I have been thinking and re-reading trying to come up with a paper topic for our first assignment. I think I landed on a good idea, but I wanted to get others opinions to make sure I am in the right direction.
My favorite topic that I have come up with is, what makes someone human. We have read numerous stories this semester that had robots, or creatures that would originally be considered non-human. Some of the questions I think I want to address are should robots be considered human? Are humans with their dependence on technology becoming robot like? What is the biggest quality in assigning humanity?
Let me know what you think!
I like it a lot, in fact I was thinking about something similar. The only thing I might suggest is that you want to make sure it's not too broad- maybe focus on one question, like "what is the biggest quality in assessing humanity" and discuss just that, within the context of the stories we've read.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember if any of our stories focused on this particular aspect of humanity, but I think it's an important one. I think that the ability to love and feel empathy should be taken into account.
ReplyDeleteI like the topic a lot! It's rather general though, so you may have to focus in on a specific or two to keep your paper from being too broad.
ReplyDeleteI like the topic so much I'm considering something similar. I'm probably going to focus mine down to something along the lines of "at what point should a being be given autonomous rights." Which is a very interesting question, because it also drags abortion into the discussion.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a great topic. "Lifecycle of software objects" would of course be an excellent story to include, but also the homunculi in "72 letters" would present an interesting topic to discuss with regards to the definition of a person.
ReplyDeleteYou also may want to look at "Exhalation" for an different perspective, mainly a society that is made completely out of robots. I don't know if anything is there but it might make for an interesting comparison between how they see themselves and how humans see humans.
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