Data's deactivation switch ...

[matthunter]

All this assumes, of course, that Data is enough of a threat you have no choice but to bring him down and don't really care about recovering him.

In which case the "off switch" is a phaser.

Worked perfectly well on Lore.

 

[somebuddyX]

"Hey Data, Klaatu barada nikto."

 

[Mojochi]

Though, if Soong really wanted his android as human as possible, it also would make sense to have no such remote turnoff.

I couldn't reliably say Soong DID want his androids to be as human as possible. If so, he wouldn't have made them extra fast/strong/durable, with greater cognition, heightened senses, & for a length of time not even passably human looking at all, like say Mudd's are.

What he DID seem invested in was creating the most advanced AI humans had ever achieved, & placing it in a vehicle that would give IT a comparably humanoid experience, albeit with the most advanced characteristics of any humanoid. He wanted to birth an AI, that would be able to live as a humanoid, & be somewhat confined to that, in order to shape its perspective of life from our own experience, while having it possess the practicality of interaction with the universe that humanoids possess, as opposed to some other kind of AI, like the HAL9000, or Skynet or something.

In all reality, there's really nothing to prevent a Soong Android from becoming more than an android AI, if it wanted to. I'm pretty sure the long game for Lore taking over Hugh's rogue Borg, was to eventually be able to seize control over the whole collective, supplant the queen, & essentially have an entire population as the appendages to his AI.

I like to think this is why Soong wanted his AI to be humanoid, to give it a respect for humanoid life that it might otherwise lack. I mean theoretically, if you knew an age of eternally developing AI were coming, and you had some concerns that it might in fact be the undoing of humanoid existence, one way you could go about trying to preventively curb that potential is by being the first to achieve it at peak levels, & then put it in a humanoid form. Literally have it walk a mile in your shoes.

Someone really needed to sit Data down & explain all this too him. The intent behind his creation wasn't for him to spend it trying to achieve a more human existence. The intent was for him to realize his own potential as what he is, & in some way try to reconcile it WITH a human perspective.

 

[at Quark's]

^I'm not sure what Soong wanted exactly, either (which is why I said, 'if he wanted').

There was at least one Soong-android that wasn't even aware of it being an android - data's 'mother', which would necessarily imply it also not being aware of its potentially superhuman strength, or anything being 'different' (e.g. have such an off-switch). But yeah, that was a 'special-purpose android'.

In that context, it's still intriguing why Lore initially appeared as less 'stunted' than Data - more at ease with humans, more natural in some ways, etc. Was it a proof that not too much should be given initially to such an A.I. but that it was wiser to let them acquire it by a lot of effort on their own?

 

[matthunter]

Soong was already working on a synaptic scanner BEFORE Juliana got injured. He clearly had the intention of one day transferring a human(oid) consciousness into an android body. Whilst Data and Lore were indeed experiments in artificial consciousness, I think it's pretty clear that one of Soong's aims was "immortality" - either for himself or others.

 

[Mojochi]

^ True. I almost consider that a separate but similar objective. It's apparently something of a general aim in most cybernetics of their age, & in some ways it's following in the footsteps of Ira Graves, whose research he claims predated Soong's. Although, If Juliana indeed suffered coma from injuries sustained on Omicron Theta in 2338, Noonien's transfer of her had to more than likely precede Graves attempt in 2365.

Admittedly, we can't really know how advanced a transfer either example is. I'd assume neither of them is actually a conscious fully transferred. The consciousness that lived within both probably died with them, & some new form of consciousness was born having consumed the traits from the former somehow. Even though Graves seemed very much to be him in Data's body, it's still probably a facsimile in some way.

I often wonder about Grave's claims though. In 2365 Graves is in his 70s, & in 2367 Soong is in like his 90s. Not really sure how "Old Grampa Graves" could've been some kind of mentor to Noonien when he's like 20 years younger.

 

[Vale]

I think Data's off-switch is just a product of its time. The 1980s didn't have wifi yet and stuff, so they probably thought in a simpler way about those things.

They were a friendly, simple, primitive people in the 80s but they still knew about remote control.

 

[Qonundrum]

They were a friendly, simple, primitive people in the 80s but they still knew about remote control.

As long as the IR sensor or wifi radio doesn't fry, LOL. ATX technology with a soft switch also sucks up more energy to keep the relative circuitry just waiting for the "power" button to be tapped than the previous generation of hardwired on/off switch, which disconnects power flow completely...

 

[Oddish]

If Data is out of control, the switch on the side of his body probably isn't going to work. Better options include a) remote shutdown if there's a provision in his programming, b) some sort of energy field that affects positronic brains to shut him down, or c) a weapon that has sufficient power and velocity to neutralize him more permanently.