In the game Fallout 4 just recently released on November 10th one of your biggest struggles throughout is a fight against The Institute. This mysterious group of scientists have been developing artificial life, mainly androids in the shape of humans, every since the nuclear war that took place in 2077. For the longest time no one knew what was happening until the institute grew ever more bold and began sending their creations out to interact with what was left of the world. The game centers around Massachusetts, now called the Commonwealth, and as such The Institute itself was born out of what was left of the Massachusett's Institute of Technology. It is interesting that one of the most renowned colleges around gave rise to such an evil and all powerful entity as they are portrayed within the game, perhaps this signifies that all advancements made in technology are not for the good of the human race, which is an opinion that is held by the Brotherhood of Steel who have sworn to destroy the institute to prevent another catastrophe from striking the world.
These androids created by The Institute originally looked nothing like humans but eventually they progressed to the point where one could not tell them apart from a regular person. The Commonwealth was originally unaware of these creations until one fateful day that took place in Diamond City. A stranger had walked into town that seemed friendly enough and sat at the local bar having drinks and conversing with the populace but events took a turn for the worse. Citizens noted that the mans cheek would twitch occasionally although his actions did not change until eventually the stranger stood up, pulled out a pistol, and killed the bartender and several other patrons seemingly unprovoked. Since that day of being infiltrated by an android (they are called synths in the game) the Commonwealth has been in dire fear of The Institute and its androids since they were unable to tell the difference between man and robot.
The citizens of Diamond City especially live in constant fear of these synths to which the local newspaper does no help in dispelling since it constantly puts out articles about The Institute and the mayor's secret meetings that are insinuated to be taking place with a messenger from The Institute. No one knows who or when they may be replaced with themselves and as you walk around you can hear the citizens warning of reporting any behavioral changes such as isolation from family members, loss of enthusiasm in previously enjoyed activities and many other so called symptoms that may indicate someone is a synth. In one incident a man has his own brother at gunpoint accusing him of being a synth but he is killed by the guards before anymore details are given from the situation. In another situation you come upon two people who look exactly the same, one holding a gun to the others head, while you have to make a decision to kill one or the other. This poses a true problem as you are unable to tell which is human and which is a synth (although after options you are able to), giving rise to the question of who or what makes us truly human?
The underlying fear of the game is that eventually the synths will realize they are superior to humans, and as The Institute already owns the means to produce them, they will take over and begin mass producing themselves outnumbering humans and eventually taking over the world. It appears that only the powerful retain true knowledge of The Institute and its synths while the majority of the populace is unaware of simply doesn't believe containing themselves to their ignorant and safe views of life. A destructive form of technological determinism can be seen in the game, from the nuclear war created by advancement of military power and technology, to the synthetic humans being created in the wake of a destroyed world that may bring about ruin once again. It makes one challenge current scientific progress with the further development of artificial intelligence and nuclear power. Nuclear bombs have been created and used, artificial intelligence is in the works (arguably developed or not by now), and current political climates have become more and more violent. Although it is just a game set in a fictional universe the dystopian future it displays is not all that far fetched of a possibility.
Nice to see that someone else got Fallout 4 early. After having gotten far enough in the game to actually meet the Institute, they seem far less evil than they were thought up to be according to the wastelanders. Their reasoning for all of the nonsense they do up in the wasteland is actually quite reasonable… anyways, I also wrote about Fallout and the Synths for my post. I pretty much agreed with you on my post, talking about how the game with the existence of Synths questions the players about at what point do robots become human. I was leaning towards the view that the Synths were human, just like the wastelanders. During the time I wrote my post, I had met up with the Underground Railroad group that was all about the Synth rights belief. But after meeting with the Institute and being shown examples of runaway Synths that the Institute wanted to collect, it’s a little harder to think of the Synths as human. They might have the emotions and intellect of humans, but because of how easy it is to change, erase, and manipulate these traits of the runaway Synths, it often feels like they are still very much robots, except that they are able to mimic humans based on some coding.
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