This blog post delves deeply into humanity, self-awareness, and the definition of human through the film Bicentennial Man.
‘I feel like I’m just a well-coded machine.’ One day, a friend, physically and mentally exhausted from frequent all-night coding sessions, confided this to me before trudging off to the e-vivid sleep room. During lunch that day, my friends and I debated whether there was proof we weren’t machines. Of course, if you looked medically, you’d find it quickly, but the question of whether something made from coding could be human was enough to pique our curiosity. If there were a human made up of countless machine parts and software, could it be called human? A movie I saw as a child came to mind.
The movie ‘Bicentennial Man’ featured such a robot. ‘Andrew’, purchased as a household robot for a family, gained intelligence, curiosity, and human emotions thanks to mayonnaise dripping onto his circuits during manufacturing. He developed human traits that the robot manufacturing company declared “could not and should not exist” in a robot. His owner discovers Andrew’s unique qualities, distinct from other robots, and treats him as an equal. Andrew teaches himself carpentry and even wears a tuxedo to serve as a wedding usher. Realizing the emotion of love, Andrew develops a crush on the young lady of the house, but the insurmountable barrier of being a robot prevents their love from being fulfilled. Driven by his desire for a human body, he uses human skin and artificial organs to live a life indistinguishable from a real person. Returning to his owner’s home, Andrew meets ‘Portia,’ the granddaughter who bears a striking resemblance to the young lady he once loved, and falls in love with her. Continuing his efforts to be recognized as human, including standing trial, Andrew ultimately abandons his immortal life as a robot when the court rules that “immortal humans cannot be recognized.” Andrew gradually ages and finally passes away after 200 years, holding Portia’s hand. The court finally recognizes Andrew as human, and the film ends.
Robots will increasingly resemble humans. What, then, is the difference between a robot as a machine and a human as a member of society? When machines undergo repeated changes and gradually become more human-like, what criteria can we use to distinguish humans from machines? Let’s consider this by dividing it into physical and mental aspects.
First, we examine whether the physical aspects are the same as humans. To do this, we must understand the definition of a living organism. Living organisms undergo metabolism. We consume nutrients daily by eating food. Living organisms respond to stimuli from their surroundings. Reproduction and heredity are also crucial characteristics. Living organisms leave descendants carrying their genes to ensure the survival of their species. They also exhibit traits like growth, homeostasis, adaptation, and evolution.
Let’s examine whether Andrew from the movie satisfies the above definition of a living organism. After Andrew was created, he undergoes metabolism and reacts to external stimuli. As a household robot, he must listen to and act on his owner’s commands, responding to his environment and the actions of surrounding humans as programmed. Metabolism refers to all chemical reactions occurring within the body. Andrew undergoes metabolism through the process of increasing his battery’s energy level via electrical charging, and by consuming energy while operating, he changes his chemical state to a lower energy state. Furthermore, he can maintain a stable internal environment regardless of external changes, demonstrating homeostasis. While he satisfies certain characteristics of a living being to some extent, he cannot be considered a living being. This is because these are inherent characteristics of a robot.
However, over time, he develops human-like mental aspects and, unlike ordinary robots, is upgraded to take on a human form. It acquires a human-like appearance, receives transplants of a nervous system and artificial organs, and obtains all human bodily structures except blood. It consumes food to gain energy and partially achieves a structure similar to humans. After receiving a blood transplant and relinquishing infinite lifespan, it is finally recognized as human in the film. Although the requirement for reproduction is not met, it exists as an exception, as no one denies the humanity of individuals with reproductive disabilities. Not all characteristics of a living organism need to be satisfied for something to be recognized as a living organism. A prime example is the virus. Viruses cannot perform metabolism and survive by invading hosts. Yet viruses are also recognized as living organisms. While debate remains, Andrew could also meet the crucial human element of possessing a physical body if this characteristic alone is considered an exception.
Now, let’s examine whether Andrew can satisfy the requirements for humanity from a mental perspective. The criteria I propose for distinguishing robots from humans are self-awareness and free will.
Free will refers to the capacity to choose actions spontaneously, without external coercion, domination, or constraint. Andrew’s actions—such as reading about wood types and characteristics to create sculptures as gifts, or designing artificial organs to make his inner self more human-like—were not tasks assigned by others but choices he made himself. He also demanded ‘freedom’ from his owner. Such attempts are actions a passive robot, programmed only to execute embedded programs or received tasks, cannot perform. Yet Andrew chose these actions of his own volition. From these behaviors, we can see that Andrew possesses ‘free will’.
Furthermore, through years of self-exploration, Andrew developed a distinct sense of self-awareness. Self-consciousness refers to the consciousness of the self as a self-identical subject that unifies the various functions of feeling, thinking, expressing intentions, and acting, as opposed to external consciousness. Animals other than humans, such as dogs or cats, perceive their reflection in a mirror as another individual. That is, they lack recognition of the existence of ‘themselves’. In contrast, when humans look in a mirror, they recognize the reflection as themselves. They know that ‘themselves’ exist. Similarly, Andrew can be said to possess self-awareness because he looks in the mirror and becomes conscious of himself. However, the self-awareness Andrew possesses is the self-awareness of thinking of himself as human. Over many years, meeting every robot in the world, he came to realize that there was no robot like himself and began to think he was not a robot. He began to think incessantly about the question ‘Who am I?’, and as his desire to become human intensified after meeting someone he loved, Andrew came to consider himself human. Furthermore, he states the reason for abandoning eternal life: “I would rather die as a human than live forever as a machine.”
The question of whether Andrew is human is undoubtedly open to debate. However, possessing a human body along with ‘free will’ and ‘self-awareness’—traits often considered uniquely human—Andrew also meets the mental criteria for humanity. Therefore, I consider Andrew human. Having willingly relinquished his advantages to become human, Andrew might just be closer to an ideal human than we are.
