The Scientific Secrets Of Doctor Who Part 35

The Fourth Doctor, Robot (19741975)

We can use Doctor Who to explore our problematic att.i.tude to artificial intelligence. In the series, there is often a clear distinction: artificial intelligence is not on the same level as human (or alien) life. When battling the generally quite friendly, intelligent robot in Robot, the Doctor has few of the moral quandaries he does when facing even the Daleks. He destroys the robot but (as we saw in Chapter 9) lets the Daleks live.

In fact, his companion Sarah argues against both these decisions. She tells him the Daleks are 'the most evil creatures ever invented. You must destroy them.' While, upset by the destruction of the robot, she says something that implies that it had pa.s.sed the Turing test and the Doctor agrees.

'I had to do it, you know.'

'Yes, yes, I know. It was insane and it did terrible things, but at first, it was so human.'

'It was a wonderful creature, capable of great good, and great evil. Yes, I think you could say it was human.'

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, Robot

The Doctor describes his robot dog K-9 as his 'best friend' on more than one occasion, but in School Reunion (2006) he seems happy to send K-9 to his death to stop the Krillitane invasion. Well, he's not happy, exactly but we can't imagine him allowing a human companion to make the same kind of sacrifice. Does it make it OK that he can rebuild a robot companion after it is destroyed? And what about when, in Planet of Fire (1984), the Doctor terminates the 'life' of robot companion Kamelion and then doesn't rebuild him? Kamelion asks the Doctor to terminate him, but it's something that the Doctor would surely never do with a human companion.

We can see a general distrust of computers running through a lot of Doctor Who: as we've already seen, The War Machines and The Green Death are about evil computers. The Face of Evil, The Girl in the Fireplace (2006) and Deep Breath (2014) are about machine intelligences that have gone wrong with deadly consequences. The point of The Ice Warriors (1967) is to not rely on machines; in Destiny of the Daleks (1979) we see the limits of battle computers that cannot think creatively; in The Two Doctors (1985), the Doctor speaks proudly of a scientist who hated computers and worked out a famous theory using pen and ink. His att.i.tude seems best summed up in Inferno (1970):

'I'm not wild about computers myself, but they are a tool.

If you have a tool, it's stupid not to use it.'

The Third Doctor, Inferno (1970)

But there are exceptions. The Doctor is genuinely moved in The Time of the Doctor (2013) by the death of Handles, the reprogrammed, severed head of a Cyberman. That seems to be because he and Handles have spent more than 300 years together the Doctor has become emotionally attached to Handles whether or not he thinks Handles is really alive.

Of course, the Doctor has had an even longer-standing relationship with another machine intelligence:

'I always leave the actual landing to the TARDIS herself. She's no fool, you know.'

'You speak as if she were alive.'

'Yes. Yes, I do, don't I?'

The Third Doctor and Mike Yates, Planet of the Spiders (1974)

For a long time, we might have excused the Doctor calling the TARDIS 'old girl' or speaking of it as being alive as an affectation. While exiled on Earth, he also gave a name to his car, Bessie, and talked to her affectionately, but we don't think of Bessie as alive.

However, in The Doctor's Wife (2011), the consciousness of the TARDIS referred to in the story as its 'soul' is deposited in a woman called Idris. For the first time in the hundreds of years they have been together, the Doctor and the TARDIS can talk to each other directly, and it turns out that the TARDIS like the automated systems on websites we discussed earlier understands the Doctor's needs better than he does:

'You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.'

'No, but I always took you where you needed to go.'

'You did. Look at us talking. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could always talk, even when you're stuck inside the box?'

'You know I'm not constructed that way. I exist across all s.p.a.ce and time.'

The Eleventh Doctor and Idris, The Doctor's Wife (2011)

The implication is not that the TARDIS is now, for the first time, alive, but that it has always been alive just in a different way. Its intelligence or being hasn't changed by being transferred into Idris, just the way it is able to communicate. Yet at the end of the story we're told something else.

'I've been looking for a word. A big, complicated word, but so sad. I've found it now ... Alive. I'm alive.'

'Alive isn't sad.'

'It's sad when it's over. I'll always be here, but this is when we talked, and now even that has come to an end.'

Idris and the Eleventh Doctor, The Doctor's Wife

It's as if 'alive' doesn't mean intelligence or understanding: it's to do with looking and sounding like a human. The human Idris dies and the consciousness of the TARDIS returns to the time machine, apparently no longer alive.

But later, the Doctor talks to the TARDIS, requesting a destination. For a moment there's no response and he thinks that he's been silly: of course the ship can't hear him. Then levers on the console start moving on their own and the Doctor is delighted...

We're not told explicitly what that means but the people making Doctor Who a.s.sume we have intelligence. So, what do you think?

fn1 It's a good job British Telecom used only the Fourth Doctor's voice and not a copy of his mind that caused a lot of problems for the computer system Xoanon in The Face of Evil (1977).

'In Aprille and the Kingdom of Castile

We came upon a hostelrye genteel

And there bigan this tale of misterie,

About the Doctor, Skeletons and me.'