Why do the robots behave like humans in this series?

Good grief.

It is not the show's fault that you can suspend your disbelief because you reject the theoretical premise upon which this show is built upon or because Atom isn't a singularity like you think he should be, the latter being a second person's complaint

There's no getting around the fact the theoretical premise is one of the major theories regarding where artificial intelligence will go in the future, a theory that has existed since Atom's character was first created, but that show seeks to answer the age old question in the artificial intelligence community of when will an artificial intelligence become a true artificial intelligence - aka, not a mere program, and Atom's creator outright points out that for it to become a true artificial intelligence it must be able to err in some shape or form, that they shouldn't act in a .logical manner when faced with negative emotions without having learned to process those negative emotions.

There's also no getting around the fact Astro is still the first to reach this status while the others are still evolving, but of the other seven outside the one that is the first one known to murder a human, their reason for evolving as an artificial intelligence, or at least making the progress towards becoming a true artificial intelligence like Astro was what they went through during the war, but there's also significance to the "adult" robots learning to process their negative emotions in a positive manner before Astro does as it mimics how a child learns to properly process their negative emotions from the adults around them, that Astro couldn't hit another phase in his development as a "child" robot with a child's mentality (aka, a child's brain) without having the "adult" robots in his life go through the process themself.

The show is actually very methodical at laying out certain messages such as how even animals will react in an illogical manner when faced with negative emotions. Of course, some of this might be lost on anybody who doesn't realize the events in Pluto are based on real world events that were major hot-topic issues at the time of publication. The work also draws upon the idea that even robots can suffer from PTSD, particularly the more true their AI is.

There aren't any humans in Nier Automata.

again this is a soft science fiction show and not hard science fiction

It can also refer to science fiction which prioritizes human emotions over the scientific accuracy or plausibility of hard science fiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction

so think of pseudoscience for this show rather than real current science

@deg that's what i was trying to say from the start.

@deg that's what i was trying to say from the start.

@nishant0 Soft science doesn't excuse for bad writings, which this show does have. While the overall writing is good, there are a lot of flaws with it.

And if the author wants to go against the norm for describing robots, then he should have written better human characters so that the viewers can compare between the two "races". A lot of his messages just come off as preachy, cartoonic or annoying due to the lack of difference between the portrayals of humans and robots.

For example, in the story with the robot cop husband and wife (ep 1), you see a mechanic just dumps the body of this dead robocop into the trash, even though the robots in the story already have rights and this particular robot cop has a wife, owns a home and has a human police partner. Why did his human partner just let him get dumped into the trash? Why didn't his robot wife ask for his body or any of his parts, even though she was shown to grieve and go into shock when she saw the last moment of his death, to the point Gesicht has to conform her? If she just imitates, why didn't she imitate all the way?

Moreover, because of this way of portrayal, a lot of human characters come off as just one-dimesional cartoonic jerks, in particular the mechanic in ep 1 and the junk trader that sold Gesicht his child. The author was like "See, robot racism, now show your empathy", that's very preachy and a very outdated style of story-telling, even in comparison to Pluto's contemporary.

@VMPL i think of it as a way of depiction that humans and robots can never be on the same footing because they are fundamentally different from each other. That mechanic was some old guy who probably thinks robots are nothing more than just as machine and the story shows only this part of humans majority of time, so i agree that most of humans are just one dimensional NPCs, but it give more impact to the author’s message, it’s a way of story telling. I wouldn’t call it’s outdated since manga started in 2003.

Duncan? The dude who wanted to forget his past because it hurt to much, but decided to accept it, and turn it into something good, mirroring the theme of nothing comes from hatred, and also how he is so obbsssed by what’s real and what’s not, that it prevents him from accepting his past, and it takes something that isn’t real, to actually move on.

And the docter? Who represents the belief that robots, or things that aren’t real, can still be important and meaningful. And that to live, and keep on living, despite all the hate in the world, and try to fix these things, is all we can do. And not to mention his guilt in biulding the robots for war, part of the reason why for example he fixed that dog

And all I’m gonna say is watch some japense wrestling matches u muppet.

@nishant0 It's an outdated way of story telling, you mean? And by outdated, I didn't mean the release day either.

Good story doesn't preach to you or at least it should keep the preaching to the minimum, it doesn't tell you what's right and what's wrong, it tells and lets you decide for yourself.

A good example is 86's 2nd part, while there is some cringy forced racism at first, the story uses Shinei as an unreliable narrator and later reveals that not everyone is racist towards him, it's just that he internalizes it and makes assumptions about people. Therefore, while the NPC characters are portrayed as 1-dimensional racists, the side characters are given enough depth that it overshadows the forced racism, making everything flow more naturally.

In Pluto, we have only 2 types of humans, with the exception of Dr. Tenma:
- Humans who consider robots humans => Good people
- Humans who don't consider robots humans => Bad people
So that's why it comes off to me as very preachy.

@VMPL I haven't seen 86 so I don't exactly get what you mean by that example, but it's not that simple as you are saying, if the story is on one sided good, it doesn't necessarily make it bad or inferior to any other story, it depends on the theme, generally the dilemma of which side is good or which one is bad arises in war or when there is a conflict, where in Pluto it's totally one sided discrimination coz that's what makes more sense in this type of story. Robots are programed not to kill people, but still some people think of them as potential danger because providing rights to robots and living alongside with humans is big change for human society and most of the time these type of political changes leads to oppression either by minority or majority.

What is wrong with you, OP. Are there laws banning the viewing of Blade Runner in your country?

Why do people act stupid? Because emotions cloud their logic circuits. Why do robots that are true artificial intelligence do stupid things? Because emotions cloud their logic circuits.

Yet, are we really talking about people and robots doing stupid things when you're calling out Brando for being stupid for prioritizing his families safety and choosing to solo in a fight he knew he couldn't avoid because Pluto was literally stalking them and waiting for them to be alone, without any of the other seven there to help them in their fights? And even if he hadn't figured that out, we're also talking a robot character with a strong believe in luck and that luck was always with him. And while you may deem this belief in luck as superstitious and stupid, this is still a part of who Brando is, part of the personality he developed for himself, but your effectively asking a character to go against their own personal beliefs which is in itself a form of logic. And his belief in luck may have at the end have been a way to cover for his own fear, because he could very well have realized gathering data on the enemy was better than them all engaging the enemy at once, with him being the first to engage the enemy and be able to gather intel.

As for Gesicht, there is no timeline conflict or teleportation on his part as the person he was watching and Brau are both located in the same area of Germany which is also Gesicht's home turf. He also explains his motivations for going and seeing Brau to the person he was supposed to protect, his fear of himself and becoming like Brau, but this was case where he was watching the brother of the man who killed his child and wasn't sure how he might act in the given situation.



I wouldn't say the discrimination is completely one-sided though, as we do have a small hand full of examples of it going the other way, such as the creepy teddy bear who wanted to make humans their slaves. Showing that other side more wouldn't have made sense given the story takes place in a period where robots are still fighting for their rights.



Ah, yes. Because in order for us to not to have noticed the flaws you claim are there, we must ourselves be looking at the show through rose-tinted glasses, despite the fact we've pointed out the things you're claiming are flaws aren't actually narrative flaws at all, but instead--

I'd love to say this was a "not-your-cup-of-tea" issue, but you did suggest that there is a timeline discrepancy when there wasn't one, that Gesicht literally teleported from Haas to Brau and back despite the narrative clearly establishing the two are in the same area while also establishing an hour passed while also ignoring the fact the person Gesicht was litterally watching the brother of the man who killed his child and decided to take a step back to sort out his feelings because he didn't want to do something drastic again. You also ignored the show, establishing Brando prioritizing the safety of his family as well as his belief in luck just because you think their actions are stupid despite there actually being logical reasons behind the decisions they made.

But then, your whole complaint has been that robots shouldn't act like humans, that they shouldn't be controlled by emotions like humans are, that they shouldn't form belief systems like humans do, that it is stupid for them to act based on emotions and beliefs despite the fact this is the proof they've evolved into being a true AI rather than just a computer program. You keep saying the things they do are stupid, yet the very things you're claiming were stupid, aren't. Brando after all prioritized the safety of his family, the need to gather information on the family while using his belief system to avoid the feeling of fear over taking him isn't stupid. Gesicht on the other hand decided to take a step back when he worried about how his emotions might effect his current assignment isn't stupid.

If you actually meant you went into this show watching it with rose-colored-glasses though, is it no wonder you missed things? Of course, I'm having a bit of trouble seeing that as what you meant given the fact we're talking a show that made quite clear from the first episode that the content wasn't all sunshine and roses.

@xdiesp Replicants were BIOengineered, they're not actually robots. They're more like SW clones with microchip in their head. And the replicants are definitely distinct from humans based on their behaviors.

@VMPL Meaningless, the connotation isn't even present in the novel and has no particular weigth in the movies. You have a weird headcanon derived from something, but science fiction has no such hard boundary. Pluto has other strong Philip Dick influences, like Total Recall's, and that's precisely the author that plays on moving across the divide between man and machine.

@xdiesp But do the replicants act differently compared to humans or not? From what i've seen, they do, especially the early models.