Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

Delight Springs

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Lal

"Tomorrow will be your first day of school, Lal... You will now begin to process information on logic, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology. You are truly becoming sentient..."

She's a good role model for us, she asks great questions.

  • "What is my purpose, my function?" (Data begins to answer that pretty well: "Our function is to contribute in a positive way to the world in which we live.") 
  • "Why am I me, instead of someone else?"
  • "Where did I come from?"
  • Why do we have two hands?
  • Etc.
And then Dad shuts her down, the way parents often do when their kids ask "too many questions"... but of course there's no such thing.

Lal's also a great role model in how she expresses her incipient emotionality, and in the way she accepts her mortality.



2 comments:

  1. August 18th, 2pm. Just finished, a bit teary-eyed, watching the Lal episode over lunch. An amazing coincidence, or are you prescient?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I just also have a habit of turning on BBC America while standing over the sink and snacking around noon. A very affecting episode. ST is usually very good at exploring humanity through the backdoor of AI.

      Delete