Recent talk of the film Avater (2009) has brought up an interesting moral question I've been tossing around for a while now. What are the moral implications of digital simulation games involving death? While video games have, in the past, been linked to youth violence--and vice versa--I am wondering about he morality of the games themselves.
As computer generated imagery becomes more and more lifelike, I wonder at what point it becomes immoral to kill it. How does destroying my opponent's civilization in Age of Empires (an excellent, if dated, computer real-time strategy game) compare to the sack of Rome in 492 A.D.?
As a History major I am sensitive to the fact that one one level even asking this question is an affront to the people who lived through that event, but still, the question nags. I also realize that Artificial Intelligence may be far from a reality, but intelligence is not necessary for basic rights. Animals, and even plants, are granted rights--or at least their life is has value, if only Utilitarian in nature--so why not the unreal?
I am far from believing we have to worry about simulating beings revolting against their masters dwelling in the land of reality, but I think the morality of simulation, in concept, bears further inquiry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That's a good point. An interesting sidenote to these excellent questions was the case of the internet hunting company in texas (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-r-0129.htm). For a price, you could have a first person hunting game on the computer that would actual remotely shoot and kill real live animals.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like at this point the characters in age of empires fall into the same category as a child's doll. Although it may be disturbing when a child mutilates a toy doll, it does not thereby have moral value. Of course, when the doll becomes a robot---an organic robot built from DNA computers---well then there's a conundrum.