Technological Singularity, David, and the God of the Engineers

Looks like the story became true

David upgrading himself using Engineer tech is a scary and intriguing idea. Unfortunately, he's also rather Genocidal...

He could easily approach the level of The Creators/Gods, given time, he could become shockingly powerful and intelligent. Being a machine to start with, it is easier for him to adapt and 'evolve/upgrade' in very short spans of time.

@Blackwinter I agree. David basically is already "immortal" so to speak, however, all things wear out. Even intelligence circuitry. Damage from environs over time would have to cause irreparable issues, that David himself wouldn't even be aware of, I would think, so he's probably not as immortal as he likes to think.

We still aren't quite aware of his initial true "function"/programming, so that will have to reveal over time as well, but so far he simply seems to go by the "acquire knowledge/intel AT ALL/ANY (including human life) cost" mantra...but for what purpose?

Starlogger

Good points, but he's a machine, thus easy enough to transfer/copy his consciousness to a fresh brain-system and body. So 'effective immortality' relative to Humans, anyways.

True, we are inthe dark about his initial programming, perhaps answers will be coming along in Covenant, I hope.

Copying himself? But what would that the copy? It's still a copy and not David, therefore he is mortal.

Tiwaz,

I think BWW was getting at that if David gets to the point of being unable to repair himself or his batteries are close to being diminshed he can copy/transfer his programming to another host/body.  Much like like the xeno's replicate/breed themselves.

Exactly!! His consciousness is software, he can move into a new body quite easily, indeed he might well build himself a new body based off Engineer tech and then move into that to Upgrade himself and his abilities in one sweeping move.

A consciousness is like a fire, and how many sticks (bodies) can a fire burn?

First, i don' want to come across offensive or sthing.

What I mean is this:

- David copies himself (memory) onto David2

- Maybe D and D2 spend time together

- David "dies"

- David2 remains

Although having the same memories and mindset D2 is not D. Unless we add something like a wandering soul to the equation. That however is highly philosophical and leads to the question "What is a soul, does it exist and when does it come to be?". 

There's that process, or he could 'file-transfer-and-delete' as he goes, which would leave him as the only David.

BUT, he might see the appeal of having copies of himself around as the more brains available the higher and more powerful the 'computer network' which would be of use to him in studying, applying, working with Engineer science and technology.

The 'wandering soul' aspect...well, he's a machine, so it's really just a matter of file transfer equivalent.

Being an IT-technician and pondering bout it is quite fun. XD

I'd "agree" under these conditions:

- CPU/Memory (with or without body) is connected to the original the whole time, kinda like an extra organ. But both CPU/Ms must work as one system.

- The data isn't copied but moved (technical term, copying and erasing the original at once)

- After successfully moving the data the old systems are removed. The old CPU/Ms is the last thing to be removed.

This way it's like adding and removing parts from a running system.

Maybe im picky bout it but that's just me. ;)

Tiwaz,

Now we're kind of splitting hairs.  Since we're talking computer software there really isn't a "soul".  If I take my hard drive out of my computer running Win10 and put it in another computer with new mainboard, processor, ram, optical drive, etc.  (minus the hard drive) guess what.  Walla.....it's still my computer with Win10 (with driver updates) on it plus the upgrades.  This is in essence starting over with a new system since my old system can't run past the bios without the hard drive in it.

Of course it is splitting hairs. But can anyone of us tell what would happen? Neither of us has ever dealt with a true AI and likely none of us ever will.

And as for the "soul", like I said that is philosophical question. Since a soul can't be measured it's existence can't be proven nor disproven.

We humans or at least some are convinced to have a soul, spiritual essence or whatever they want call it.

On the other hand some of these people claim an AI doesn't have a soul.

But on what is this claim based? The fact that we're biological, our "windows" isn't based 0s and 1s? Some might even say a human also just a "machine", made of organic material, sure but still. 

I'm aware this might be provocative but I don't mean it to be inpolite or offensive.

It's just my point of view. 

Does the 'soul' exist? Hard to say, but some experiments have shown that almost immediately upon death, the bioelectromagnetic field around the brain doesn't dissipate, it undergoes a 'shift' and the nature of such coincides EXACTLY to Mathematically proven Alternate Realities.
SO...at least science has given us that bit of hope vs poof-gone-death.

But the way you describe above in 'Moving' software and such, yeah, if David does that, just to a new and improved body, well to him it's no more than the equal of us flesh-beings trading-up car-wise.

@BWW

What about "We are Walter"... Do You think that will have a significance in the film? I mean, maybe David seeing walter as an abomination, a more "perfect" body than his, but a "lesser" being when it comes to programming? Walter beeing a organic(DNA-based?) synthetic?

These are points i have covered a number of times since we first got confirmation of the Prologue Scene with David and Weyland.

Fassbender quite some time ago pondered does David have a Soul and teased maybe he does.

A Soul is defined in a number of ways.

1) The Spiritual Part of a Being that is separate to the Psychical that goes on to a higher pane of existence when we die.

David could not possess this.

2) Emotional Awareness part of someone, which includes experiences and memories.

David could possess this.

3) A Selfless Act or kind/good nature of deed, such as a redeeming feature. 

David could go on to do this.

And so i have suspected for a some time now that potentially David 1 (2025) is the Prototype and Weylands Personnel Android and Son, and that with each new model so say David 2 Prototype the Experiences and Memories of David 1 are uploaded to the David 2 Prototype only, and then onto David 3 Prototype and so forth.

So that David 8 in Prometheus is again Weylands Personnel Prototype and has nearly 70 years worth of Memories and Experiences and this gives him his Soul.

When we look at DAVID 8

Then indeed he is very close to a Human and we are just like him apart from being Biological Machines.

The only thing that would differ would be the Spiritual Being/Soul which a Android would not be able to have...

But which they kind of could do if they could upload their consciousness into a Machine/Mainframe. Pretty much like we saw in the movie Transcendence

As far as if their is really such a thing as a SOUL

This is down to each persons personnel beliefs and we can not Prove or dis-prove such a thing exists