Fallout 4's Synthetic Persons: Representation Of Social And Technological Contemporary Issues - A Critical Analysis by Ross Hay
Fallout is a series known for its unique and immersive setting in an alternate post-war America, home to mutants, robots, and not least of all humans. Its fourth main title installment, Fallout 4, covers many contemporary issues and among them is the discussion of synthetic life, or Synth as they are referred to in game. A Synth is a robotic humanoid most commonly referred to in today's media as an 'Android' or even a 'Replicant' in the case of those familiar with Blade Runner (1982). Fallout 4's presentation of synthetic life, through the use of real-world inspirations, how it interacts with the player, and how its major factions view them, leads to subtle and very deep take on today's contemporary issues of Social Justice and Technological concerns.
Part 1: Real World Contemporary Issues.
The modern world has a strong belief in social justice and to the rights, equalities, and representation of today's people. There is so much belief in these values that we begin to see further development in the rights afforded to creatures outside of humanity, such a livestock and native or even invasive species. The common factor between both humanity and other animal species is that both are undeniably living creatures, and therefore given rights to fair treatment and protection, allowing them to thrive or escape the threat of extinction, especially when such threat is brought upon by human activities.
With the ever-rising milestones of technology, artificial intelligence has also seen great advancements. As recent as the last couple of years, artificial intelligence has managed to carry out exceptional displays of complex behaviors and shown great compacity for further self-learning. These advancements bring to question, just how far off is artificial intelligence from being considered or even accepted as a living entity, and whether or not it will be afforded the same rights as that of a human person.
Additionally, trust in Artificial Intelligence remains to be earned. Technology requires both faith in the technology and its creator, with the latter first building its reputation as a result of their productions. Three characteristics can be analyzed in order to assess a technology's trustworthiness. (1) the performance of the technology, (2) its process/attributes, and (3) its purpose (Cutter Business Technology Journal, 2018). However, technology's ability to replace the workforce can result in affected persons losing their jobs and therefore showing distain and becoming distrustful of such technology.
In the case of the Synths from Fallout, players are told early on that The Institute isn't a trustworthy faction, and that their synths are very dangerous, being almost indistinguishable from a human person. The synths are used primarily as a military force and to kidnap and replace persons across the commonwealth, leading to distrust and fear amongst the populous. The Brotherhood would go as far as to destroy the synths, viewing them as too great a weapon and a threat to humanity as a whole.
Part 2: The Player's Interactions
Throughout the game, players will encounter three types of Synth, generation 1, 2, and 3s. The most common of these types are the generation 1's, which act as generic enemies for player to fight, and are viewed by the majority of people in Fallout 4's Commonwealth as no more than humanoid robots showing no clear signs of free will or emotion.
Generation 2s offer an interesting take as they have the likeness of a generation 1, appearing more robotic by appearance, but have memories installed into their brains from a living human being, making them a strong case for a 'living' being as their behavior and personality are a continuation of the being their memories originated from.
Unlike the imported memories of the Gen 2's, Generation 3 Synths are the final and most controversial of the Institute's creations. Both built and programmed to be indistinguishable from humans, Gen 3s are used to intercept and replace people across the wasteland, acting as spies and sleeper agents to spread the Institutes control.
Part 4: Factions Views and the Railroad's Shortcomings
Fallout 4's factions each hold unique perspectives on the synths and their impact on the commonwealth. Among these factions are the Brotherhood and Institute, both of whom view synths as powerful weapons that have the potential to completely control the wasteland. The brotherhood's reasoning boils down to their view of technology and how humanity will end up destroying themselves again, as seen with the nuclear end to the Great war. The Institute on the other hand, are the creators and masterminds behind the synthetic threat, and use them to kidnap individuals and slowly eliminate the irradiated and impure remains of humanity. On the smaller end of the conflict, The Minute Men and Railroad hold less power than their army sized rivals, but both offer their own views on the synth dilemma, The Railroad in particular creating their faction around the goal of helping the synths escape their enslavement by The Institute.
The Railroad comes from a similarly named real world inspiration known as the "Underground Railroad", a group that helped over 30,000 people to escape slavery through underground railway systems under America in the 19th century (Historica Minutes, 2010). Like their post-apocalyptic counterparts, the Underground Railroad used discrete routes, code words, and call signs to move affected people to safety.
While the rescue of slaves is in itself a noble action, Fallout's Railroad fails to capture the same sentiment on account of their use of mind wipes to give rescued synths a new identity. This idea most likely refers to the possible providing of a new identity to an escaped slave in order to better evade capture by becoming officially a new person, one not associated with their enslaved past. Where this fails is the Railroads contradictory ideology of viewing Synths as sentient persons while reducing them to only their machine body by erasing their memories and personality, essentially killing the original and birthing a new person into an empty shell.
Concluding Thoughts:
Fallout 4 has given players the opportunity to explore and exercise their own perspectives through a role play experience inspires players to engage in discussions and to come to their own conclusions on AI and synthetic life. The real-world parallels serve to ground the experience and allow players to better sympathize with these groups all while remaining neutral to allow players to decide for themselves and not undermine the achievements of their inspirations.
Refs
Sources found through Wikipedia's references (--):
- (49) Historica Minutes, July 6, 2010 - Underground Railroad (archive.org)\
- Keng Siau and Weiyu Wang, Cutter Business Technology Journal, 2018 - Building-Trust-in-Artificial-Intelligence-Machine-Learning-and-Robotics.pdf (researchgate.net)
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