Star Trek Next Gen

After watching Star Trek Next Generation in class, I was pretty impressed having never seen a Star Trek episode before I thought it was pretty good. The episode was trying to determine if the android, Data, had rights. In the beginning it was obvious Data was very intelligent but lacked basic human intuition, as shown in the poker game where he was bluffed into losing. However, when Data is threatened to be taken apart, Captain Kirk challenges that Data has the right to choose whether or not he wants to participate in the experiment. The judge eventually rules that Data has the right to choose for himself, and we learn that Data continually learns how to act more human when he respectfully declines to participate in the experiment.

The storyline in this episode was very interesting and brought up legitimate questions about whether or not a machine that acted human could have the same rights as a human. I agreed with the ruling because it was obvious that Data could interact seamlessly with humans and should therefore be treated as one.