He didn't have to. He just pointed out that treating Data as sentient has far less potential to incur indescribable suffering and horror on the world than the alternative. Essentially: "We don't know, so it's best to play it safe until we do know". Which seems a pretty prudent course of action to me.
They can't mass-produce Data clones, isn't that the entire point of the episode, that Data is unique and that the guy wants to cut him open to find out how to make more?
>They can't mass-produce Data clones
They can't yet. It's just a matter of time until they can.
That's why the outcome of the Data trial matters at all. It sets a precedent.
They can't mass-produce Data clones, isn't that the entire point of the episode, that Data is unique and that the guy wants to cut him open to find out how to make more?
Human cloning already exists through the transporter if nowhere else. It's reliable and safe, and Will Riker is treated as a unique human in his own right. Showing Data as sentient would make the mass-production of him illegal just as intentional human cloning is illegal already.
If human cloning was cheap and easy then people would definitely be doing it.
You could try to outlaw it but people would do it anyway. It's just too convenient.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I don't know what to tell you. It's canon in Star Trek that human cloning is possible and illegal. It's mentioned several times in several different series that transporter clones aren't that rare. Any legal precedent setting Data as a human would apply those laws to mass-producing him as well. You see the opposite thing happen in Voyager with The Doctor holograms getting used as mining slaves because they were ruled non-sentient.
Those are harmless though. They don't bother to vote, work manual labor, are easily influenced by the media and fill up prisons.
If 15% of the population (or more, why stop?) was highly intelligent androids with a similar moral compass then that would actually move the needle.
By Star Fleet's admission of Data through the academy, they presumed him to have the rights and responsibilities of any sentient individual within Star Fleet.
By Star Fleet's admission of Data through the academy, they presumed him to have the rights and responsibilities of any sentient individual within Star Fleet.
I disagree with that conclusion. If an uncontacted, advanced alien race sent a non-sentient robot through the academy as a diplomatic act (Say, for example, to prove that Starfleet is a scientific and not military organization firsthand) Starfleet could easily be convinced to allow it despite the robot being just a non-sentient recording device. His sentience or lack thereof would still need to be proven outside of that.
While they might allow a non-sentient robot through the academy, the question of sentience would still inevitably pop up and would have been resolved then and there. It requires a massive suspension of disbelief to believe that Data attended the academy for several years and nobody in charge thought to ask if he's a person or an object. We even know that there are people who are prejudiced against machines in the Starfleet due to Pulanski. It also makes the Starfleet look hilariously incompetent where they just allow beings that they know so little about that they don't even know if it's a person to attend the academy.
You could easily explain that shit away. It doesn't matter if Data is a person - either you bullied him or vandalized him and you should be punished either way. And was Soong still around while Data was in the academy? I forget. But you could easily say that they didn't want to offend him if they ruled on it. Every classroom probably had an argument on it that came to a different conclusion, but since nothing was riding on it, the academy never made an official, precedent-setting ruling on Data. There are a billion explanations. You could certainly use it as evidence, but his simple admittance and graduation is not a definitive answer either way.
>It also makes the Starfleet look hilariously incompetent where they just allow beings that they know so little about that they don't even know if it's a person to attend the academy.
They do that all the time with aliens. I guarantee you that if Seven-of-nine asked, she would have been allowed into the academy after a few speeches. They don't give every race they meet a sapience test.
What's event the point of making robots with sentience? I get creating something like Data as a scientific curiosity, but what good would mass producing him do, other than create ethical problems? If you can produce something like Data you should be able to produce robots for pure utility, without need to complicate things.
Most stories with a bent on the morality of sentient AI tend to ignore simpler robots because most of the time robots already do what sentient AI would be made to do with no moral issues attached.
it's rule of drama.
All he had to do was say that if any attempt at his disassembly was made (so as to better understand his positronic brain) that he would prove Maddox was a cuck and that he had sapient agency at the same time by simply disintegrating himself with a phaser so Maddox would get nothing. Bonus points if he called Riker a Black person before he ended it all.
According to Naff, "I was supposed to be there for three episodes, because they were trying to find a reason [Geordi] would take his visor off, to justify a reason he would undergo a dangerous surgery to risk his life so he could see again, and the reason was supposed to be because he's in love. They wanted to have us fall in love so deeply that in the next season, he would say, "I have to do this so I can see my beauty." But they also wrote Sonya Gomez as comic relief, as a bumbling ensign with bright eyes who wants to save the world but ends up spilling hot chocolate on Picard, and the feedback they got was that there was no way Geordi would fall in love with someone like me. And I didn't know what they were going for, because we weren't told to play it like it was romantic. I didn't get that clue until later. So we did it more like a little sister/big brother relationship." [2]
Regarding her proposed third appearance, Naff said, "We also had a major hair crisis. I did two episodes, and I was supposed to come back and do a third, but I wanted to cut my hair. My agent asked if it would be okay, and since I wasn't under contract, they said, "Okay, we're releasing her." So I cut it shaggy, but above the shoulder. I get a call the next week, and they want to redo a hallway scene, and I go back, and they lose their tiny little minds. They were so angry. Everyone was grumbling at me, and making me feel not so great, but LeVar [Burton] was so sweet. He said, "Don't worry. This gives us a chance to do the scene even better." He was so supportive and encouraging, and the scene did come out better. So if you look really closely, you can see the hair extensions." [3]
You don't, but you presume it, because you're a human being and you know you are sentient, therefore it is a reasonable presumption that other human beings are sentient
Data is not a human being so he doesn't benefit from this presumption
Data has his own personal motivations for joining Starfleet. The fact he was admitted and completed training is sufficient proof in my mind he is sapient.
I can't imagine lawyers would ever stop existing. You get to argue and debate other people for your career, and you get to feel like you're making the world a better place without it literally being life and death like a doctor or soldier.
Because they needed to keep the costs of the episode as low as possible and came up with a situation where >entire episode either takes place on the Enterprise or the makeshift court room >there's three guest stars max, two of whom are the scientist who wants to cut Data open and the presiding judge/admiral, and the third of which appears in only a couple of scenes >Picard is the defence and Riker is the prosecution, further ensuring the guest stars have as little to do as possible
The whole point of the trial was to determine if Data should be treated as a person or as property. The idea was that a being that could think, reason, learn, and grow being treated no better than a piece of hardware would have been tantamount to slavery.
This. Data had distinguished himself as a Starfleet officer, and could function very well among living creatures. He was also committed to becoming more human through careful thought and learning. It is impossible to prove a negative. That is to say, we cannot either prove or disprove that anything possesses sentience. Data walked like a human, spoke like a human, and by all accounts acted like a human. He also did not wish to be taken apart. Everything about him demonstrated awareness.
Janeway recognized that Tuvix was the product of a classic Trek transporter accident. Even though he was happy being a combination of two people, the individuals also deserved to live exclusively because the accident wasn't their choice... And Janeway just wanted her frickin' coffee.
Okay, but consider this. If I set up a device such that, in ten minutes' time, a man's sperm will inseminate a woman's egg in an artificial womb that is fed with enough nutrients so the child will be born properly. Is stopping such a device before the insemination considered abortion?
You can't prove the sentience of anyone. You can't even prove that you are sentient to someone else. You just know that you are sentient and even that is just an assumption.
Cant figure out something you cant even define.
We are still shaky on what exactly life truly should be classified as, let alone what life is conscious.
Under current definition, viruses are not living beings. And yet they are quite clearly "alive" things that can be "killed".
I never thought much if animals until I got two dogs, and now I am fully convinced they are just as aware and conscious as I am, even if their intelligence is focused into their sense of smell over generic IQ.
It's good you point out their nose, because it highlights the limitations of the mirror test. It presumes that other animals value their sight over other senses, like humans, when it's safe to say they don't. Many animals wouldn't even perceive the test going on because they'd immediately clock that there is no scent, thus no being.
>I cannot allow this to continue *begins to summarily execute a murderer* >*smirks when he realizes that he has fooled Picard and the rest of the crew with his second conspiracy with the xenophobic aliens*
Data was more human that many humans are for real.
1) You don't actually have to prove anything at all in a courtroom setting, not to a certainty. All you have to do is persuade some people that something is (most likely) the case, within certain parameters.
2) The point of the scene is not to illustrate logical demonstration. The point of the scene is for Picard to give an emotional (if intellectually unsatisfying) performance and defense on Data's behalf.
>physical models for what's in the foreground (defiant, enterprise, borg ship) >cg models for what's in the background (the fleet whizzing around)
was this the ideal?
Whenever the rest of the crew weren't looking I'd randomly finger podge her beefy flaps through that gap. She'd fake that she didn't like it and tell me to stop but like all women, I know she'd secretly love it.
>(who strangely enough employ 19th century mining techniques)
There's a guy that owns a candy store down in Florida that makes candy using victorian techniques. I can imagine this sort of behavior would exist even in the future.
the notion that someone would make holograms mine dilithium the exact same way as a man from the 1800's would mine coal as some kind of "love of the craft" endeavor raises more questions than it answers
If breast implants increase her chances of getting bred then yes. This is her primary purpose in life and a woman's highest aspiration. The only question is do a majority of men prefer disgusting bolt-on breasts?
>You realize of course if we give him the formula, we're altering the future. >Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing? >Yeah.
I always love this scene as a character moment for Scotty and McCoy. It's three lines of dialogue to establish that neither of them really care all that much about Star Fleet's rules and dogmas.
He didn't have to. He just pointed out that treating Data as sentient has far less potential to incur indescribable suffering and horror on the world than the alternative. Essentially: "We don't know, so it's best to play it safe until we do know". Which seems a pretty prudent course of action to me.
yeah, kinda this. They are making the leap of faith with Data and just act like he's sentient
What if someone mass-produces Data clones. Should they all have equal rights to human citizens of the Federation, including voting rights?
Yes, but they should be judged to have equivalent intelligence and general knowledge to a fully grown adult and no pre-programmed political opinions.
They can't mass-produce Data clones, isn't that the entire point of the episode, that Data is unique and that the guy wants to cut him open to find out how to make more?
>They can't mass-produce Data clones
They can't yet. It's just a matter of time until they can.
That's why the outcome of the Data trial matters at all. It sets a precedent.
Human cloning already exists through the transporter if nowhere else. It's reliable and safe, and Will Riker is treated as a unique human in his own right. Showing Data as sentient would make the mass-production of him illegal just as intentional human cloning is illegal already.
If human cloning was cheap and easy then people would definitely be doing it.
You could try to outlaw it but people would do it anyway. It's just too convenient.
I don't know what to tell you. It's canon in Star Trek that human cloning is possible and illegal. It's mentioned several times in several different series that transporter clones aren't that rare. Any legal precedent setting Data as a human would apply those laws to mass-producing him as well. You see the opposite thing happen in Voyager with The Doctor holograms getting used as mining slaves because they were ruled non-sentient.
Use the transporter for some easy copy+paste
We mass produce humans too
what if 85-iq people could mass produce just by fricking? imagine the dystopia if all of them had "rights"!
Those are harmless though. They don't bother to vote, work manual labor, are easily influenced by the media and fill up prisons.
If 15% of the population (or more, why stop?) was highly intelligent androids with a similar moral compass then that would actually move the needle.
>They don't bother to vote
wrong
>"We don't know, so it's best to play it safe until we do know"
That's not scientific, that's progressive idealism
we know for a fact transgenderism is a delusion though. we also know trannies are all autistic.
troonyism is the crack epidemic of the autists
The question was one that cannot be resolved with science, since it was about semantics and how society ought to be structured.
By Star Fleet's admission of Data through the academy, they presumed him to have the rights and responsibilities of any sentient individual within Star Fleet.
Acknowledging that Data went through the academy completely kneecaps the entire episode though.
It's not the best legal episode. I personally would rather it were reframed it in a different context.
I disagree with that conclusion. If an uncontacted, advanced alien race sent a non-sentient robot through the academy as a diplomatic act (Say, for example, to prove that Starfleet is a scientific and not military organization firsthand) Starfleet could easily be convinced to allow it despite the robot being just a non-sentient recording device. His sentience or lack thereof would still need to be proven outside of that.
While they might allow a non-sentient robot through the academy, the question of sentience would still inevitably pop up and would have been resolved then and there. It requires a massive suspension of disbelief to believe that Data attended the academy for several years and nobody in charge thought to ask if he's a person or an object. We even know that there are people who are prejudiced against machines in the Starfleet due to Pulanski. It also makes the Starfleet look hilariously incompetent where they just allow beings that they know so little about that they don't even know if it's a person to attend the academy.
You could easily explain that shit away. It doesn't matter if Data is a person - either you bullied him or vandalized him and you should be punished either way. And was Soong still around while Data was in the academy? I forget. But you could easily say that they didn't want to offend him if they ruled on it. Every classroom probably had an argument on it that came to a different conclusion, but since nothing was riding on it, the academy never made an official, precedent-setting ruling on Data. There are a billion explanations. You could certainly use it as evidence, but his simple admittance and graduation is not a definitive answer either way.
>It also makes the Starfleet look hilariously incompetent where they just allow beings that they know so little about that they don't even know if it's a person to attend the academy.
They do that all the time with aliens. I guarantee you that if Seven-of-nine asked, she would have been allowed into the academy after a few speeches. They don't give every race they meet a sapience test.
What's event the point of making robots with sentience? I get creating something like Data as a scientific curiosity, but what good would mass producing him do, other than create ethical problems? If you can produce something like Data you should be able to produce robots for pure utility, without need to complicate things.
Most stories with a bent on the morality of sentient AI tend to ignore simpler robots because most of the time robots already do what sentient AI would be made to do with no moral issues attached.
it's rule of drama.
got anymore Star Trek frogs?
Prove that you're sentient
Sentience is a spook
It was propaganda for the wrongs of slavery.
Bad, bad white people.
>propaganda for the wrongs of slavery.
>Bad, bad white people.
Are you denying slavery is bad?
Data proved he was sentient by taking a shit on Holodeck 4, an act so devoid of logic only a creative sapient being could undertake it.
All he had to do was say that if any attempt at his disassembly was made (so as to better understand his positronic brain) that he would prove Maddox was a cuck and that he had sapient agency at the same time by simply disintegrating himself with a phaser so Maddox would get nothing. Bonus points if he called Riker a Black person before he ended it all.
morons like OP don't have to prove they are sentient either. Society grands you rights and protection on the off-change that you are.
sex with Gomez
She used to have three breasts.
where did she go? did picard have her thrown out an airlock for spilling cocoa on him?
Kilt by the borg
Don’t quote me but I think they rejected her as a regular because she was too short, like they rejected Selar because she was too tall
According to Naff, "I was supposed to be there for three episodes, because they were trying to find a reason [Geordi] would take his visor off, to justify a reason he would undergo a dangerous surgery to risk his life so he could see again, and the reason was supposed to be because he's in love. They wanted to have us fall in love so deeply that in the next season, he would say, "I have to do this so I can see my beauty." But they also wrote Sonya Gomez as comic relief, as a bumbling ensign with bright eyes who wants to save the world but ends up spilling hot chocolate on Picard, and the feedback they got was that there was no way Geordi would fall in love with someone like me. And I didn't know what they were going for, because we weren't told to play it like it was romantic. I didn't get that clue until later. So we did it more like a little sister/big brother relationship." [2]
Regarding her proposed third appearance, Naff said, "We also had a major hair crisis. I did two episodes, and I was supposed to come back and do a third, but I wanted to cut my hair. My agent asked if it would be okay, and since I wasn't under contract, they said, "Okay, we're releasing her." So I cut it shaggy, but above the shoulder. I get a call the next week, and they want to redo a hallway scene, and I go back, and they lose their tiny little minds. They were so angry. Everyone was grumbling at me, and making me feel not so great, but LeVar [Burton] was so sweet. He said, "Don't worry. This gives us a chance to do the scene even better." He was so supportive and encouraging, and the scene did come out better. So if you look really closely, you can see the hair extensions." [3]
Cutie.
Well, they don't prove that warp fields exist either, but the viewer accepts that they do.
How do you prove other people are not p-zombies?
You don't, but you presume it, because you're a human being and you know you are sentient, therefore it is a reasonable presumption that other human beings are sentient
Data is not a human being so he doesn't benefit from this presumption
Is it really reasonable if you base it on a sample size of one?
Data has his own personal motivations for joining Starfleet. The fact he was admitted and completed training is sufficient proof in my mind he is sapient.
why didn't picard hire a lawyer
It's a dead profession. There is no money anymore, so the psychopaths all moved on to being Starfleet Admirals
I can't imagine lawyers would ever stop existing. You get to argue and debate other people for your career, and you get to feel like you're making the world a better place without it literally being life and death like a doctor or soldier.
>I can't imagine lawyers would ever stop existing
We came close in the 40s.
>without it literally being life and death like a doctor or soldier
And kitchen worker
Because they needed to keep the costs of the episode as low as possible and came up with a situation where
>entire episode either takes place on the Enterprise or the makeshift court room
>there's three guest stars max, two of whom are the scientist who wants to cut Data open and the presiding judge/admiral, and the third of which appears in only a couple of scenes
>Picard is the defence and Riker is the prosecution, further ensuring the guest stars have as little to do as possible
Does he has to?
Data is right there
The whole point of the trial was to determine if Data should be treated as a person or as property. The idea was that a being that could think, reason, learn, and grow being treated no better than a piece of hardware would have been tantamount to slavery.
This. Data had distinguished himself as a Starfleet officer, and could function very well among living creatures. He was also committed to becoming more human through careful thought and learning. It is impossible to prove a negative. That is to say, we cannot either prove or disprove that anything possesses sentience. Data walked like a human, spoke like a human, and by all accounts acted like a human. He also did not wish to be taken apart. Everything about him demonstrated awareness.
yeah, if only Janeway had been in charge of that decision
>that episode where she mercilessly kills tuvix
Janeway recognized that Tuvix was the product of a classic Trek transporter accident. Even though he was happy being a combination of two people, the individuals also deserved to live exclusively because the accident wasn't their choice... And Janeway just wanted her frickin' coffee.
>data
It's data, not data
Actually, it's Dah-ta.
His relationship with Yar proved it.
He fricks, therefore he is
>He fricks, therefore he is
That's not cool.
>miles the race mixing traitor that has mutt kids
t.pol was here
Honorary Aryan.
If I load a turkey baster with semen and tape a phone with an AI chatbot to it, does that make it human?
sounds no different to talking to someone like steven hawking
ask your mother
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.
Okay, but consider this. If I set up a device such that, in ten minutes' time, a man's sperm will inseminate a woman's egg in an artificial womb that is fed with enough nutrients so the child will be born properly. Is stopping such a device before the insemination considered abortion?
Just create a test for sentience and test him
Obviously other beings who we presume qualify would also pass this test
Rocks and ants and women would fail
>they give data rights as a sentient being, but its still fine to shit on sentient holograms and enslave them or brainfrick them with reprograming
They were just jealous that he got to frick Fluttershy.
You can't prove the sentience of anyone. You can't even prove that you are sentient to someone else. You just know that you are sentient and even that is just an assumption.
Only because we don't know how consciousness works in the brain. You'd think people a few hundred years in the future would have figured that one out.
>You'd think people a few hundred years in the future would have figured that one out.
They were saying the same thing a few hundred years ago.
No they weren't
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.
woah
Wow evolution is amazing. Can't believe science did that.
>hurr durr what is abstraction
Cant figure out something you cant even define.
We are still shaky on what exactly life truly should be classified as, let alone what life is conscious.
Under current definition, viruses are not living beings. And yet they are quite clearly "alive" things that can be "killed".
I never thought much if animals until I got two dogs, and now I am fully convinced they are just as aware and conscious as I am, even if their intelligence is focused into their sense of smell over generic IQ.
The word you are looking for is sapient, not conscious.
It's good you point out their nose, because it highlights the limitations of the mirror test. It presumes that other animals value their sight over other senses, like humans, when it's safe to say they don't. Many animals wouldn't even perceive the test going on because they'd immediately clock that there is no scent, thus no being.
Frick off construct.
how do you prove once sentience?
>I cannot allow this to continue *begins to summarily execute a murderer*
>*smirks when he realizes that he has fooled Picard and the rest of the crew with his second conspiracy with the xenophobic aliens*
Data was more human that many humans are for real.
Data proved he was sentient and had emotions somehow all by himself regardless.
1) You don't actually have to prove anything at all in a courtroom setting, not to a certainty. All you have to do is persuade some people that something is (most likely) the case, within certain parameters.
2) The point of the scene is not to illustrate logical demonstration. The point of the scene is for Picard to give an emotional (if intellectually unsatisfying) performance and defense on Data's behalf.
Star Trek should be for everyone.
that's how you end up with nutrek
No one's ever gonna address the fact that Spot was at least two different breed of cats.
Love the feline that is Spot.
Bro paws.
i miss practical effects
>physical models for what's in the foreground (defiant, enterprise, borg ship)
>cg models for what's in the background (the fleet whizzing around)
was this the ideal?
>was this the ideal?
using the correct tool for the job at hand? yes, that is ideal.
Love the Enterprise E, and no one can stop me.
yes, everyone has to copy israeliteisraelite abrams now
A sad state of affairs.
Whenever the rest of the crew weren't looking I'd randomly finger podge her beefy flaps through that gap. She'd fake that she didn't like it and tell me to stop but like all women, I know she'd secretly love it.
in a similar vein, Starfleet couldn't even stop the EMHs from being used as miners (who strangely enough employ 19th century mining techniques)
>(who strangely enough employ 19th century mining techniques)
There's a guy that owns a candy store down in Florida that makes candy using victorian techniques. I can imagine this sort of behavior would exist even in the future.
the notion that someone would make holograms mine dilithium the exact same way as a man from the 1800's would mine coal as some kind of "love of the craft" endeavor raises more questions than it answers
He was an enthusiast that couldn't find enough people to staff his mine with who share his love, so he made do.
What was his problem?
The pursuit of truth.
He was arrogant and ambitious. That's a bad mix.
He needed to learn from it.
Prove that you are sentient.
My favourite.
kino acting.
Fire.
Great scene.
I liked it.
Are Tpols breast implants logical?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few
If breast implants increase her chances of getting bred then yes. This is her primary purpose in life and a woman's highest aspiration. The only question is do a majority of men prefer disgusting bolt-on breasts?
Yes.
>I was on board the Saratoga at
>WOLF
>THREE
>FIVE
>NINE
Jim 🙂
Passengers are great.
>You realize of course if we give him the formula, we're altering the future.
>Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?
>Yeah.
I always love this scene as a character moment for Scotty and McCoy. It's three lines of dialogue to establish that neither of them really care all that much about Star Fleet's rules and dogmas.
Data proved it himself.
Proved himself be gay