Letters to the Editor
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@Anonymous
Wow, my point really flew over your head there, didn't it?
The source of the misgivings you expressed - i.e., creating artificial life is bad because it messes with the natural order, created life would be oppressed and have no rights, etc. - is the very Frankenstein myth I mentioned, and its equivalents in European cultures. The whole point I tried to express there is that other cultures do not necessarily think the way we do, and are no less interesting or viable because they think differently. Dismissing another culture's outlook because it doesn't agree with yours, regardless of whether their point of view actually has merit or not, is at best, xenophobia.
What I find strange here is the fact that we're talking about machines. The only way in which they resemble humans is physically. I could carve a potato into the likeness of a human; that wouldn't make it one, nor would it give the benighted vegetable any human "rights". Robots are mechanical devices, and Manjoo's post does point out that if these things didn't look like humans, there'd be no problem. Physical appearance, the aspect of a machine least likely to weigh in its actual performance, creates a dynamic that hinders its development along its creator's desired lines. Given that it's purely physical appearance we're talking about - that the machines are neither less nor more like humans in any other aspect - why shouldn't the Japanese try to make machines that look like us? Given that these are not sentient beings with minds, hearts, etc., what reason can there be, other than our Shelley-derived reaction of distrust and loathing?