Frankenstein or Cyborg?

[tomandtish]

Frankensteins are a little out of the ordinary, kind of a cross between a golem and a zombie.

The difference between cyborg and android is actually a little clearer.

A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, and the organism part is key. They are considered a living creature. While they MIGHT not be able to live w/o their cybernetic parts, they DEFINITELY won't live without their biological parts.

An android is a robot or other artificial/synthetic being designed to resemble a human, including possibly a flesh-like appearance.

The key difference is: Is the base template alive (biologically speaking) or not.

Note that technically T-800 terminators are not cyborgs. They are androids.

[Wardog]

When does the monster stop being a "Frankenstein" (a true misnomer, as Victor Frankenstein was the name of the Scientist and not the monster)

Snarky comment #1: its entierly normal for an invention to be named after its inventor or creator.

Snarky comment #2: one could argue that the monster was the scientist, not the creature.

[hamishspence]

Note that technically T-800 terminators are not cyborgs. They are androids.

While the tissue coating a T-800 is alive - it's still fair to say that it's "a robot wearing a flesh suit" - even if signals from the living flesh are transmitted to the robot brain.

[Blackhawk748]

Cyborgs are the odd one out here, because they come from adding mechanical bits to an existing person. Neither Frankenstein's monster nor an android has any choice in whether to be made, any more than a baby has any choice in being born. For cyborgs, the person in question generally has a say in what parts are or are not being added. (While it's possible to cyborg-ize someone without their consent, that involves spending a lot of money to power up somebody who will wake up very pissed at you. Not the brightest move.) Bio-cyborgs who add custom grown bits or symbiotes to themselves are a possibility, but the concept is so tied to technological upgrades that meat-based versions are usually explicitly called out as such.

With that one out of the way, it's easy to separate the one made mostly from reanimated corpse bits (although modern versions will often have technological bits added) from the ones who are entirely fabricated from mechanical parts.

Cyber Zombies from Shadowrun would like to have a conversation with you. Also Robo Cop is a great example of this.

[tomandtish]

While the tissue coating a T-800 is alive - it's still fair to say that it's "a robot wearing a flesh suit" - even if signals from the living flesh are transmitted to the robot brain.

Exactly. They are androids wearing a fleshy coat. It may be "alive" as such, but it isn't necessary for the functioning of the android, and even complete loss of the organics only has a cosmetic effect.

[Devils_Advocate]

do you consider someone with a prosthetic heart or a robotic arm a cyborg?

But of course!

Humans whose mind were copied into a computer mainframe are A.I. in my book but the line really doesn’t matter at that point.

Being moved to an artificial medium doesn't make intelligence artificial. That's like saying that we're artificial life because we live inside of artificial structures.

I think golems aren't really 'intelligent', more human shaped machines that fulfilled orders.

Well, things that can follow orders can at least understand language, which is pretty smart.

Snarky comment #1: its entierly normal for an invention to be named after its inventor or creator.

Snarky comment #2: one could argue that the monster was the scientist, not the creature.

Snarky comment #3: It's also normal to inherit the family name of one's parent, and so Victor's creation can thus be considered Frankenstein the Younger.

[Fyraltari]

Being moved to an artificial medium doesn't make intelligence artificial. That's like saying that we're artificial life because we live inside of artificial structures.

I didn't say moved I said copied. If I make an intelligence in the likeness of my own it is artificial regardless of its model.

[Devils_Advocate]

I didn't say moved I said copied.

Huh? Copying data = putting data in a different place = moving data. It's still the same data, regardless of how it's stored.

If I make an intelligence in the likeness of my own it is artificial regardless of its model.

Humans are made by humans, and interacted with in ways that cause our minds to develop as deemed desirable. Do we have artificial intelligence? At that point I think that it is fair to say that the term is being used in a non-standard way. Much like calling the results of selective breeding, test tube babies, or even genetically engineered organisms "artificial life". It's generally understood that "artificial", in this context, means that something has been created from scratch, as it were; using pre-existing stuff of the type that you're purportedly "creating" doesn't count just because you use it in a new way. It's kind of like plagiarism.

A bot trained to act like you may have artificial intelligence, but an emulation of your brain doesn't. The emulation being done by something artificial doesn't make the intelligence artificial. On a sufficiently high level of abstraction, the relevant processes — the intelligent ones, in this case — are the same ones as occurred in the brain. That's what makes it an emulation! Implementing those processes differently isn't the same thing as coming up with them yourself.

For comparison: No matter how good the photography is, I don't consider a picture of a butterfly to be artificial beauty. The photograph, rather, captures the butterfly's natural beauty. However masterfully done, reproducing an image is not the same thing as coming up with the image on your own. Don't get me wrong: Cameras are very impressive technology! But neither inventing the camera nor using it to take pictures creates beauty.

I edited this post to change references to "being artificially intelligent" to references to "having artificial intelligence" because the latter is what I mean, and in a way what I'm getting at is the distinction between the two. Sure, a robot that emulates your brain technically is artificially intelligent in that its intelligence was put into it artificially, but so is a robot that contains your brain itself! Replacing the hardware doesn't make the software your invention, nor does running the software on a simulated machine. The simulated machine software may be your original work, but that doesn't mean that the imported software is! That's not even just like claiming a translation as your original work, that's like claiming that an auto-generated translation is your original work because you wrote the translator program! Is it even your own plagiarism at that point?

[Kato]

Well, things that can follow orders can at least understand language, which is pretty smart.

Well, so can computers, but I am still hesitant to call Siri, Alexa, etc (true) AIs. Of course à golem is usually more capable but still.

[Scarlet Knight]

I believe a cyborg also has the feature that his artificial parts enhance him.

I don't recall anyone calling a pirate with a wooden leg, wooden eye, and hook for a hand a cyborg even if it was state of the art tech of it's day.

[Fyraltari]

Huh? Copying data = putting data in a different place = moving data. It's still the same data, regardless of how it's stored.

The difference I make between copying someone's mind into a computer and moving someone's mind into a computer is wether you end up with two individuals or one.*

Humans are made by humans, and interacted with in ways that cause our minds to develop as deemed desirable. Do we have artificial intelligence?

No because no-one designed any given human's personnality.

At that point I think that it is fair to say that the term is being used in a non-standard way. Much like calling the results of selective breeding, test tube babies, or even genetically engineered organisms "artificial life".

That's correct though.

It's generally understood that "artificial", in this context, means that something has been created from scratch, as it were; using pre-existing stuff of the type that you're purportedly "creating" doesn't count just because you use it in a new way. It's kind of like plagiarism.

Then nothing is artficial because it is impossible to create something from scratch. Everything humans create is "plagiarism" in one way or another.

A bot trained to act like you may have artificial intelligence, but an emulation of your brain doesn't. The emulation being done by something artificial doesn't make the intelligence artificial. On a sufficiently high level of abstraction, the relevant processes — the intelligent ones, in this case — are the same ones as occurred in the brain. That's what makes it an emulation! Implementing those processes differently isn't the same thing as coming up with them yourself.

Of course it makes the intelligence artificial. What makes something artificial is the creating process (i.e. it was made by humans), not the nature. If I take a rock and sculpt it so that it looks exactly like the rock next to it, I have two identical rocks, one natural and one artificial.

For comparison: No matter how good the photography is, I don't consider a picture of a butterfly to be artificial beauty. The photograph, rather, captures the butterfly's natural beauty. However masterfully done, reproducing an image is not the same thing as coming up with the image on your own. Don't get me wrong: Cameras are very impressive technology! But neither inventing the camera nor using it to take pictures creates beauty.

Pretty much every photographer I know would disgaree with you. There is much more to photography than just snapping a picture.

I edited this post to change references to "being artificially intelligent" to references to "having artificial intelligence" because the latter is what I mean, and in a way what I'm getting at is the distinction between the two. Sure, a robot that emulates your brain technically is artificially intelligent in that its intelligence was put into it artificially, but so is a robot that contains your brain itself!

Not it isn't. In the first case I had to built a code that would imitate my own congition while in the second I'm just using my own untouched cognition while replacing the tools it interacts with.

Replacing the hardware doesn't make the software your invention, nor does running the software on a simulated machine. The simulated machine software may be your original work, but that doesn't mean
that the imported software is!

When it comes to brains you cannot separate software from hardware, because the "code" is in the agencement of the neurons themselves. A computer can run two different softwares but a brain cannot run two different minds because the mind is the brain. To emulate my consciusness on a machine I need to come up with a completely different system that produces the same result.

*Edit: I realize that doesn't jive well with the rest of my post but I did say that:

the line really doesn’t matter at that point.

[Barastur]

Cyborg= Human with machine parts. He's not entirely human since he's part machine. So technicality he's BOTH human and machine.

Android= Machine with the shape of a human.

So it's possible for a Cyborg to be an Android.

[Devils_Advocate]

Well, so can computers, but I am still hesitant to call Siri, Alexa, etc (true) AIs. Of course à golem is usually more capable but still.

Well, heck, I'm hesitant to say that humans have true intelligence! It strikes me as more likely that we have more of a bunch of specialized modules than truly general intelligence per se. Maybe one day we'll be able to make true intelligence, though, and it'll be able to clue us in on some of the things that are obvious when you have general intelligence instead of an extra fancy ape brain. Here's hoping!

The difference I make between copying someone's mind into a computer and moving someone's mind into a computer is wether you end up with two individuals or one.

So copied data is only "moved" if it's deleted in its previous location? I'll grant that saying "move" instead of "copy" connotes that, but I dunno if it really denotes it. Regardless, it's not like deleting the original changes the copy. Well, it might affect some abstract qualities like "uniqueness", but not artificiality... right? So was that just semantic nitpicking? (I have nothing against semantic nitpicking; I just want to be clear on this.)

No because no-one designed any given human's personnality.

So sticking a pre-existing human personality in a computer instead of designing a new one doesn't create artificial intelligence either!

That's correct though.

What's correct? That all of those are artificial life? Maybe in a very technical sense, but my point was that "artificial" has a more specific connotation in this context. (See, I can do it too!)

Then nothing is artficial because it is impossible to create something from scratch. Everything humans create is "plagiarism" in one way or another.

Merely modifying pre-existing stuff of the type that you're purportedly creating doesn't count as creating that type of thing in the relevant sense. Designing a new wheel when you already know of wheels is not the same thing as inventing the wheel, for example. Do you seriously dispute that that's a legitimate distinction?

Of course it makes the intelligence artificial. What makes something artificial is the creating process (i.e. it was made by humans), not the nature. If I take a rock and sculpt it so that it looks exactly like the rock next to it, I have two identical rocks, one natural and one artificial.

If you sculpt one rock into the shape of another, natural rock, the sculpted rock still has a natural shape. We know that the shape is natural because the natural rock has it. The sculpted rock may itself be artificial, and it may artificially be of or have its shape, but the shape itself is natural. See the distinction I'm making?

There is much more to photography than just snapping a picture.

Well, if someone arranges the things being photographed, that's different. But if you just happen upon a scene in the wild and take a photo, then you're just capturing a natural image. Cameras don't create new images, they just reproduce the ones that they're pointed towards. That's what they do. That's what they're for.

Not it isn't. In the first case I had to built a code that would imitate my own congition while in the second I'm just using my own untouched cognition while replacing the tools it interacts with.

I'm not sure whether you're moving the goalposts or not. Someone with sufficient knowledge of your mannerisms might be able to imitate you well enough, but if a mind is copied, its cognition is transferred, not just faked. At least that's certainly what I take that to mean!

When it comes to brains you cannot separate software from hardware, because the "code" is in the agencement of the neurons themselves. A computer can run two different softwares but a brain cannot run two different minds because the mind is the brain.

But a brain simulator could simulate two different brains.

To emulate my consciusness on a machine I need to come up with a completely different system that produces the same result.

I assume that the system one needs to come up with does something like run highly detailed simulations of brains based on highly detailed scans of brains. I can only assume that it would be much, much more difficult to come up with something that would only work for your personal brain.

Again, I'm not talking about something just imitating your surface behavior enough to fool someone. That's why I said "A bot trained to act like you may have artificial intelligence, but an emulation of your brain doesn't."

Obviously no copy is perfect. But I'm not talking about perfect copies. I'm talking about preserving the information that we care about. Doing that by definition precludes substituting something else that you made up for that information. Translating a book into another language, for example, results in something much more different from the original than a photocopy. Now, there may be many ways to translate a given work. There may be an art to it. But at the same time, there is an important sense in which the translation is not your ORIGINAL CONTENT DO NOT STEAL. And that's the point! If you just wrote a similar story on your own, it wouldn't be a translation!

Just as the point of a translation is to not be an original work, and the point of photographs is that cameras don't produce original images, the point of copying a natural mind is for the artificially implemented mind to not itself be artificial. You might be able to fool some people into thinking that something is a translation, or a photograph, or an uploaded mind even though it isn't, of course.

[Peelee]

Well, heck, I'm hesitant to say that humans have true intelligence! It strikes me as more likely that we have more of a bunch of specialized modules than truly general intelligence per se. Maybe one day we'll be able to make true intelligence, though, and it'll be able to clue us in on some of the things that are obvious when you have general intelligence instead of an extra fancy ape brain. Here's hoping!

Define "true" intelligence.

[Devils_Advocate]

Come now, Peelee, surely speaking of them interchangeably clearly implies that by "true intelligence" I mean general intelligence, i.e. intelligence applicable to more than a limited selection of specialized tasks. I shouldn't have to spell it out.

But then, perhaps I should be more careful not to overestimate the inferential abilities of human beings, lacking as we do true intelligence. :P

[Peelee]

Come now, Peelee, surely speaking of them interchangeably clearly implies that by "true intelligence" I mean general intelligence, i.e. intelligence applicable to more than a limited selection of specialized tasks. I shouldn't have to spell it out.

But then, perhaps I should be more careful not to overestimate the inferential abilities of human beings, lacking as we do true intelligence. :P

We went from sticks and stones to talking to walking on the moon to talking to each other through boxes of sand with lightning running through them as we travel on constant explosions.

Youll forgive me if I dismiss the idea of "untrue" intelligence.

[Kato]

Well, there are definitely some humans lacking any intelligence...
But seriously, of course there is a blurry line, but as far as I am concerned human intelligence is the definition of true intelligence. Of course some are smarter than others and no doubt there could exist something even far more capable than the best human, but being about as capable as a human is still the benchmark for real intelligence (to me).
If I was to get philosophical I might list something like being self aware as a defining trait, but that is also a kind of arbitrary goal post.

[Devils_Advocate]

But machines can already outperform humans at specific mental tasks.

Of course, one expects intelligence to ultimately reduce to less intelligent components. At an extremely low scale, none of our individual neurons is intelligent on its own. So there's no contradiction in saying that a single entity with lots of specialized abilities is more intelligent than any entity with only one of them. Still, on its own, having multiple specialties is only broader capability, not deeper.

But that's if the specialized abilities remain independent of each other! The real trick is feeding the outputs of various modules into each other. By doing that, one can allow them to collectively accomplish not only more but also more sophisticated tasks than they could accomplish separately.

Even so, it seems plausible to me that one could give a machine the ability to have conversations, recognize patterns, make predictions, and accomplish countless other specific tasks... and yet it would still lack a general problem-solving aptitude that can't be produced by combining more specific abilities in the right way. Not that the process of general intelligence wouldn't still consist of subtasks; I just think that at least one of those subtasks might be something particular to general intelligence, rather than something useful outside of it like e.g. arithmetic.

If such general problem-solving capability is indeed possible and distinct from specialized capabilities, then it seems fair to me to say that something without that general intelligence lacks true intelligence. So... if it is possible, and humans don't have general intelligence, then it seems fair to me to say that we lack true intelligence.

It's also plausible to me that no such thing as a generic problem-solving process is possible, and that a hyper-advanced superintelligent mind would consider the very concept to be inherently confused. I'm not sure what we can conclude in that case. Perhaps that I lack true intelligence. :P

[Avilan the Grey]

Not sure if I missed it, but there is another category:

Android is... a little iffy. There is a line balancing there, because "Purely mechanical" does not properly describe it because that is a robot. An android is... different.
Also he or she is very very close to the category missing:
The Synth. The living (not frankenstein), fully alive, fleshy but artificial human.

[Jay R]

You are trying to form a partition (perfect division of terms that cover all categories without overlap) with words that aren't defined to do so.

"Android" means "man-like". From the original definition, only creations that look like humans would qualify; a metallic robot would not. But later, it came to mean 'man-shaped. By that definition, C-3PO is an android, but R2-D2 is not. But Star Wars is fantasy, not science fiction, and wasn't careful with terms. [A parsec is also a unit of distance, not time.] So "droid" now means what "android" never did.

"Cyborg" is short for "cybernetic-organic". It refers to a creature with some parts of each. Theoretically, anybody with a pace-maker could be called a cyborg. A prosthesis with no cybernetic component, like a wooden leg, would not qualify.

"Frankenstein", of course, comes from the book, and can be generalized however the speaker chooses. Near as I can tell, it usually means a human-created flesh-based monstrosity.

A man-like creature of flesh and cybernetics is both a cyborg and an android. How it is treated in the story would determine if it is a frankenstein.

[And by the way, Victor Frankenstein is not the creature made from corpses, but it's clear that he is the true monster.]

[Lazloki]

I'm finding this thread interesting as I've been running a game that's largely based on the Frankenstein novels by Dean Koontz. I've also incorporated tech from the novels of Larry Niven and even more advanced tech used in another campaign. In Niven's case I mainly expanded on his Auto Doc, and have referenced stasis fields.

Frankenstein's Monster or as Dean Koontz named him Deucalion is complicated. The neck bolt and green skin version is more a movie adaptation, that's absent from Shelley or Koontz's books. I think depending on the story he could either be regarded as a Golem, or simply as Human. Biologically speaking if the flesh is living then the creature is human with 100% donor organs. The only things really setting him apart are the two hearts, the inordinate strength, and his appearance. Side effects of the lightning that animated him seem to be more mystical than technological.

Mary Shelley's novel doesn't go into the science. It's very much vague and glossed over. I haven't read the entire book, but I did read excerpts to see how much liberty Koontz took.

Koontz's books, set in modern day after Victor Frankenstein has survived two centuries via scientific means introduces new creatures. Mainly near-human replicants grown in cloning vats which Victor dubs the 'New Race'. The New Race are stronger, have two hearts, armoured skulls, and other biological superiority. However they are also genetically and mentally flawed in rather extreme ways. I don't know what category they'd fall under. Victor also has other creations notably New Race brains used as computers, and a short lived chameleon creature designed to brutally exterminate people before dying off.

My game adds in technology allowing for printing people in precise detail. The players have this as a means of respawning in the event of catastrophic death. Using a backup system called 'Snapshot' which scans them on the molecular level into a quantum computer. Victor was experimenting with similar technology attempting to reduce his cloning system from three months down to hours. This moves beyond cloning into full duplication. In the event of a full Snapshot recall being required there are moral questions regarding are they the same person, and if you believe in souls does the new body have one? Also there are npc's that have duplicated themselves while still alive.

Part of Snapshot involved medical nanites that suspend putrification if someone is injured to the point of death. Would something technological in the blood be enough to qualify someone as a cyborg? Even setting that aside by broad definition two of the players are cyborgs, but by narrow definition they probably class more as superhuman. Both have nanotech enhancements, but none of it is required to function. One of them has engineering nanites that allow an exosuit armour, and other externalised tech. The other has soldier nanites that allow advanced regeneration, subdermal armour, and an electrifying punch.

[Jay R]

There is one distinction we've hinted at, but not mentioned directly.

A frankenstein is new life brought to something made out of dead flesh.

A cyborg is a living person who has been enhanced with cybernetics.

An android isn't life at all. The word means "man-like", but it's a machine, not an organism.

[JNAProductions]

There is one distinction we've hinted at, but not mentioned directly.

A frankenstein is new life brought to something made out of dead flesh.

A cyborg is a living person who has been enhanced with cybernetics.

An android isn't life at all. The word means "man-like", but it's a machine, not an organism.

Okay. I know that Androids 17 and 18 are technically Cyborgs.

But what does that make 16? He's purely mechanical, but he's got the... Mind? Soul? of Gero's son. Would he be an android actually?

[Fyraltari]

Okay. I know that Androids 17 and 18 are technically Cyborgs.

But what does that make 16? He's purely mechanical, but he's got the... Mind? Soul? of Gero's son. Would he be an android actually?

I don't know anything about Dragon Ball* so have two answers:

A) If the soul is in-universe a verifiable thing that can exist independently of the body (or at least be moved from one body to another) and this android houses somebody's soul then that would make them a cyborg (in the same sense that brain-in-a-jar types of robots are cyborgs).

B) If not, then they are an android made in the likeness of a (I'm guessing) human person (I suppose with their memories). Which makes them both human (from every standpoint except biological) and android.

*That's what you are talking about, right?

[JNAProductions]

I don't know anything about Dragon Ball* so have two answers:

A) If the soul is in-universe a verifiable thing that can exist independently of the body (or at least be moved from one body to another) and this android houses somebody's soul then that would make them a cyborg (in the same sense that brain-in-a-jar types of robots are cyborgs).

B) If not, then they are an android made in the likeness of a (I'm guessing) human person (I suppose with their memories). Which makes them both human (from every standpoint except biological) and android.

*That's what you are talking about, right?

Z, not the original, but yeah.

A is true-people have souls. But we don't know if 16 has Gero's son's soul. I'd lean towards B, I guess?