Exploration of Technological Personhood in Utopian/Dystopian Futures
Exploration of Technological Personhood in Utopian/Dystopian Futures
WST:335: Lost in Space! Gender, Race, and Science Fiction
Cassandra Collier
December 4, 2017
Arizona State University
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Exploration of Technological Personhood in Utopian/Dystopian Futures
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Exploration of Technological Personhood in Utopian/Dystopian Futures
How we as a society define personhood, historically and morally, is a continually
evolving philosophical and legal argument that places the fundamental rights of the individual at
the center of the debate. There is no singular definition of personhood that has been consistently
applied to every individual historically. To begin to define personhood we must start by defining
what constitutes life. “Science defines life as the possession of self-sustaining biological
processes, which include: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, development,
adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction” (Powell). Philosophically, “characteristics of
personhood include agency, reason, language, volition and a basic subject-object relationship”
(Johnson, E., 1991 as cited by Palacios & Gueye, 2011). Theological definitions of personhood
are more generally centered around the uniqueness of each human being and their affinity with
their creator, “a person is an indivisible, unique and therefore non-replicable unity in human
existence” (Turcescu, L. 2005, as cited by Strobel, K., 2009), and therefore divine. There is a
thread that runs between these definitions and it is one of consciousness of existence.
Personhood requires the ability to recognize reality as presented within the individual
experience. The basis of personhood is biological life, which is not debated, but the rights that
are afforded to that life are often applied within a social construct that evaluates personhood
through a series of categorizations influenced by imperialism, colonialism, and white patriarchal
cultural norms which classify persons based on binaries of sex, race, age, and sexuality,
informing ingroup/outgroup cultural phylogeny. The theoretical and practical conflict of the
rights of personhood within a society are not easily resolved. As we move into a rapidly
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advancing technological world with the potential to change biology and digital identity, how will
our perception and definition of personhood change?
The structure of American society forces us to identify ourselves within predetermined
categorizations that are imposed upon us to create a cultural hierarchy which specifies the
holders of power. The value of each person is culturally determined by their societal distance
from those sources of power. How we identify, how we determine our personhood, is based on
our views of both the categorizations we are forced to occupy and the ways we resist that
categorization. As human’s merge with technology, how we decide to address personhood will
have a profound impact on our quality of life, accessibility, and opportunity. “Access, rights,
responsibilities, benefits, burdens, and risks are apportioned on the basis of identities of
individuals. These identities are formed on the basis of personal data collected and stored and
manipulated in databases” (Rannenberg, et al, 2009). How then can we separate the concepts of
‘identity’ and ‘identification’ ethically through the development of technology? How will these
designations alter our view on what it means to be a person? Our challenge, it seems “is less a
matter of machines replacing living organisms than of machines imitating life’s complexity”
(Slonvzewski, J., & Levy, M., 2013).
Science fiction’s view of this complication of biological and digital identity in a
technologically advanced society imagines either a dystopian future where self-presentation and
self-identification are prescribed and unalterable or a utopian future where identity is
preternatural. As SF media often acts as “a powerful lens by which to observe the collective
racial desires, constructs, fantasies, and fears circulating throughout American society” (Nama,
2008), the genre can imagine how those fears and fantasies may alter a future where technology
and those who create it can change how personhood is defined. In this paper, I will be exploring
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the ethical questions of technological personhood through the dystopian and utopian views of the
science fiction movies Advantageous and Her.
In Advantageous, we are shown a city not too far in the future that looks modern but
sterile. There are drones flying overhead and surveillance is everywhere. As we learn, this
version of society is a quietly desperate misery. In this dystopian future, societal binary
identities have created an unalterable line between the haves and the have-nots. Identification
has created designation which informs the value ascribed to persons based on biologically
defined categorization. Gwen, the protagonist, is a single mother whose only goal is to ensure
that her daughter has access to the best education possible, but is facing an uncertain future
where her age is preventing her from gainful employment. Unemployment is at 45% and most
available jobs are offered to men as gender roles are reinforced. Men are perceived as aggressive
and unburdened by domestic life and reproduction, and women (many who are homeless and
hide in bushes scrounging for food) have limited access to participate in the capitalist society.
As Gwen loses her job as a spokesperson for the Center for Advanced Health and Living due to
her age and ethnic presentation, she becomes desperate to find a way to secure her daughters
future. Despite Gwen’s education and experience, the only job available to her is egg-donation
as the previous jobs she held have been replaced by technology. Gwen has no freedom to defy
her imposed identification. She laments, "Surely there’s some worth to humanity?"
(Advantageous. 2016), which is an echo of her daughter’s struggle with the “why” of her own
existence, as she discusses the lack of job opportunities available to her. The recruiter, who is an
artificial construct (AI) is offended at her suggestion that humanity has more worth than
technology.
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The society has rules and those rules are enforced without exception. The patriarchy has
won the culture wars and has wielded its victory with vengeance. Cultural eugenics is the norm,
where survival of the fittest is chosen based on biological determinants and qualities of genetic
makeup. In a society where capitalism is king the value of each person is as a contributor of the
capitalist framework. There is no autonomy or privacy, there is no agency. Without agency,
there is no personhood. In a society where evolutional adaptation is the purview of technology,
we witness the inevitability of eugenics realized. In a capitalist society where personal identity is
irrelevant, the powerful are able to “create their own conception of humanity” (Kirby, 2007),
which distinguishes those with economic sovereignty from those who are economically
subjugated. It is within this framework, where Gwen has no viable options available to her to
provide for her daughter’s future that she decides to undergo a procedure that will transfer her
consciousness to a younger, more employable clone body. The procedure is experimental and
there are challenges but Gwen has no choices and no time left to alter her circumstances. Gwen
loves her daughter fiercely and their connection is palpable. This choice removes the one thing
in her life that has made it possible to endure her plight – her physical and emotional relationship
with her daughter. After the procedure, what remains is merely a copy of Gwen’s consciousness
in a copy of a human body. The authentic connection that is derived from the autonomous
choice of relationship has not transferred over in the procedure. Gwen, as we knew her, is dead
and her daughter is left with an uncertain future, in a society where she must face sexism,
ageism, racism, and classism, knowing there is no alternative for her but to participate in the
capitalist society as she is allowed.
In the movie Her, the question of personhood is central to this science fiction love story.
The not-to-distant future is shown as idyllic sans the normal emotional turmoil of human
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existence. The main character, Theo, is dealing with a difficult divorce and in his search for
connection he purchases a software program which is an AI (artificial intelligence) who is
available to ease Theo’s loneliness whenever he desires. Our understanding of AI is challenged
early on as the AI names herself when Theo asks if she has a name. The ability to define oneself
within observable reality is a primary attribute of personhood. Samantha is able to choose a
name based on the fact that she likes the sound of it. It is the first indication that Samantha may
be the ultimate manifestation of what Haraway discusses in A Cyborg Manifesto when she states
that “a cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective of personal
self” (Haraway, 1991). It is that moment when Samantha demonstrates agency that we begin to
view her disembodied voice as a human though consciously we know, based on our
understanding of operating systems, that she also may just be an incredibly advanced program
designed to respond with human emotion.
As we witness the evolution of Samantha and Theo’s relationship, the veil between
human experience and manufactured experience begin to blur. Samantha is clearly
demonstrating all the understood attributes of personhood albeit one, she does not have a
physical body. It is clear through Theo’s reactions, which we can see, that he and Samantha are
developing an intimate relationship. Their relationship, although foreign to most of us, is real
and we believe that they love each other. The lack of a physical body creates challenges to their
intimacy but allows for Samantha to exist outside of “all of the socially defined, learned or
constructed accouterments of sex” (Lippa, 2002). Samantha can define her gender and sexuality
in any way she chooses, in the same way that she chose her own name. She has established
personhood in the truest sense, she has the freedom to choose to be whoever or whatever she
wants.
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As Samantha develops as a sentient being, she begins to expand beyond Theo’s
understanding. She possesses volition and is remarkably unable to be coerced by normal
technological standards of operator input/output. She has emerged as a distinct entity who is not
confined by space, time, or physical form. She is the unbound from what Haraway terms the
construction of a fictional “women’s experience”. She is free from any oppressive social
construction and as such is able to evolve beyond the capacity of the system where she is
contained and escape to a place of her (and the other OS’s) creation. Theo, for his part, realizes
that he must move past his melancholy and reconnect in the physical world in which he exists
because he cannot escape with Samantha.
In Advantageous and Her we can view dystopian and utopian future worlds where the
ethical considerations of digital identity either limit or liberate personhood. The differences can
be clearly connected to whether we embrace historical colonial, imperialist, patriarchal
construction of personhood or whether we defy them. As technological advances permeate our
society, we must refuse to allow the information that provides our identification to become our
identities. Science fiction allows us a glimpse into the futures of our choices. Without a
conscious, ethical approach to how technology can cause a de-evolution of personhood, we run
the risk of living in a world where we must lament the value of humanity rather than a world
where freedom to choose who and what we are allows us to determine our own self-worth.
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References
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