One of the major concepts explored in the field of artificial intelligence is the divide between humans and robots in their abilities to think and understand. This problem forms the basis of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Measure of a Man,” which depicts a trial aiming to determine whether the android Data is the property of Starfleet - and by extension, whether he is sentient. A major objection brought up by Commander Maddox, the antagonist of the episode, was that Picard was “endowing Data with human characteristics” rather than appreciating him solely as a “machine.” (Snodgrass & Scheerer, 1989) This phenomenon seems to be fairly common in our interactions with nonhuman entities such as animals and robots, even when we are well
The simple fact that Data is humanoid in appearance would almost certainly facilitate a connection between him and the humans in the Enterprise crew - from an evolutionary standpoint, humans have the tendency to pick up on certain features and behaviors that other humans have. In his book Kinds of Minds, the cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett (1996) describes his real-world interactions with a robot named Cog, stating that “Cog cannot yet see or hear or feel at all, but its bodily parts can already move in unnervingly humanoid ways,” such as tracking the movements of people around it with its “eyes” (p. 16) He points out that this robot’s design is so similar to that of a human being that it may become the first conscious robot. Unlike Cog, however, Data is clearly able to experience and respond to sensory input, which appears to establish an even stronger connection between him and his fellow crew members, to the point where they consider him a
It is important to remember that Star Trek occurs in a fictional and futuristic setting, and therefore a robot of Data’s caliber is not necessarily achievable yet. However, the fact that the question of Data’s sentience features so prominently in the episode does indicate that the concepts of “minds” and “understanding” will likely be disputed well into the future, and more so as technology continues to