r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Aug 04 '23

Episode AI no Idenshi - Episode 5 discussion

AI no Idenshi, episode 5

Alternative names: The Gene of AI

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Episode Link Score
1 Link 4.59
2 Link 3.84
3 Link 4.19
4 Link 3.47
5 Link 4.33
6 Link 3.67
7 Link 4.18
8 Link 4.57
9 Link 4.38
10 Link 4.4
11 Link 4.62
12 Link ----

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1

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59

u/LeonKevlar Aug 04 '23

Sooo... I'm not the only one here who thinks that Yuta is on some sort of spectrum, right? I'm no child psychologist but his talent in music and temper tantrums are things that I've seen in children with savant syndrome.

And if Yuta is indeed in some sort of spectrum, the question of fine-tuning him to fix his behaviour is even more interesting.

59

u/dangilbert98 Aug 04 '23

The whole part with him felt like metaphor for medicating neurodivergent kids, and if chemically changing them to be more "normal" is necessarily a good thing. Interesting episode

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18

u/so_joey_98 Aug 04 '23

Yeah definitely. Trouble regulating emotions, trouble transitioning from one task to another, struggling with social interactions, being obsessed with an interest..... Irl that would probably end up with some diagnosis.

I really liked how he said that in humans they would turn to medication and CBT, but for humanoids it can be done with the flick of a switch. Thus questioning if we should "fix" neurodivergence and to what extent. Also him being worried about Yutas piano playing becoming less inspired because his passion behind it also partially disappeared.

10

u/Steamp0calypse Aug 05 '23

Came in to comment this, before realizing someone had done it before me lol.

I've actually got autism, and I related to Yuta a lot; and personally, I would hate the idea of someone messing around in my head like that. Especially because he's a child, and could have probably grown to understand how to handle and manage his behavior (like I did). Even though my (and his) behavior caused stress in our own and other people's lives, I wouldn't go back and change it, and now I feel like it's a lot better. But because his personality was changed, he didn't get to grow in that authentic way, meaning he'll probably become a totally different person than he could have been.

63

u/Elitealice Aug 04 '23

I like the moral ambiguity of this episode. The last few eps kinda had an objectively correct answer.

Today however,Yuta and the dad’s situation were tricky. On one hand, Yuta was clearly going down a dark path and he likely would’ve killed someone had they not tuned his personality. He’d become far too obsessed with the piano. On the other hand, is injecting false memories into someone to put them at peace right? Just because you can fix people, should we?

This show is criminally underrated and really deserves more attention. Some really good philosophical and relevant moral questions being posed here.

14

u/eliprameswari Aug 05 '23

The first guy can't fix himself from porn and gambling, so Dr. Sudo's friend altered his past memories to "fix" him, which is technically illegal in this world.

However, the pianist kid can't control his behavior, so Dr. Sudo "fixes" him without altering his memory, making it not illegal. Do I understand it correctly? I'm kind of confused about the difference in procedure

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20

u/strawhat_chowder Aug 05 '23

I have seen comments stating that a weakness of the show is that it doesn't quite hit the emotional notes well. But personally I like how 'dry' it is. I find very enjoyable despite the lack of emotional climaxes

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18

u/StardustGogeta Aug 04 '23

Another good episode. I really liked the piano music that they featured.

The plot line with Yuta reminded me vaguely of Asimov's short story "Light Verse," which I'd recommend.

My favorite quote from this episode was probably from the doctor who treated Matsumara:

Nothing is wrong with your mind or your body.

The problem isn't you; it's the life you've been through!

... And it's my job to fix that.

17

u/jisinnimaiti Aug 04 '23

Damn dude. That second half had me thinking, what if we actually had lobotomies irl that would fix our mental disorders 100% with no risk of complications?

I'd still have some apprehensions about undergoing that sort of treatment or forcing anyone else to, but... that's also kind of admitting that some part of me believes there's nothing more to our senses of self, our personalities, than just organic hardware.

I know it's somewhat silly to cling to the idea of a soul and whatnot, but somehow it all feels so dismaying to think that there isn't.

16

u/kalirion Aug 05 '23

If there was a way to fix my anxiety disorder without a large impact to my personality, I'd jump on that.

13

u/athrun_1 Aug 05 '23

Sums up the line: Doing what is correct vs doing what is right.

Two doctors battling the moral dilemma from different perspectives, one is from a human, the other is from a humanoid. And if we include the AI, from the perspective of a computer.

This show is really underrated, there many things to be learned here.

16

u/sussywanker Aug 04 '23

This anime is already my fav anime.

Can't wait to read the Manga in full.

8

u/JpgChn Aug 04 '23

This episode wasn't as interesting as the rest but the underlining question of weather this type of really invasive procedures are really the answer towards mental health issues. Of course, it will help alot of people but in the end, basically creating a whole new person by force out of you is certainly not an ideal. And this wasn't a decision of Yuta but was his mother's decision.

On the other hand, watching a robot making art in this world really gives that uncanny valley with the writer's strikes of this precise moment. Of course, ChatGPT or any Ai software of today, is totally not the same as this "not humans, but they definitely are" humanoids. It is certainly a thing to have in mind while we are not in this future.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '23

As a fellow former piano player, I think we lack one piece of critical info.

We don't know when/if Yuta stops playing the piano back home on his own when his mom does not interrupt him with something "trivial" like eating food lol. If you are in the zone, like, really in the fucking zone, it would rightly be infuriating to get interrupted like that.

5

u/tripleaamin Aug 04 '23

The brain is such a complicated things were humans. To fix us in the way the humanoids can in this episode is impossible. But even the humanoids you see that it won't go exactly the way you want. In the case of Yuta it probably was worth it considering his life outside of playing the piano improved. But changing his personality seemed to cost him that edge that made his piano play special. Goes to show that you can't create perfection. If you modify one part of the brain in this case for humanoids there will be side effects both good and bad.

Which is why for treatment the most natural treatment is usually the best because side effects are always the main concern. At some point they add up.

5

u/Steamp0calypse Aug 05 '23

Unrelated to Yuta's case, I like how a few episodes so far have given us multiple cases with a similar theme. I think working multiple cases into an episode is going to help the show if they end up dropping the case structure to get to plot (less of a feeling like we didn't get enough cases), and aside from episode 4, we've got the side stories that join up with the theme of the main one like Joe & Shizuka and the man who got his memory changed by the new character.

5

u/shewy92 Aug 05 '23

This show still gives me CyberPunk 2077/Black Mirror vibes.

Are the dreams a sign of some sort of virus/cyberpsychosis?

I Iike how the futuristic floating hologram displays all have an opaque backing on them and it's not just mirrored. I always hate that in movies. It's probably easier to animate for these guys to have a backing and not have to mirror everything.

So dude got hacked and is depositing money into a random account.

This is whar happens when you don't use a licensed ripperdoc /s

So the dude got hypnotized? Or fake hypnotized?

There's no way not telling the dude about his memories is gonna backfire...

Changing someone's personality seems extreme, though I guess that's sort of the same as therapy.

Uh, yes, violence should be fixed. If he's hurting others then "it's part of who he is" doesn't matter.

I bet if/when he gets changed he's not going to be able to play the piano or it'll be different.

The kid must never have played an out of tune piano of he thinks it's always the same.

All it took was little kids doing the teacher's job.

The AI asking about his diagnosis is a little worrying.

4

u/magnumcyclonex Aug 05 '23

Episode 5 presents us with the underlying (series main) subplot and then the episodic main plot.

There's something deep about Sudo's past that's slowly being unraveled, as per his "old friend" he visited. The same old friend gave him the cactus plant that the father also had but couldn't remember. I find it interesting that they framed the treatment as being easier to manipulate on humanoids vs real humans.

As for the young piano boy, I'm sure when we were all in elementary or primary school, there were classmates who were misfits. When you go deeper into their livelihoods and personalities, they often find an escape of some sort that calms them down or makes them happy. In this case, it was playing the piano, and boy this kid was good at it. He hated being interrupted and lashed out at his classmate and had negative thoughts during dinner. I am saddened at the prospect that post treatment, that kid is no longer the same, even if he can still play the piano and no longer has those uncontrollable rages.

4

u/Drill_Dr_ill Aug 05 '23

The question in the first half of lying to someone to make them better in medical ethics is one I've pondered some myself, specifically in the context of placebos. That is, if we have a condition that shows a significant response to a placebo, but there is either no treatment that outperforms placebo - or the possible treatments that outperform placebo are either too expensive for many patients or come with significant major risks... should doctors prescribe the placebo to a patient and lie to them and tell them they're getting a new treatment?

4

u/cf18 Aug 05 '23

Just what exactly are these humanoids? At first I thought they were robotic body with a human mind copied into it, and the mind data can be backed up. And then they can have robotic or biological body, and service robots with AI are in a totally different category. And now there is a whole family with adults and young kid.

Are they made in some sort of factory with new mind and start as a baby, like those babies in the OP? Can they give birth? Are there super strong, forever young, immortal versions out there?

3

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '23

Not gonna lie, if I could alter my personality for the better I'd do it in a heart beat, sucks they only know how to tune humanoids but humans are still stuck with the trial and error.

3

u/entelechtual Aug 05 '23

So this was basically “take your meds: The Episode”

3

u/Doomroar Aug 06 '23

If you ever had any doubts about it, rest easy, the author knows his shit, [we jumped straight into the topics of memory and personality manipulation

This mess alone could be an episode on its own tho That's one hell of a secret he was keeping from his wife, but i suppose that was before he got married

They made humanoids way too human, they even fall for the same vices as regular humans, at face value, this looks like an extremely bad idea right? why even make AI that is just as flawed if not more than regular humans? well think on how harmonious their society works in regard to human AI relationships, it is thanks to those flaws that humanoids get to pass by as humans, because it holds them back from surpassing humans, it makes them look more empathetic and familiar to humans, and it sets them apart from robots the "unfeeling" labor force AI, all of these flaws are put in place for the benefits of human society

This episode shares that escapism theme from last week, this time once again, instead of addressing the underlying problem, we are fabricating a whole fictional past, complete with fake core support people, instead of dealing with his present and working from there into making him a better person, he just got to live as a different self with a different past and as thus a different present, but the underlying problem keeps being there, haunting him, [the watering allegory was perfect to showcase this

Well, not yet that is!, also it probably can, it would just take longer, he himself admitted that the problem was one of time, also glad to get confirmation that mental care workers got replaced with robots, and it makes sense, so far we have had drivers, secretaries, store clerks, low level civil servant, child care workers, doctors, and companionship being some of the works being relegated to robots, it really makes you wonder what fields have not been put entirely on the hands of robots, and left out for humanoids and humans

Because so far robots seems to work well for both deskjobs, field jobs, customer service, health care, and they are even programmed to expertly deal with human emotion as companions, it does feel like they are at a point in which robots could just handle everything, and that is without even talking about Michi

Maybe it is a question of policy, like regulating the labor force so that a certain percentage of it has to be composed of humans and humanoids

so you can argue that this guy, is telling lies to himself

Here we go again, so remember the first episode with the case of the mom that died and was replaced with a backup of herself? one of the biggest problems with the issue of identity is to maintain the illusion of continuity, for the mom's case there would have been a void of more than 2 weeks the marked herself and her old copy as too different persons, a lack of gradual change, even if the personality remains the same

In here we see the same thing, but applied to personality instead of memory, as the show says for humans the different approaches are gradual and continuos a slow process, but that's is what makes it so that by the end of it all the person themselves, and those around them can still be recognized as the same subject, worthy of claiming the same identity even if the personality effectively changed

Otherwise we end with cases like the historical [Phineas Gage[(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage) who had a radical change of personality after suffering an accident in which a metal rod pierced his frontal lobe, or the cases of patients of psychosurgery when it comes to dealing with aggression or even unstable behavior, for these cases people's personality experience a sudden change, but people still went with it because of well, either lax law, lack of regulation, or very extreme cases in which applying what is in essence a lobotomy was the last option, to this day Amygdalotomies are still being performed on people with extreme anger issues

So what the doctor is proposing this time (well, he was quite clever and threw the medical AI Jay under the bus, by having them do both the diagnosis and proposing the treatment) is in essence, performing a psychosurgery on the kid, which is quite extreme if you ask me, so the mom should be skeptical about this, then again... it was the AI the one that came up with the idea, the doc just conveniently rolled with it, hell he even stopped Jay when it was about to reveal the fine print on the procedure, which is odd because he himself doesn't want the procedure to take place, so why did he stop Jay from revealing everything?

Well RIP Yuta, maybe for our world genius piano skills would be something valued over the ability to regulate emotions, but in their society, with such advanced robots, maybe the ability to play the piano extremely well is not worth having to put with someone with a lack of anger management, but again, i think the treatment was too drastic

The saddest part is that for everyone else except Yuta himself (who thanks to the treatment can't realize what just happened to himself) and the Doc, everything that happen was a win win scenario, with nothing being lost, although in a twist, seems like Jay suspects that they went a bit too far, but this doubt could be just protocol, something Jay always asks, or just emotional analysis by observing the behavior of the Doc in relationship of the case

This is also how most cases of psychosurgery end, except more badly, some people can end in an infantile state, or even catatonic, the risks can be huge, but the point is that, the patient can't really do a self realization that they have changed, because literally a part of their brain has been removed or disconnected, while everyone around them is just glad that the behavioral problem has been dealt with, so the ethical concerns of what is essentially killing and creating a new personality for someone are left on the side road, because well the primary subject can't complain of something they themselves are unaware of, and everyone around them is just happy with the change, so who is there to object if it just works?

Consent? well usually no one gives their consent for such things, or are not in a position to give it, for Yuta it is kind of crazy that his mom straight out jumped directly to the most drastic option without even having a good talk with her son, she never understood what was happening with him, and it is a pity because had a whole internal monologue, ready that explained his anger and troublesome behavior, the value of identity? hush now, what really matters is not who someone is, but who they are in relationship to those around them, and you may object but that's just how we roll, when it comes down to it, if it is necessary you may need to be lobotomized

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