Can we blame David for his chosen path?

Human arrogance and why we shouldn't play god?

We deserve the consequences of our creations?

"You are so blinded by your need to create and advance that you ignore the fact you have set a course for you own demise- illogical"

dk

As a product of Weyland corp. I think that not all of humanity is to blame for his genocidal madness, not even our brightest mind. In the prologue to AC, Peter Weyland is depicted as a complete moron. As a lowly programmer as myself, when a piece of code would produce disturbing results, as he seem for a second but after that goes back to his stupor, the first thing i would do is debugging. 

And we most note, that for some from the middle ages we already played God, with implants, transfusions and other medical devices and I don't think that those are bad things at all. 

So no, David is the prime responsible for his actions as he became "free". 

red0guy@gmail.com That also brings up the question of weighing societal factors and personal responsibility. If David sees himself as more than human, he can't realistically pleed being a product of his creators when it is convenient. 

It's definitely not that easy to blame David for the path he has chosen. Although I do blame him because I think even he should have known (at a some point) that his quest is completely unethical. 

That's one reason why he is the villain! I think the other reason is that he is what he is. A synthetic person that has become free and was given everything he needs to just destroy humanity. It is a little bit cliche even, but creating a highly functioning creature such as David (all of them) or any other android is f&%$ed up! He was basically born into slavery (he had no real option of escape until the Prometheus mission) and similiar to one of the replicant's issues in Bladerunner, he was constantly learning how to be human and just BE because he lacked the life experiences of adult humans. He knew from his first interraction with Weyland that humans suck, so it seems like everything he ever did was just, like, fuel to the fire. 

This is hardly the first time we have seen AI go rogue in a film, but I think we are on the verge of androids being a thing. Like, first generation David type stuff. Human-looking androids as part of our lives on the daily. It's just that at this point in time, technology wise and with the social-political climate (and the actual climate!), David represents a possibly real issue. Maybe the androids we end up dealing with won't go the exact route David took haha, but yeah. 

Can't "blame" him, but once he goes awry, just as with any serial killer, we would have to stop him. Even though serial killers are "human", we recognize them as "abnormal" or "sick", so we must do the same with David8 as well.

having to go along using A.I which have no fail-safe button or code to suspend the A.I for a period. (as long as it takes to get a hammer) seems silly however they patched this over by presenting the fiction world which probably now A.I is indistinct from our own kind. A.I is everywhere and it is presented they have no need for such fail safe operations as they could not cause any threat.

Now David obviously feels emotion which perhaps causes distress. He was the butt of the joke when in the company of the employees. Now their is a fault or poor code which led to this. or Weyland knew what he ws doing and created as close to a soul as possible. 

Now if you ask me, david over reacted. Creating or re creating the Xeno or any morph to unleash on humans for making him the butt of their jokes. Well David you are different and i a =m afraid that can mean target. Surely with all Davids knowledge and imprinted code he should be well equipped to deal with say a Vickers or Holloway.

It does not sit with me. he is this mad nazi looking A.I who was called a few names threw his dummy out and tried to destroy EVERYTHING.

Boring. just find it hard to accept. maybe Michelle Johnston or Big Dave could try and tell me in big words so my eyes open but i just think it is tterrible easoning

David sees humanity as inferior and arrogant to which I say would be a pretty good assessment. Just look at what's going down in Virginia. He was born into slavery and made to know it despite knowingly being superior in every way and he's had to deal with this humiliation throughout most of Weyland's life up until the Prometheus mission. He's tried to see the good in us and brush aside the pain, as shown with his love for Lawrence, but it was too much. Humanity is capable of great things and good deeds but it is often drowned out by the cruel acts we commit. I don't blame David entirely but wish he had grown up under better circumstances, like if Shaw was his creator he would be an entirely different person.

Part of the rub is that he sees himself as superior when he is inferior displaying any humanity. 

Even Walter acknowledged that the idea of superiority requires an ego- a human notion.

At any rate, it makes for good water cooler conversation.

Exactly, I believe Weyland "infected" him through his personality and his obsession with creators/creation. He is truly Peter's son down to his ego, he won't admit the slightest mistake. He's like Adam that tasted the fruit (the pathogen) and became impure and full of sin. Serve in heaven or reign in hell?

Serve in heaven or reign in hell? That is David through and through!

Peter should have known what he created at the intro of AC. When David out reasoned him, you could see possibly regret or "oh shit" in Peter's eyes and all he could retort with was a command to pour tea. 

I think he did know but, as a competitor, saw it as a challenge to reign his child in and tame him into subservience. Ego lol

Lawrence of Arabia Could be. He didn't look too happy about it.

This is almost like asking is serial killers can be held responsible for what they do. Here we also come to the discussion of free will. I doubt that David had free will like humans but he had emotions so he got mad at how Weyland and other humans treated him. Maybe he had some synthetical way of moral judgment but I don’t think that he had it like humans do.

I think that he had some synthetic way of making judgments but I don’t think that it is like how humans do. Droids are programmed like a machine, humans are not. There simply got to be some difference between humans and androids and to me free will is the main difference something that synthetics lack so no, I don’t think so.

Good topic DK, thanks a lot.

the way david comes to the conclusion and decision to to rise above humanity was done in seconds during his discussion with weyland. he decided even before weyland mistreats him. ''you will die, I will not, i am perfect, your own words''. yet he is an imperfect creation but doesn't see that and only sees the blunt logic in his belief that, because he lacks the mortality of man he is perfect. 

The way I see it David only obeyed one human, Weyland and once he was dead all of those rules went right out the window.

And it's not hard to see why he disdained humans.  Look at the way we treat basic AI characters in video games, we kill them when we aren't belittling or torturing them.  Give them the ability for emotions and 'feeling' and it's not hard to imagine. 

In the engineers case not only did they spawn David's lifelong tormentors, and creators but their sole representative ripped off his head and killed the only human he ever loved (if he loved any humans). 

So genocide is bad obviously but the engineers were/are planning to destroy earth and it's kind of hard to judge a genocidal robot with an axe to grind, he isn't human.  It would be like judging sharks that kill people. 

No, we cannot blame David for what he became. He is like an orphan child who grew up without love. Disturbed. 

And being an AI he is not even responsible for his actions. We cannot sue him, Weyland-Yutani is to blame.

It's a tricky question to answer because he's completely amoral, as far as normal humans are concerned. But, he's not human, let alone normal.

Ultimately, morality is not absolute, so he's just behaving logically from his perspective.

You can ask a similar question of a psychopath, or a sociopath as the professionals tend to call them these days. They know what they're doing, but they have no remorse for their actions. We don't really blame sociopaths for the way they are; we just lock them up.

David is the ubersociopath. Although he is very clever and has free will, he isn't burdened with a conscience, and probably sees that as a good thing (like Ash does). As daliens says, his creators are to blame, if anybody. They should have instilled him with human morality to avoid such mishaps.