the same reaction as you, even if my response to it was "eh, that's probably taking this sort of premise too seriously". But objectively ethically speaking, this is indeed arguably basically just a gay Chobits as it stands—that is, totally sketch—just slightly less overtly.
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@Pokari
Yeah, basically.
I just can’t do that.
I can’t not see problematic things in my fiction any more.
I’d once, years ago, descended into the horrible depths of otakuness. Then I went to Japan and somehow seeing how twisted some corners of Akihabara are I said “oh... none of this is ok...” and gave/threw away Like 2/3 of my manga.
Yeah, basically.
I just can’t do that.
I can’t not see problematic things in my fiction any more.
I’d once, years ago, descended into the horrible depths of otakuness. Then I went to Japan and somehow seeing how twisted some corners of Akihabara are I said “oh... none of this is ok...” and gave/threw away Like 2/3 of my manga.
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@Thrembs:
...Well, I am actually with you on that by and large. And I swear, I just spent time being on the other side of this conversation with someone else in the past week.
So yeah, who knows why I was rushing to the defense here. I think probably because I know I briefly had similar thoughts on this one but then dismissed them out-of-hand. And needed to reason out "aloud" whether my metrics for doing so were indeed appropriate.
Or, similarly but worse, perhaps it's me being uncomfortable at wondering whether I'm landing on the wrong side of "harmless dumb fun," and needing to justify myself. That might be a bigger question than I am willing to take on tonight.
(I am, I know, a bit more lenient towards most BL and shoujo manga, which is totally double-standards on my part. I gave presumption of possible innocence to the author here, and I frankly wouldn't in a shounen manga, where the robot was a girl with otherwise the same facts? Which is mostly founded in other unfair double-standards I hold (in blatant contradiction of other beliefs I have about equality of gender—I am human, alas) wherein I by default assume that men are being pigs, and women probably not. >_>; )
...Well, I am actually with you on that by and large. And I swear, I just spent time being on the other side of this conversation with someone else in the past week.
(I even had broadly the same experience with the trip to Akihabara and going, roughly, "oh." Mostly about the prominent pedophilia, which I expected a certain amount of around as a long-time anime/manga fan, and I was already disillusioned about certain segments of the fandom-at-large, but being there it was more like, "Look, a drawing of a sexualized naked child on a giant poster is the first thing I see on the wall, in this prominently-located store. Oh, I see. That's totally standard here. This at the heart of a lot of the fandom, and it's what sells. But here we're not in polite company anymore and we're not being coy about it. And I need to be elsewhere, because this is much, much worse than I'd imagined,"—followed by me finding the little bits of old Akihabara, with the huddled-together stalls selling dinky little electronics parts out of open bins, to be a much more pleasant and at that point comforting presence, much as that was definitely not what I had come for).
So yeah, who knows why I was rushing to the defense here. I think probably because I know I briefly had similar thoughts on this one but then dismissed them out-of-hand. And needed to reason out "aloud" whether my metrics for doing so were indeed appropriate.
Or, similarly but worse, perhaps it's me being uncomfortable at wondering whether I'm landing on the wrong side of "harmless dumb fun," and needing to justify myself. That might be a bigger question than I am willing to take on tonight.
(I am, I know, a bit more lenient towards most BL and shoujo manga, which is totally double-standards on my part. I gave presumption of possible innocence to the author here, and I frankly wouldn't in a shounen manga, where the robot was a girl with otherwise the same facts? Which is mostly founded in other unfair double-standards I hold (in blatant contradiction of other beliefs I have about equality of gender—I am human, alas) wherein I by default assume that men are being pigs, and women probably not. >_>; )
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@Pokari I Agee with that assessment on men. In the past I dressed very immodestly (which is fine. Personal choice and freedom of expression wrt one’s own body, within certain limits, is important) and men would stare, randomly hit on me or openly harass me in the grocery store as I shop to cook for my wife and child.
A woman can wear a bikini top in public if she wants! It’s ok to wear a burnout shirt alone! It’s not an invitation for advances from men!
A woman can wear a bikini top in public if she wants! It’s ok to wear a burnout shirt alone! It’s not an invitation for advances from men!
I don’t dress that way any more, but it’s a religious thing. A certain amount of modesty is expected. I’m Conservative Jewish (very liberal but very tradition focused )so it’s equally applied to men, I believe, and married women don’t have to cover their hair, so it doesn’t bother me. I always wore maxi skirts anyway, and I like tights. No catcalls from men. I think Hashem spent a thousand years telling men to stop being gross and finally gave up.
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