A common philosophical robot question: if a robot is comprised of all human parts and its output reads as kindness, morality, love, what separates it from being human? What is this ineffable mark of consciousness?
And so I wonder about this golden retriever, Basil, about all golden retrievers. She is so playful yet gentle, never barking lest she sees a animal she is not used to. She sniffs a hen laying on her eggs without a single toothy swipe, sees a huddle if ducklings without chasing. She always follows whoever is working outside, even if it is just to plop her body in the grass near you. If you go on a walk in the woods, she will follow. Although she doesn't play fetch, she doesn't even growl when I attempt to wrest the orange ball from her jaws ( though she does try to swipe my hand away with her paws.
She has all the trappings of a kind, compassionate, social soul. But them I wonder, is it because man has engineered you to be this way? Are you being kindly because you are kind, or because you wouldn't know how to behave any other way? Do you crave social interaction, or simply programmed to lay near the closest warm body present ? Is your friendliness and loyalty to strangers the mark of a good host, or an instinctive action ?
I look at her cuddly fluffy golden coat, the cute way she still looks like a puppy when she attempts to hold a bone between her two paws to gnaw on and think, dude, we created everything about you, your no aversion to humans, your adorable fluffy coat, and yet you are still your own creature, a living breathing animal. Left to your own devices, you seem to have your own ideas about what to do.
