90 Vol 2. pt. 27 Patch 5.0: Downtime, Plots, and Upgrades (2/2)
”I wish there was more I could do, Saya. I know the most effective thing to do would probably be to just boycott the game, but—”
”Then I wouldn't get to spend time with you, silly Onii-chan!” she says, her voice back to sounding like its usual cheery self. ”Go relax now, silly.”
”I'll try to, thanks.”
The sight of Saya is replaced by the sight of his ceiling fan.
”You brat. You know exactly how I'm feeling. How am I supposed to relax?” Ryouta says to himself.
Only three of Morven's crew were saved. The rest died. How many other NPCs died during that? How many lives – how many sentient, thinking, and feeling lives were just shut off or repurposed because some asshole players decided to kill them?
Ryouta slowly gets out of bed and heads over to his desktop.
He types ”do artificial intelligences feel emotion” into the search bar. Immediately, hundreds of pages worth of results – or rather, heated debates, pop up.
The top result is a link to a government website dedicated to clarifying rumors and misinformation regarding technology.
He clicks it and skims the page. The answer to his question is written in legalese and a bit too complicated for him to try reading in its entirety without getting a headache, but he understands enough of it to get their point. Officially, the government states that artificial intelligences are incapable of feeling emotion. They state that artificial intelligences more or less ”pretend” to have emotions in order for humans to relate better to them in cases where humans were closely working with them. Supposedly, artificial intelligences have no issue with being permanently shut off as they are not alive, nor do they even truly understand the concept of being alive.
It then goes on to compare how some groups of people pushing for artificial intelligence rights are similar to the types of people who push human emotions onto animals such as dogs. Just because a dog looks like it is smiling does not mean that it is happy. However, because humans smile to express joy, they assume that the same is applied to animals. So, according to this article, some humans assume that artificial intelligences have true feelings and dreams despite it all just being simulated via programming.
The article closes with a joke saying that to treat artificial intelligences as human is to treat a toaster as human.
It's about what he expected. He knows that this is how the majority of the world feels. No matter how realistic artificial intelligences may be, they are treated as disposable toys at best.
The first three pages of results are all education and government institutions saying the same thing. Artificial intelligences do not possess real emotion, dreams, goals, lives – nothing. They are only ”alive” in the same sense that the browser he is reading the results on is ”alive.” When he finally does reach a website supporting his own viewpoint, it's some random person's blog that looks like it was abandoned a couple of years ago and the comment section is filled with people calling the blogger stupid or misinformed.
The next result is a website that looks like the recruitment page for a cult of people whom worship artificial intelligences and wish to become them.
Needless to say, he closes out of that result, walks back over to his bed, and flops face-first down onto it.
”Maybe I am just overreacting,” his muffled voice says into his bedsheets.
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Between his desire to save Nell and the other girls, and his belief of NPCs having real lives and deserving to be treated as such, he's finding that Fantasy Tales Online is doing the exact opposite of what he wanted it to do. He just wanted to play the hot new game and do relaxing fishing stuff in it. Instead, he finds himself trying to play the hero going against one of the game's most powerful leaders while having an internal and philosophical struggle regarding artificial intelligences.
”Definitely wasn't expecting this,” he mumbles.
Ryouta spends the next hour or so just moping on his bed, occasionally rolling around and punching his pillows, and groaning.
It's only when he hears knocking on his door in the other room that he lets out a Cassiel-tier squeak of surprise and gets off of his bed.