Traits determine what a person or thing will look like, act like and be like. Manipulating traits can be risky and upset the balance of nature or enhance what could be and provide much needed improvement of the world. As scientists begin to dabble in the area of artificial intelligence and changing what humans are many opinions surface. Some of these changes in traits can be seen in movies or read in books. The traits of "knowledge and intelligence" can support a character’s will to want to change their current self to be more capable of reaching higher goals and dreams. Not everyone or everything has the capacity to use their knowledge to make intelligent choices. Being human vs. robotic can lend to the ease of using these traits to enhance their lives but the outcome cannot always be predicted.
According to Dictionary.com, intelligence is one’s capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding. It is inherent in all, but some posses the characteristic of intelligence more than others. Knowledge on the other hand is one’s acquaintance with facts, truths and principles due to study or investigation. Therefore knowledge is an acquired characteristic that feeds off of the pre-disposed intelligence that one already has. Science fiction writers challenge us to examine the topic of artificial intelligence and controlling human traits. Many books and movies entertain us with this concept and leave us wondering if it's possible to infuse knowledge and intelligence in beings, artificial or human, and wonder what the outcome would be. Writers have created the two different worlds and how knowledge and intelligence were used in these stories.
Harrison Burgeron is set in the future in 2081 where due to the Amendments of the Constitution, every American is made equal. Everyone is made equal by the addition of “handicaps” like a mask if one is too attractive, earphones with deafening radio signals if one is too intelligent and weights to slow those down with more than average strength or speed. These “handicaps” are enforced by the Handicapper General known as Diana Moon Glampers and a team of agents on all except themselves. As Hazel and George, Harrison’s parents, are watching a television program, a bulletin is read interrupting the show saying that Harrison has escaped from prison. Then, Harrison appears in the studio on the television demanding that he is the emperor and everyone must obey him in an attempt to over throw the government while ripping off his extreme handicaps. Handicap-less Harrison then calls upon a woman to join him as his empress and when a ballerina removes her handicaps and stands with him, he orders the musicians to remove their handicaps and play the best music they can. Finally free from all restraints, him and the ballerina dance to the music, defying gravity, and exposing their real selves. But then Diana Moon Glampers comes into the studio and kills Harrison and the ballerina with a shotgun, then orders the musicians to put their handicaps back on. The television that Hazel and George are watching then goes black and everything continues as it had before, as if Harrison’s episode did not even occur. In Artificial Intelligence is set in the late 21st century where due to severe global warming, many of the human population were lost and to replace them a class of robots known as Mechas have been created. David, is a prototype model of these robots that is designed to resemble a human child and exhibit love for his human owners. He is put in the Swinton household to replace their ill son and once Monica, his “mother” warms up to him, David begins to project his intense love for her unconditionally. Then, Monica’s real son Martin is cured and when he comes back, sibling rivalry develops to a point where David’s capacity to love is thought to have also given him an ability to hate. But because of Monica’s fondness with David, instead of returning David to be destroyed Monica abandons David in a forest to hide as an unregistered Mecha, leaving him with just the hope to find the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real boy Monica will love like Pinocchio. Then when David is caught, he meet Gigolo Joe whom sets out on the mission to find the Blue Fairy once they escape. On this mission, David meets his creator and realizes that many more copies of himself are being made and he is no longer unique. A discouraged David tries to commit suicide, but is then saved by Gigolo Joe. He then pursues to find the Blue Fairy in the depths of the ocean, only to find that what he thought would change his life was just a statue yet still repeated his wish over and over until the ocean froze over in another ice age. Then, 2000 year later when humans are extinct, futuristic Mechas live and when studying humans, find and revive David. The Mechas then extract David’s memory and recreate the Swinton home he used to live in. Due to David’s persistence of being with Monica, they then recreate her for only a day with an old lock of her hair. Once this process was done, time was fast-forward until the next morning where David spends the happiest day of his life with his “mother”. These two stories support how human and artificial life has been manipulated with knowledge from external forces, the government and scientists. They both want to change their futures by applying the knowledge they have learned. Learning how to change the future is dependent upon knowing the past and applying innate intelligence and making choices. In Harrison Bergeron, the humans have been made completely equal and one human decides to try and make a difference. He has been imprisoned and held back but he made a choice based on the knowledge from his past to use his intelligence to make a better life for him and others. He did not take into consideration the fact that his choices may not work in his favor. He had been forced by the government to live a certain way without being able to be an individual and exercise his intelligence to change the future. Humans have built in intelligence levels and it is up to them to use what they have within themselves. They also have a huge plethora of resources to gather knowledge and learn. Artificial Intelligence is a human infused “being”. It can only know what is programmed in it but the ability to know a lot of information is endless. It applies what it knows. It does not have the ability to infuse intelligence and create a future based on its intelligence as David is robotic and only knows what he is given. He does not use intelligence to make decisions. He was unable to explain himself is difficult situations because he was merely doing what he was programmed to. For instance, in the film AI, David only knows of the love for Monica. Therefore he searches and searches for this Blue Fairy that is inexistent because he does not have the intelligence to realize that he will never be real and only works off what he knows and that’s his unconditional love.
The plots of these stories had some similarities as well. In both, feelings were built as the characters were around humans. Attachments were created to others. For example, Harrison Bergeron wanted people to be themselves and not repressed. He wanted them to express their individuality because while facing the oppression, it completely took away the diversity of the people. In Artificial Intelligence, David was very much attached to Monica and did whatever it took to try to win her love. He wanted to love but did not have the intelligence to do so. In the end manipulations of these traits did not have very happy endings, which seem to be where science is at today as they would want to have the capability to create beings just like humans but they are not able to do this yet. The inability to infuse the important human trait of intelligence has not made it to the hands of scientists.
As I read and reviewed these stories, it became clear that knowledge and intelligence are vastly different yet intertwined and build on each other. Definitely, a knowledge base of information is needed to learn about and understand the past so that intelligence can be applied to build the future. Intelligence is being able to perceive, interpret and respond the one’s environment and create the future by manipulating the present. These science fiction stories provided a look into what might be and the problems faced by the characters are not that different from what people experience every day. We all rely on decisions and choices that will shape our futures. We have to draw on the knowledge and intelligence that we are capable of. The difficulty lies with individual abilities to gather knowledge and then use that as intelligence to make the best decisions to affect their futures. Artificial beings have to rely on a human’s input as to how much it can “know”. They do not have the capacity to be intelligent and apply the past and create their futures, yet. Humans bring on their own dilemmas and have the capacity to make their own choices. They can reach out on their own and become knowledgeable by using resources on many levels. I think most people understand what the authors and directors want them to. It is a pretty simple subject but comes with many moral difficulties to understand.