The EMH: Where does draw the line?

[Guy Gardener]

If he became accidentally sentient, we don't know how he accidentally became sentient or when he accidentally became sentient, because no fault on Picardo's part, but he's acted as mostly the same character since the EMH was activated in caretaker when he can't have been sentient.

Besides if he looks at his factory specifications, it will insist that he is not sentient and that he cannot ever become sentient, so even if he did accidentally become sentient after the ship gets turned inside out or blasted by a weird energy discharge, he wouldn't notice because it's supposed to be impossible, and he would have no faculties to notice the change.

 

[Borough 31]

You stick a hundred EMHs in a hundred identical locked rooms and ask them a hundred identical questions.

You'll see a pattern, because they have identical programming.

They come off a production line.

If they are not exactly the same, then they are not safe and people die.

You stick a hundred humans in a hundred identical locked rooms and ask them a hundred identical questions, you'll see a pattern. Absolutely. This is because humans have programming in the form of instincts.

Whether an AI is sentient or not has nothing to do with its basic programming. All AIs have basic programming. All living things do, too.

The only thing that matters is whether or not something is self-aware. The Doctor most certainly was from the beginning. He has an ever-evolving ego, and he fears death. He exceeded his programming by thinking outside of the box he was shoved into.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Very simply.

In what episodes did he not exceed his programming?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

In what episodes [of life] do you exceed YOURS?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Are you calling me fat?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

You know I think the EMH left himself bald as a kind of "nudge nudge, wink wink I'm human like you" deal. But since obviously baldness is an option in the future because, science, this doesn't really work.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Eugenics War.

Genetic modification on humans is sternly forbidden.

They could cure it, but they don't.

 

[SoM]

Eugenics War.

Genetic modification on human is sternly forbidden.

They could cure it, but they don't.

He cured Seven of Nine's baldness readily enough.

 

[Guy Gardener]

She wasn't permanently bald.

EMH: Fashion, of course, is hardly my forte. Nevertheless, I've managed to balance functionality and aesthetics in a pleasing enough manner. I also took the liberty of stimulating your hair follicles. A vicarious experience for me, as you might imagine.

Her follicles were just dormant.

 

[Borough 31]

You know I think the EMH left himself bald as a kind of "nudge nudge, wink wink I'm human like you" deal. But since obviously baldness is an option in the future because, science, this doesn't really work.

According to Roddenberry, the people of the Federation didn't bother coming up with a cure for baldness because...utopia. He was asked about this when Patrick Stewart was cast as Picard. That's why Zimmerman was bald, I guess. And of course Zimmerman modeled the Mark 1 after his own appearance because..ego.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Utopia? LOL. Well they may not have cured baldness but I'm sure they have moved to new frontiers beyond Shatner's toupee.

I'm not sure curing baldness would be that great.. I like some bald looks (yes it is all about me). If there was an easy cure baldness would disappear other than shaved heads. I can't imagine anyone shaving their head in the EMH's bald pattern. That look would probably disappear.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Monks?

A kid at school did it once to challenge conventions.

Sunburn can be nasty if your hair is thinning or gone.

How does the 24th century deal with that?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The weather controllers on earth filter out all harmful rays.

 

[RainKing]

The Doctor is, and has always been, the only gay in the village.

 

[borgboy]

The Doctor actually being gay would've been interesting, since Trek still hasn't done a proper gay character on screen. His story in some ways does work well as gay metaphor.

Zimmerman made his holograms in his own image for ego. I can believe it, but it is the exact same thing with Soong and Data.

I imagine that 24th century medicine could easily fix baldness or give you good fake hair, but that everybody in their utopia likes themselves the way they are and are so evolved they wouldn't change themselves. Now me, if I were transported the the 24th century, I'd be trying to get all the 24th century cosmetic procedures I could get. Which would probably just lead to being put in therapy.

 

[mos6507]

The reason AI "matters" in science-fiction isn't so much to figure out when we should designate an AI sentient as much as it is to define what sentience in general is--in humans. The closest topic related to this is free-will (like the scene with Neo and the Architect in Matrix Reloaded.)

Almost every day I read some article that deconstructs why people behave the way they do. Usually anything related to attraction between men and women is reduced to some sort of evolutionary hard-wiring. And think about humanity's susceptibility to addiction, not unlike the proverbial rat that pushes the button to keep being given a pellet. How many rats, due to their special IDIC qualities, decide NOT to push the button? How many humans don't fall prey to one addictive behavior or another? Then you have various mental illnesses that have at its root some systemic brain flaw or chemical imbalance. Sentience is not far off, conceptually, from a soul. But if the brain is simply an organic machine, then humanity can't exceed our factory hardware's capacity. And then you have the degree to which we are shaped and molded by our environment, raising questions about how much true autonomy we have, not just to buck instinct, but our cultural or childhood baggage.

These are questions that are still open-ended which is what makes it interesting.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wonder how the EMH would react if he met Vic Fontaine.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

He'd admire how Fontaine had a bevy of women swirling around him. With drinks trays. Probably start fantasizing about getting him some holo-nurses in nurse costumes.

"Would you like a scalpel big boy?"

 

[Captain Rob]

I would imagine that the EMH would do everything he could to get the computer code for Vic's hair.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Most holograms in the service industry would know that they are holograms.

Was there a line (in a novel?) about how annoying the holograms disappearing during the powercuts effected by Red Squad and Admiral Leyton's Coup?

Unless fearful of an uprising they are also still were programmed to think that they have off hours, holidays and family because they are real people?

If Neelix had a holographic sous chef, she would look like Kes and he would be banging her.