President independent from politics - Human beans versus inanimate objects

 My kitchen light has 3 colours. At the flip of a switch, the colour will change, instantly, from daylight to warm light, to cool light. I can flip as often as I want, flip as fast as I want, the light will change colour as programmed. The light will not disobey or refuse to change colour. It is an inanimate object, without feelings or emotions, without a mind to think and decide by itself. It would be a bit problematically if a light can decide what it wants to do against what it was programmed to do. At best, in some buildings or rooms, the light may have a motion sensor to detect movement. If no one is in the room for a programmed period of time, the light would switch off automatically, and switches on again when someone enters the room.

The debate or trend now is towards AI, when machine could have a sensor or artificial brain to give it some ability to make independent decisions according to the situation. Robotics or smart robots, thinking robots are in the making. Machine would think, not sure if they would programme in feelings and emotions, like and dislike, love and hate, anger or joy etc etc.

I met an old friend who is now running his own little business empire. He hired his former boss, his ex Commanding Officer to be his CEO. He retains the position of Chairman. During meetings or even in social gatherings, he still addresses his ex CO as boss and reply to him as Sir. He said old habit is hard to change and he had been calling his ex CO as boss for many years. So very difficult, and a bit 'pai seh' to call him by his name. The relationship of human beans are built over years and cannot be simply forgotten or ignored.  But in a situation of animosity or hate, relationship can be severed with immediate effect. So this situation continues till today. Good morning Sir, Yes Sir.

Human beans are different from inanimate objects. You cannot switch a human bean on and off like a light bulb. There are emotions, relationship, feelings, attachments, beholden to, etc etc that make a human bean different from an inanimate object. Unless of course the human bean can erase his feelings and emotions completely, becomes in a sense, a senseless person or one with no feelings. This kind of human beans exist but not many. When a human bean has no feelings or can switch off his feelings at the flip of a switch, he can become kind of cool or at worst, cruel. How much can you make out of a human beans that has no feelings and can say today he is good, tomorrow he is bad, with no sense of remorse or contrition?

In life, some professions demanded a human bean to behave like inhuman, to set aside his feelings and emotions, eg a judge when sentencing a criminal. It is tough, as a judge is also a human bean and has emotions and values. This is not an easy job, especially when a harsh decision has to be made. And when a judge has to pass sentence (or even to judge a case) on a criminal that he knows or is connected, he has to recuse himself, acknowledging the fact that he is human after all and cannot cut off his feelings and emotions completely.

In many professions, the incumbents are lucky when the inhuman traits are not called upon for him to make important decisions. The Chinese have a phrase for human beans that could cut off feelings and emotions to act or decide on very serious matters. It is called '六亲不认'. This state of mind is often found in the ganglands or triads when members are supposed to kill their relatives if needed. Sometimes this is also called upon on people in high office. Such people may sometimes be referred to as '无情无义'.

Some take this kind of human traits as negative. Some may think this is a desirable character trait.

What do you think? Would a robot with AI do a better job as a President?