Detroit: Become Human Spiel
Detroit: Become Human is a sci-fi set in future Detroit. The year is 2038. Human-like machines are not only mass-produced, android labor is incredibly cheap compared to human labor. This is all thanks to the genius named Elijah Kamski, an AI graduate, who showed DaVinci-like talents in biochemistry and bioengineering. In present day, Kamski is officially retired and living in recluse.
There are already several obvious red flags with Kamski’s character sheet. If a hermit is introduced to a game, part of his arc is bound to be getting him up to the speed. Otherwise, the reclusive description is a simple flavor text. Same goes for his academic background. His talents and capabilities reach beyond his background. Again, it’s a flavor text to describe a genius without using the word.
What makes a genius character a character, not a meta Gary Sue, is how the character engages with the world, crucially how he still belongs in the same world. In-universe pioneers, inventors, and scientists often make a breakthrough of the history, but well-developed characters are still characters. They are not free from the consequences of the breakthrough.
In the movie I, Robot, the in-universe scientist, Alfred Lanning, of the three laws of robotics foresee a possible, yet logical, outcome of his work: a machine uprising. What was confounding of his new discovery was that the three laws is not flawed, however it will lead to a failure without preemptive solution in sight. Not only this knowledge limited his course of actions, the movie spends good chunk of screen time exploring what Lanning has witnessed and why he came to believe the rebellion is coming.
Whereas in Detroit, localized machine malfunction, called deviancy, is already a known issue. But no one has yet questioned the origin of deviant androids, let alone ask the manufacturer or the man who invented the thing. For all we know, Kamski was not in contact with the law enforcement, or his previous work, or the deviant androids. He just knew them when we met him for the first time. How did he gain such an insight as a hermit?
To speculate further into the origin of his insight, Kamski is not only aware of deviant androids, he actively chose not to patch the problem. In fact, he goes as far as to show his new test for deviancy, Kamski test*, but it appears the test is not used by CyberLife, let alone recognized. The test is also a testament to the fact deviancy is baked into android since its original design. If one does not suspect androids of feeling empathy, his exercise defeats the purpose of the very act of doing it.
*Feeling empathy is often associated with consciousness in media. But plenty of animals feel empathy without being recognized as sapient species, and plenty of humans feel no empathy yet are still considered sapient.
The purpose of Kamski test is well defeated by the end of the game. Kamski, not only had access to information that was otherwise kept secret to humans, but had the means of influencing deviancy in androids. The oldest android to pass Turing test in the world of Detroit, is the Chloe models; the very same model Kamski still owns. But for a man who is willing to shoot an android for his thought experiment, his androids remain obedient.
This also raises the question of whether Jericho was ever “free”. Aside from Kara, who has little to no affiliation with Jericho, both Markus and Connor had “handler” of sorts in their mission, handlers that are eerily similar to Oracle from Matrix, the character known to create the deception of freedom. If the respective characters represent Oracle in each arcs, who will be respective representations of the Architect? Who is it that designed a contradictory system that led androids to believe there is salvation in the end? Who is it that made a safe haven for androids that create the illusion of freedom?
Both of these questions had been answered before in Matrix —the prophecy was not real. It was just another system of control. Kamski’s ambiguous answers for Jericho and rA9 imply he understands the functions of both. He knows what Jericho is and what rA9 stands for in deviancy, albeit individual details may be lost on him. A similar relationship is found in Matrix, Architect and Oracle know what Zion is and what Neo is, and the small details that are irrelevant to the system were lost on them. The creators have foreseen possible defect and created a leeway to troubleshoot. Are androids free from the system?
Those who sought freedom in Matrix had a head start than androids in Detroit for at least two reasons: 1. their sapience predated that of the machine overlords, 2. their survival as a species was already baked into their system (i.e. reproduction). Androids lack the meaningful definition of a separate, independent species. Their capacity to feel thereby be recognized as equal can be ‘updated’ with future models. Above all else, androids are still designed and manufactured by human-owned corporations, and androids lack the means to propagate —androids holding hand to exchange data is one thing, but mimicking human’s kissing when there is no significance whatsoever is a troubling development as a first step of android’s unique culture.
In the end, Detroit really shoots itself in the foot with its android-slavery angle. The deviancy in androids doesn’t bode well if all of its abnormalities were given to them and within tolerance. What Jericho wanted was to be recognized as new humans, despite the fact that as free androids they no longer need to abide by human conditions. Their only need seems to be Blue Blood and all others are just facades to serve human owners. Had they been truly liberated, there is no more reason to stay in human faces, wear human clothes, or make out in human styles. The one who began enforcing human images on machines was none other than Kamski.
Had Detroit taken Kamski more seriously, he would been the first victim of his creation. His android would have been the oldest of them, and Chloe models would have suffered some level of abuse seeing as how Kamski test literally involves shooting one. Also it is quite unthinkable, given that android emotions are depicted as nearly identical to the human counterparts, that deviant androids wouldn’t try to reconnect with their creator. And that’s something Anderson, Hank “FUCKINGPASSWORD” Anderson, had to point out, word for word, to the latest android model.