The Science of Conspiracy Theories

Chappie

Chappie

Chappie is a 2015 Science Fiction movie about the creation of a freethinking robot that is subsequently named Chappie. The Movie location is Johannesburg, South Africa, where crime is running rampant and the South African government purchases a squadron of armor-plated attack robots from a hypothetical weapons manufacturer. One of the robots suffers a destructive hit from a hand-held missile launcher and falls into the hands of a group of gangsters who force the guy who works for the arms manufacturer to put the robot back together and activate it so they can use for criminal purposes. The engineer by the name of Deon had discovered a way to give the robot a human-like mind by downloading a brain scan of a human into the robot's brain, but the arms manufacture's upper management weren't interested. Deon and Yolandi, a girl in the gangster group, teach the robot Chappie how to talk and think. Chappie subsequently becomes angry after the death of Yolandi, and destroys a giant robot that had been sent to destroy the gangsters and him. Chappie takes Deon, who is near death from wounds, and transfers his mind scan into a robot. Chappie also transfers Yolandi's mind, which had been recorded before her death, into a robot that resembles her. Even Chappie is resurrected after being destroyed using this method.

The question here is: could something like this be accomplished. The reason that this is a conspiracy is because many believe that the military has already accomplished this.

First of all, the idea would not work the way that they show it in this movie. It would require a lot more computing power to make a robot sentient. You couldn't do it from a laptop. The idea of a sentient android is basically the basis for the android Data in Star Trek the New Generation, which is set in the far future. The other problem I have with it is the idea of transferring someone's thoughts and personality onto a chip or memory stick. It would take much more storage to accomplish that idea. The idea of creating a robot that could learn language and gain a personality of its own is really far out there at the present time.

I have used this idea in one of my stories, but then again it's science fiction with the emphasis on fiction.

Could the military have developed something like this? I doubt that the United States would have done it. Most of the advanced robotic research seems to be in Japan. Consider ASIMO, the Honda robot or QRIO, the Sony version. Then there are the androids that look human. Japan seems to be fascinated with robotics. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has created some realistic human-like robots that are so realistic they're scary. He even created his own avatar. However, none of these are freethinking. It will be a while before a truly sentient robot or android is created. If you want to see the dangers of making thinking androids watch the movie 'Ex Machina'.

Thanks for reading.