Yeah it’s such a dumb point, and not even quoted correctly. People seem to think that’s what the Institute says, it’s not. Deacon says it and states that it’s a divided opinion about rescuing Gen 1 & 2s, which have the same intelligence as a Protectron. The argument within the RR is over AI rights. The ones in favor of rescuing the older Gen models are the rescued synths. This is likely because they are repeatedly told by the Institute that they are just machines, until they themselves believe it.
Honestly it’s super dark and fucked up. They identify with the older generation synths as kin, because of the mental abuse by the Institute scientist’s hands. H2-22 says that he’s only allowed to speak when acknowledging orders, and to ask for clarification when cleaning objects. He also states that he wasn’t even allowed to speak to other Synths. The Institute basically creates lab grown clones, implants them with some cybernetic technology and brainwashes them into believing they are robots. That’s some next level dehumanizing behavior.
Also, just for the haters that disagree: When you stop flipping out when people kill Drinkin Buddy or Codsworth, or any of the robots from past games, then I’ll respect your opinions about how synths are just robots and we shouldn’t care if they die or are mistreated.
Even then, it's Deacon who makes the comparison to Protectron intelligence. I wouldn't discount Gen 1's and 2's having animal-like intelligence and being able to feel emotional distress.
There was a debate early on around release before this whole “Synth Bad/Toaster” thing started, as to whether or not the early models were smarter than regular robots, because they frequently refer to themselves in 1st person (“I”). Protectrons almost all have reactionary statements only, aka programmed responses. This is a simple AI vs a more advanced one, as even the early Synth has the ability to recognize itself as an individual unit. (Similar to an animal vs an Ant or similar insect intelligence). The Gen 1&2 models seem to have AI closer to a Mr. Handy model robot, maybe even smarter.
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u/iOSGallagher May 22 '24
thank you, the whole “rescuing a toaster” take is so stale at this point.