The theme of Detroit: Changed People was futuristic science fiction.
In the real world, the development of technology and social forms complemented each other. Just like the GPS technology, it affected all aspects of people's lives and profoundly changed people's lifestyles.
In the future, if there were technologies such as neural connections, anti-gravity devices, controllable nuclear fusion, and ultra-long-distance teleportation, then any one of them could have earth-shattering changes in real life.
Among a large number of technologies, which appeared first and which appeared later could have a completely different impact on the real world and transform the social structure into a completely different look.
This was the meaning of "pointing at the wrong tree of technology".
Many movies and TV series with science fiction elements were just old bottles of new wine. The future created was completely unconvincing because the technology tree was too skewed. For example, in a certain movie, Kanda was so technologically advanced, but the social system was extremely backward. When facing an alien invasion, the leader personally went into battle with the enemy, which inevitably made people feel very ridiculous.
For a story, it didn't matter if it was not rigorous. The key was to see what it wanted to express and what it wanted the audience and players to experience.
From this point of view, the theme of "futuristic science fiction" was a more controllable choice.
This kind of "futuristic science fiction" meant that in a short period of time in the future, because of a little progress in a certain technology, it would have an impact on human behavior and social forms. While keeping the overall data unchanged, only a small variable was taken to explore some deep-seated social problems.
This was the case in Detroit: Changed People. Strictly speaking, this was not the future world. This was just a world that happened to skew the technology tree. Compared to the real world, the only technological leap was the robot technology. Everything else was the same as now. Transportation, housing, guns … were not much different from modern society.
This was exactly what the game wanted to explore: Once artificial intelligence and robot technology appeared, what kind of impact would it have on our society.
Most people's doubts about this game mainly focused on two points.
First, this was clearly a huge leap in productivity, why did it exacerbate social injustice?
Second, why did artificial intelligence have to be made into a human?
In fact, these two points could be explained. This was a matter of opinion, but it couldn't be said to be the main flaw of this story.
First of all, the huge leap in productivity did not mean the early arrival of communism. During the Industrial Revolution, many workers smashed machines because they thought the machines were taking away their jobs. This was a historical fact. The leap in productivity and the liberation of labor did not mean that everyone could enjoy its fruits. It was like a multinational company reaping large profits, benefiting the capitalists at the top, while workers in developed countries faced the dilemma of unemployment.
The reason why the workers in America called for the return of jobs was that their lives were actually not as good as in the sixties and seventies. At that time, they only needed one person to work, and they could afford a house and a car. But now, it was no longer possible because the multinational companies had moved their factories to places where labor was cheaper. These workers were facing the dilemma of unemployment, and their lives were deteriorating.
It was true that productivity had increased, but the direct beneficiaries were the executives of large corporations, capitalists, and politicians. For the middle class of society, it was indeed a good thing to be able to spend a little money to buy a robot, but for the bottom of society, robots would cause them to lose their jobs, which was also a very normal phenomenon.
For manual workers, such as takeout men, express delivery men, workers, salespeople, etc., if such a cheap robot appeared, they would inevitably lose their jobs. After losing their jobs, what could they do?
As for the social security system … This was a more wishful thinking. The capitalists were making a lot of money. If you wanted to take money from them to support the poor, would they be happy? America was originally a "decadent" capitalist country. Big consortia dominated politics. If you wanted to take money from the capitalists to establish communism, it was a bit too much.
For these big consortia, the life and death of the poor had nothing to do with them. As long as the poor did not rebel or revolution, and social contradictions were not intensified to the extreme, they would not be willing to spend so much money to maintain social stability.
The time point chosen for Detroit: Man Change was the time node when robot technology suddenly appeared and rapidly changed society. It could be said that the entire Detroit was not fully prepared for this change. The various chaos reflected in the game was actually the pain brought about by the transformation.
Secondly, why must artificial intelligence be made to look like a human? Because the fantasy that humans could understand most about artificial intelligence at this stage was humans themselves.
Because humans were the most advanced intelligent life known to us at present. If there was some kind of intelligent life higher than humans, such as the three-body people, then artificial intelligence might be made to look like the three-body people.
If there were two domestic robots for you to choose, one was the robot Wall-E with tracks and robotic arms, and the other was Miss Carla, which one would you choose?
Obviously, the latter represented a higher form of artificial intelligence, which was … exactly the same as humans and difficult to distinguish.
Strictly speaking, "fully controllable artificial intelligence" was lower than "artificial intelligence as uncontrollable as humans". If humans wanted to develop the highest level of artificial intelligence, then it would almost certainly be uncontrollable. Otherwise, it would not be worthy of being called "the highest level of artificial intelligence".
Of course, one of the problems with Detroit: Man Change was that this world did not seem to have any pre-technological points for robots.
For example, Luther was developed to be used for carrying heavy objects, Carla was used for housekeeping services, and some female robots were used to meet special needs … These robots should have been made a long time ago because there was no need for such a high level of artificial intelligence, and there was no need to make them think like humans. Wouldn't it be better to make a professional robot for things like carrying heavy objects? What was the point of being a tall black man with a black face?
For this point, you could say that it was a bit far-fetched, but it was still the same sentence. Near-future science fiction showed a future world where the technology tree was "crooked". You could completely understand that people in this world just skipped the pre-technological points and directly filled the technological points of robots.
The loopholes in the setting were choices that had to be made in order to tell a good story. The important thing was not these details, but what the story wanted to tell us and what we could learn from it.
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