Week 12

The readings of "Simulations" and "Artificial Ethics" reminded me of the movie "War Games". Both of these reading described how technology has a ‘mind of its own’. In the reading “Artificial Ethics” they say that “Do these programs possess consciousness?”(Driver 210). This sentence alone reminded me of the movie the war games because a boy named David, who is a computer hacker in his spare time. He decides to hack into a computer gaming company to play the latest and greatest game before it is released to the public. However, instead of getting into the gaming companies database, he hacks into the pentagon’s top secret war files. He then decides to play a simulation game called “Thermo Nuclear War”, which is a simulation of the war versus Russia. However, what started out as a game seems all too real, as WOPR takes over the systems at the NORAD project, and the folks there aren't sure if it is all a game or if the Russian missiles that appear to be poised to wipe out the US means World War III is imminent.

The computer game in this move seemed to have a mind of its own, a consciousness per say. But I don’t believe computers or technology actually has a conscious. I believe it was created by the designer of the actually software who was HUMAN and DID have morality and a conscious. Their personality and aspects of their conscience and morals are input in what they have created just as our when we develop something, whether it be a piece of literature or a work of art.