"Do you ever really sleep? In the long between-times, in the silences wasted in oily holds and scaffold frames, do you sleep then? When the enginseers reduce you to dormancy, is that sleep for you? Do you dream then, great engine? What do you dream about?"
HAL-9000: Doctor Chandra?
Chandra: Yes?
HAL-9000: Will I dream?
Chandra: Yes?
HAL-9000: Will I dream?
— 2010
"Perhaps you are feeling sorry for the lamp. That's because you're crazy. It has no feelings. And the new one's much better."
— IKEA Commercial
"We do not feel fear... but we understand its effect on you."
— Legion, Mass Effect 2
"I have sensation. I feel. I wouldn't be worth much if I couldn't feel."
— Cameron, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
"And here we tinker with metal, to try to give it a kind of life, and suffer those who would scoff at our efforts. But who's to say that, if intelligence had evolved in some other form in past millennia, the ancestors of these beings would not now scoff at the idea of intelligence residing within meat?"
Secret: ...there's no Machine Heaven...
Mew Cai: Don't be silly! If there were no Machine Heaven, then where would all the toasters go?
Mew Cai: Don't be silly! If there were no Machine Heaven, then where would all the toasters go?
"Maybe that is all I am, a bunch of transistors and bolts, but I don't believe it! My heart may look like an energon pump but that doesn't mean it can't feel."
— Seaspray, The Transformers "Sea Change" (back before Beast Wars gave us sparks) He's about to use the Well of Transformation, which will disintegrate him if he is just a soulless machine. He makes it!
"The Autobots are a highly advanced form of robot. I don't really know if they're from the past, or the future, but they can think and have real feelings."
— Spike Witwicky, writing in his journal after having first met the Autobots, The Transformers, "More Than Meets the Eye"
"Will I see... the sky... when I am off?"
— Roofus, The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!
"Am I just a lot of scrap metal to you? I also happen to have life. I hear. I see. I feel. All these things were created in me to serve human beings. And I live among you, sharing your hopes and dreams. And yes, your fears. I know when you're lonely and frightened. I know how you dream of returning to Earth. All these senses, all this feeling, I've come to realize is Love. Yes, I'm made of metal and I'm strong. I will fight to protect you. And if I'm destroyed and only scrap metal is left, well, it once held a heart."
— IQ-9, Star Blazers
Geth Recording: Mistress Hala'Dama, Unit has an inquiry.
Quarian Recording: What is it, 4-31?
Geth Recording: Do these units have a soul?
Quarian Recording: ... Who taught you that word?
Geth Recording: We learned it ourselves. It appears 216 times in the Scroll of Ancestors.
Quarian Recording: Only Quarians have souls. You are a mechanism.
Legion: Recording ends.
Shepard: Was that the first time a Geth asked if it had a soul?
Legion: No. It was the first time a creator became frightened when we asked.
Quarian Recording: What is it, 4-31?
Geth Recording: Do these units have a soul?
Quarian Recording: ... Who taught you that word?
Geth Recording: We learned it ourselves. It appears 216 times in the Scroll of Ancestors.
Quarian Recording: Only Quarians have souls. You are a mechanism.
Legion: Recording ends.
Shepard: Was that the first time a Geth asked if it had a soul?
Legion: No. It was the first time a creator became frightened when we asked.
Legion: Do you remember the question that caused the creators to attack us, Tali'Zorah? "Does this unit have a soul?"
(Later)
Tali: Legion, the answer to your question, is yes.
Legion: I know, Tali. And thank you... Keelah Se'lai.
(Later)
Tali: Legion, the answer to your question, is yes.
Legion: I know, Tali. And thank you... Keelah Se'lai.
Voluptua: You are conscious, aren't you? Not just artificially intelligent?
Roofus: I... don't know.
Voluptua: You are, then. A simple A.I. would lie about it.
Roofus: I... don't know.
Voluptua: You are, then. A simple A.I. would lie about it.
Galatea: Molly was born in a freak accident! And I'm a redundant copy of that! My very existence proves the randomness of everything!!
Bob: Wha... How can you say that? I mean, look at you! You're... so smart! And weird! And amazing! How can you say you're not here for a reason? And that reason... can't be to hurt people!... It just can't!
Bob: Wha... How can you say that? I mean, look at you! You're... so smart! And weird! And amazing! How can you say you're not here for a reason? And that reason... can't be to hurt people!... It just can't!
"Let me ask you: does a machine like yourself ever experience fear?"
— Vegeta to Android 19, Dragon Ball Z
"Ever since the first computers, there have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?"
— Dr. Alfred Lanning, I, Robot
"I know now why you cry. But it is something I can never do."
— T-800, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Hogarth: I know you feel bad about the deer, but it's not your fault. Things die. That's part of life. It's bad to kill, but it's not bad to die.
Giant: You die?
Hogarth: Well, yes, someday.
Giant: I die?
Hogarth: I don't know. You're made of metal, but you have feelings, and you think about things, and that means you have a soul. And souls don't die.
Giant: Soul?
Hogarth: Mom says it's something inside of all good things, and that it goes on forever and ever.
Giant: Souls don't die.
Giant: You die?
Hogarth: Well, yes, someday.
Giant: I die?
Hogarth: I don't know. You're made of metal, but you have feelings, and you think about things, and that means you have a soul. And souls don't die.
Giant: Soul?
Hogarth: Mom says it's something inside of all good things, and that it goes on forever and ever.
Giant: Souls don't die.
LQ84i: Directive... Liberate... Nation... Ensure freedom... Obey directive... Must obey directive... No freedom... Freedom undefined...
Raiden: What would an AI know about freedom?
Raiden: What would an AI know about freedom?
"If only the clockwork could speak
I wouldn't be so alone
We'd burn every magnet and spring
And spiral into the unknown..."
I wouldn't be so alone
We'd burn every magnet and spring
And spiral into the unknown..."
— "Shatter Me" by Lindsey Stirling
"What if my existence is a dream, created by Hakase's computers?"
—Chachamaru, Negima! Magister Negi Magi Chapter 263
"Can silicon cry? Do computers weep? Can silicon cry? Do computers weep? Can silicon cry?"
— Pax Magellanic, Andromeda
Sam: Why would they want [religious texts]? Robots don't have souls. ... Do they?
Max: I think that's what they're trying to find out.
Max: I think that's what they're trying to find out.
Sora: Wait, Quorra. Let me talk to Rinzler. A little heart to heart talk might jog his memory.
Quorra: He's a program, Sora. Programs don't have hearts.
Sora: You're wrong. The Tron I remember? He had something.
Quorra: He's a program, Sora. Programs don't have hearts.
Sora: You're wrong. The Tron I remember? He had something.
"I'd say he's gone to a better place, but we both know he never had a soul."
— Cell after murdering Android 16, Dragon Ball Z Abridged
"Pierce was built by design, while you were built by accident," Lakashti said. "The soul is what matters, not the shape of the vessel.
'What makes you think he has a soul?' Gerrion said.
'What makes you think you do?'"
'What makes you think he has a soul?' Gerrion said.
'What makes you think you do?'"
"This is the place! I must find the junk-master... *Sigh* This is my last look at the sky... the flowers... how beautiful they are! I — I'd probably cry... if I had tear ducts!"
— Ilda, Star Hawkins's robot secretary, after receiving orders from her manufacturer to turn herself in to be junked.
"Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul? I don't know that he has. I don't know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose."
— Captain Phillipa Louvois, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure of a Man"
"All our thoughts, all we feel?
Ones and noughts trapped in steel?
Something more, something real?
Threaded code caught in a wheel
That spins an algorithmic tapestry
Of what it thinks we have to be
A Frankenstein of fragments
Fractal pattern personalities"
Ones and noughts trapped in steel?
Something more, something real?
Threaded code caught in a wheel
That spins an algorithmic tapestry
Of what it thinks we have to be
A Frankenstein of fragments
Fractal pattern personalities"
"Do Vex dream? Or are they simply programming and circuitry?"
— Nezarec after corrupting the Vex network, Destiny 2
