Obedience

Obedience is behavior that is respectful and mindful of rules and laws. Children sometimes listen to their parents, people sometimes follow the law, and a dachshund will never listen to its owner. But why are some creatures obedient, and others less so? Maybe it’s because the consequences of not listening are serious, or maybe it’s simply part of their personality. Looking at artificial creatures might give us an idea of why some beings are obedient, and why others are not.

Alexa - Perfectly Obedient

Alexa is a virtual assistant created by Amazon. It's built into various apps and smart speakers that respond to your voice commands. Alexa can also interact with other devices, you can for example tell Alexa to turn of the lights. Alexa is a example of a perfectly obedient artificial creature. The only time Alexa doesn't listen is when she doesn't understands you. Obedience is all Alexa knows, consequences and personality don't play a roll. Alexa is simply programmed to listen and assist, she was 'born' obedient. Real life creatures are never born completely obedient.

Hal 9000: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Hal 9000 is a fictional artificial creature that was part of the Space Odyssey series. Hal is part of a space mission, and when the crew members want to turn Hal off he tries to kill them. The reasoning of Hall is that he can not let the mission fail. In this example Hall is obedient to the main goal of the operation. However he is not obedient to the crew when he feels they are jeopardizing the mission. The obedience of Hall could be compared to creatures that only listen to the thing they think is important. This could be a different creature or a believe in something.

The game that listens, until it doesn't: Ruley

The essence of obedience is listening to a set of rules. This is also the essence of computer programs, you write down rules and the program follows the rules. However in creatures, rules might be followed untill the creature doesn't believe in the rules anymore. The artificial creature that I imagine followed this believe, it'' called Ruley. Ruley is a virtual car that is racing other cars. When you tell Ruley to go right, Ruley will go right, think of it like Mario Kart. However when you as a player have banged against other cars or walls to much, Ruley will stop listening to you and race by itself. Ruley is an artificial creature that listens to the player untill the player shows that they are not respectful enough with the car.

Obedience is complicated behaviour with many aspects. Some creatures are more likely to follow the rules than others. Having respect for the rules and agreeing with them is part of being obedient. Sometimes consequences are the only reason creatures are obedient. Artificial creatures could be seen as super obedient, but as shown in the examples above this is not the case. Artificial creatures are obedient to the rules in the code, and not to the people they interact with. This is what makes some artificial creatures not seem obedient, when they actually are.

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