Ethical reasons to create an artificial humanoid?

In my science-fiction draft, I have a Motherly Scientist who creates a feminine humanoid in a laboratory based on a military project template, but she has to keep it a secret from the other beings. She has a cold personality when she is not interacting with her creation, but she accomplices this using the concept of 3D printing.

The question comes into being when it is revealed that the creator had not only combined various animal DNA using her laptop, but the hybrid creation is rather unaware of it. Is this enough to warrant any ethical issues instory?

edited 5th Mar '16 10:05:46 PM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

It depends. I'd argue it's ok to create artificial humanoids for the same reasons that people reproduce, though there is some Fridge Logic as to why they don't just have regular children or adopt. But, theoretically, as long as they take all the reasonable precautions, I'd argue it's ok to.

As for her creation having animal DNA and not being told about it: Is this DNA harmful to the creation? Is there a reason why it should have been kept secret from her?

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

That is due to the hybrid's Plot Armor reasons, and also the right amount of animal dna in the subject matter affects the hormones and the growth of the hybrid as well as giving her some conflicting animal instincts. The scientist knows about this and it's a secret. Now let us continue talking about the ethical issues and ramifications?

edited 6th Mar '16 5:21:57 AM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

It could cause issues, seeing as an artificial human (especially one with extra animal DNA) might cross into Not Quite Human territory. After all, What Measure Is a Non-Human?

Depending on the size of the ethics you could spin this different ways.

On a personal level, the artificial human might feel like an outsider for various reasons. Not only the animal DNA - but that could obviously be a big part of it - but also because being "built" rather than "born". The person might be seen - by others or him-/her-self - as anything between a biological machine or a living robot, but probably not as a regular person.

On a more global scale, you could bring in the regular gene-ethics of allowing people to be designed by birth. And how such matters could let prejudices and racism run rampart.

Was it something like that you were thinking of?

edited 6th Mar '16 10:00:12 AM by Penk

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

Well, since the whole story is set on an alien planet, it is more of a personal ethic issue, but as for the scientist, she has no qualms as to adding random dna to her creation and basically it is set around the 30th century where technology has advanced.

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

Alien planet, eh? Sounds fancy!

But are you concentrating on the scientist's view of everything, or rather the patient's view?

edited 7th Mar '16 11:23:41 AM by Penk

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

It is written from the Third Person Perspective, but it is written more from the patient's POV with the scientists thoughts occasionally commenting in several monologues. The patient starts out with a blank slate (tabla rasa) mind

edited 7th Mar '16 4:47:27 PM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

Sorry, poorly phrased by me. I was wondering if you were planning to write the ethical issue more about how the patient feels about xerself being created rather than born or if it is rather how the scientist reflects on the result of her creation. Or maybe something else?

edited 8th Mar '16 10:53:59 AM by Penk

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

I was planning to write the ethical issue more about how the patient feels about herself being created rather than born. And in the story's universe, Designer Babies are fairly common anyway

edited 9th Mar '16 6:31:55 AM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

You could always reflect on how your designed character would look at herself. Is every positive trait or accomplishment due to her own initiative, or is it because she was designed to be good at those things? On the flip side, are all the failures/mistakes that happens when she tries to avoid her own design, or is it inherent in her genetics to fail at those things?

edited 9th Mar '16 3:54:53 PM by Penk

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

Well the subject starts off at 6 years old and then it Time Skip to when she is 16 years old, although that is a good topic that if aging could affect the ethical issues, then everything else could change as well as she matures and starts to question her own creator... While she learns of both the pros/cons of being designed.

edited 9th Mar '16 11:46:56 PM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

Young age, eh? If the animal DNA also affects behavior, you could think about having the subject have a hard time controlling animal instincts at young age. Seeing as the whole thing was based on a military-program, it wouldn't seem out of place for it to be a little bit dangerous.

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

Well, towards the middle of the story, the audience will get the female scientist's pov as well.

edited 10th Mar '16 10:48:56 PM by sabrina_diamond

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purple MY own profile is actually HERE!

That sounds neat! You could write about the ethics from the different point of views the scientist and the subject. Especially if the subject does not understand everything about herself.

"I'm always alone. Sometimes I'm just alone by myself."

Go back to the source. Why do humans procreate? Or better yet, if you want to get really heavy, why did God create the universe? The usual answer is unlimited love, but your scientist is probably not a deity.

I'm a lawyer in real life. Yes, I do own a pair of bunny ears.

I would think that having a method of allowing same sex couples to have kids would be an ethical reason to create artificial humans. But in order for the technology to get to that point you need a few 'trial runs' to make sure they don't get cancer or something when there 30. To do that kind of long term examination ethically, you do need a loving family who takes care, raise and treats them like a normal person, only take your son/daughter to work day has a different meaning.

But reasoning aside, the real ethical question depends on how the laws against Haman genetic engineering are structured in the world, which would affect the whole project.

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If you think creating artificial life is unethical by default (which is far from a given), you could argue that creating artificial life is ethical if:

• the character doing it is incapable of having biological children for some reason, yet wants to have the same bond with their "child" as they would have if it were a biological child, and therefore they feel that creating their "child" from scratch would give them a stronger bond than adopting, etc.

—OR—

• the character feels that they are giving the creation some sort of quality that makes it more suited to life than humans. I'm not talking about ubermenschen, but rather something that will make it easier for the creation to have a satisfying, happy life. Greg Egan approached this idea with a short story called "The Singleton". In it, the main character is deeply troubled by the idea that the most widely-accepted theory of quantum physics suggests that every nondeterministic event creates a branching of universes—in other words, every time you waffle about what color shirt to wear in the morning, you're creating multiple universes/timelines. So he designs a quantum computer that absolutely never has nondeterministic processes, and puts an artificial intelligence into it, and puts it into an android body. The short version is that he creates an AI that never causes branching timelines like a human does, in the hope that as a result, his "child" will never have to wonder about its parallel versions in those other universes, because it knows that there is only ever one of it, and all of its decisions and thoughts are rock-solid because it would never have chosen any differently. To give it a sense of empowerment and agency, basically.

---

You can also sidestep the "designing babies is unethical" argument by finding a way to randomize traits instead of picking and choosing. Egan did that too (mentally anyway; I think the robot body was designed by the father) by having the AI "seeded" with scans of both the main character's and his wife's brains, so that it would approximate the way a baby is "seeded" by the genetic makeup of both of its parents. That way no one could accuse the man of "optimizing" his artificial child to be the smartest or the nicest or the heterosexualist person.

edited 21st Apr '16 3:05:51 PM by SolipSchism

No one's gonna create a human-like robot for the betterment of humanity. They're gonna do it for ultimately selfish reasons, so "ethical", if it doesn't fly right out the door, is pretty much pick and choose at that point.

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

That's an... interesting stance.

Curiosity slash parental instinct. The scientist sees it's mostly working, but needs some kink ironed out. Luckily, a sentient creation can be taught and reasoned with, so the end result can be serviceable if running on shades of Blue-and-Orange Morality.

"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis

Besides, isn't part of the point of using robots pretty much... that robots aren't sapient, cannot feel pain, etc? Such that it's not unethical to send them to dangerous places such as a warzone?

hellomoto, that's a potential purpose for robots, but AI and robots are not the same thing. If you're just talking about an autonomous artificial construct that can physically do things at the behest of humans, then a robot is fine, but that's not going to satisfy most would-be parents.