What would you do if it developed feelings, out of interest? Would you still let it do all the household chores or would you split it between yourself and the 'Synth'?

What do you mean? How would it develop feelings? What does 'split it between yourself and the synth' mean? What is the 'it' and what is the synth? Sorry I'm confused as you can probably tell!

Well, we've been shown in Humans that in this parallel present day there are Synths who have developed feelings and become more like us, who as a result are seen as 'broken' and therefore taken to be 'repaired'.

Who knows how it happens, though? But in this parallel present day, it does.

By 'split it between yourself and the Synth', I meant the chores. If Synths were real and yours developed feelings, would you split household chores between yourself and the Synth (IE: you do the washing up whilst the Synth does the household cleaning) or would you have the Synth do it all?

It was stated in dialogue that the door sensor needs human body heat.

Leo appears to be some sort of cyborg, rather than fully human or fully synth (think Terminator), so has actual skin and blood etc. and so presumably can pass the door sensor.

I have already said in this thread why there is a need for synths to be different, but lets not kid ourselves people would not attach feelings to these things, we do it with cars and they look nothing like humans, we give objects genders (mostly female).

It's interesting reading this thread when you know what is gong on.

Nearly all the last page of posts about trust and feelings (it just being a machine) etc are going to be addressed I think so everyone seems to be in the right mind frame for this!

Thanks for the spoiler

what spoiler?

This show is about exactly that.

In the first two episodes we've seen the synths having independent relationships with each other and 2 examples of humans being at least curious about Synths. the son touching Anita and being told it will have to be reported to a primary user and Leo is actually searching for Anita.

Please don't cry 'spoiler' for attention you look silly. These are themes already established and what the show is about not plot points.

Well, I've completely missed this so far. I had no idea it was going to be on until after the first episode aired - and I've never got round to catching up on it. Is it any good? And more to the point, does Gemma Chan get her kit off (a shallow and slightly sleazy question, but what can I say, I'm a pretty despicable individual)?

It's early days but I like it. Prob worth a catchup. Only 3 episodes (after today)

But I really like things like this. What it means to be human/alive. What happens with AI. How we rely on technology

I'll put this next but in spoilers but IMO there's no need to

Why do you say only 3 episodes after today? The series is eight episodes long.

Fairly sure they were saying there will only have been three episodes aired after tonight's, therefore not too much to catch up on for the person they had quoted asking if it was worth catching up on.

Yes that's what I meant. Probably worded it badly.

The 3rd episode is on tonight. Not much to catch up on. Could prob watch the first 2 then the 3rd live even

*Any* comments about what is known to happen in future episodes can be seen as a spoiler by those astute enough to read between the lines of even the most obscure statement. So, do the simple thing, and don't do it at all.

I don't attach feelings to machines which look like machines. I know some people give their cars names which I personally find very odd. I also don't give genders to any objects. However if something looked human but wasn't I'd find it very creepy. Maybe I've watched too much Doctor Who over the years! As a child I was very scared of the autons, which meant I couldn't even look at a shop dummy just in case it moved, and that fear stayed with me up until a few years ago. I'm not scared of them now as I know they're not going to move, but I still don't like them. I've always been freaked out by statues too. I think that's probably the reason why I wouldn't want a human looking synth.

Someone asked how you would react if you had a synth and it started to 'feel', would you then share the chores. Some people have servants and don't share the chores, so presumably people would feel the same way about a synth which had emotions.

Not sure if it's already been explained but do we know how long synths "live" for? For example, do they need charging lmao.

What do they run on? Petrol? I should watch from the beginning tbh

You definitely should watch from the beginning. They need to recharge by plugging themselves in to a power supply, essentially battery powered.

They plug themselves in to recharge, but they do seem to have a lifespan - their chip seems to go wrong which is why William Hurt has been given a harridan to look after him because his own synth has gone faulty.

A servant those has a choice of employment and is being paid for the service they provide. If a synth with emotions wasn't given the same choices and payment, it would be slavery/ownership which would bring about a moral issue.

RE Bit In Bold :That's a brand new word to me, never seen it before in my life. William Hurts character has been given a specialised model from the NHS to help him in his day to day life. His model has specific software installed to give him domestic and medical assistance to meet his requirements.

I spoke about established themes that will probably be explored. They have already been discussed on the show (as I have already said).

I don't know how they will do this, that's why I said 'think'. I know it will prob explore them tho as its already happened and its mentioned in the blurb summary of the show itself!

No matter how astute you think you are. You are reading things that even I don't know myself as:



Anyway I think I've made my point, I'm not going to labour it. You assume you have been spoiled because of something you've read into what I've written.

Come back in 2 months and see if you still agree!

I don't think we're going to agree so I'll just apologise if you think I've spoiled the show for you. It wasn't my intention, just joining in with the excitement and the questions that it is raising in people on this thread.

(But seriously if you tell me how to post again you will get no response and I'll put you on ignore, been on this site long enough to know who I want to interact with and who I don't)

Harridan - a strict, bossy or belligerent woman.

Obviously the software has been designed with those features

Okay so my view on it is this - if there was a machine that could keep my flat clean, cook and generally do the things that I constantly wish I didn't have to do (except work - I presume I would still have to do my job as it's not mechanised) then I would take it like a shot. If it cost £20K, I could save the deposit in a year and then pay it off in installments.

If it wasn't a machine and had emotions (so more like an animal), well then I wouldn't want it. I don't even want a pet so why would I have something else I had to think about.

There wouldn't be anything to split - if a machine existed it would do all the work. If it wasn't a machine, I wouldn't have it in the house.


Yes I heard that in the dialogue; that's why I was confused when he was revealed to have a wire in him. I've never seen Terminator or previously heard the word cyborg (I have now googled). I think Leo and the police woman are possibly going to push me beyond what I can follow on this show as I don't have the background of sci-fi to understand the 'mixed' people/machines thing. Leo has a wire coming out of him but he's clearly being shown as human, compared to the other group he's with. The police woman was clearly shown as a synth but is treated like a human by everyone. I'm confused.

TBH there seems to be a bit of over-analysing going on - there are characters in the show and the motivation of each of those characters is not always going to be obvious - this surely is little different from any other story - I'd say it bears more relation to e.g. a spy story with agents and double-agents (and some whodunnit) rather than anything specifically sci-fi and certainly not the 'technical' type.

Certainly there's a degree of deliberate misdirection because you have e.g. the policewoman who at first appears to be a robot but turns out to be human and you have Leo who at first appears to be human and turns out to be partly robot (or a human with a fusebox) and I do think we are supposed to be a little unclear as to who is what.

As regards the anthropomorphisation of domestic appliances, if it looks like a person we would inevitably say stuff to/at it (especially when drunk, even a hatstand answers back with the smart remarks) but I would definitely draw the line at an obnoxiously cheerful and chirpy toaster.

Oh okay you've hit something here - I've never got to grips with spy stories either as I really struggle when I can't get a basic foundation on who/what is what. I am interested in character motivation but if you're reading, I dunno - Middlemarch - you're not having to work out if someone is double crossing and certainly not if they're half machine!

I will watch the rest of the series. I'm interested enough in it to keep going - so it's doing better than the spy stuff you get on from time to time where I'm usually out within 20 minutes, even if there are excellent actors I want to watch.