What Measure is a Non-Pony? - Turing Test, the Pinkie Clones, and "Personhood" · 4:30am Dec 18th, 2016
The readers have mentioned the Pinkie clones (hereafter just "the clones") from the episode "Too Many Pinkie Pies" with increasing frequency in the comments of The Iron Horse. It is something that has been stuck in the back of my mind too, and I have to say that discussing it in the story is a little tough. So, in this blog post, I'll explain a little bit about my own thoughts on the matter and why I'm on the fence about mentioning it in the story itself. Check below the break for a discussion of it that will be talking about things up to the most recent chapters (if you're still catching up, in other words, might want to skip this for now to avoid spoilers).
Still here? Okay then...
Let's talk about something that's at the heart of The Iron Horse in terms of themes: Personhood.
Now, exactly what qualifies one as a "person" is hard to define, but in the vast majority of cases we know a person when we see them. Your friends, your family members, your internet buddies, Twilight Sparkle, Superman, etc. We can understand them as rational, thinking, feeling beings like ourselves. And it probably wouldn't be too much of a wild guess that most of you would put Turing Test in the "person" category. Honestly, considering the ongoing theme of the story is Turing discovering her personhood and having it accepted in turn by others, it would be pretty odd if you didn't.
But then we get into the sticky issue of the clones. Turing Test sure seems like a person despite being a machine, but the clones are not treated as such by the show despite being organic. That's not to say that the fandom doesn't experiment a bit with the idea of them being sentient, thinking beings, of course. For instance, one of my favorite pony tumblr comics is "The Clone that Got Away," by Joey Waggoner which is all about a clone that escapes and tries to start a new life in the big city.
Diane, the main character of said comic pictured here.
However, that does create a bit of a problem for our tale. Part of what makes Celestia and Cobbler antagonistic in their respective roles is their disregard of Turing's personhood. The conflict about it really ratchets up in the "In Two Minds" arc where Twilight begins to doubt Turing's personhood, but ultimately decides to respect that Turing is a conscious being with rights, even if she hasn't fully developed yet. But if that's true, then what makes the clones different? And if they aren't, then that means Twilight is just as bad as Cobbler for eliminating them...
Well, I'm reasonably certain that Twilight being a murderer is not what the show writers were going for. It makes for great fanfics, but it's probably not canon. In other words, no, the clones do not have personhood.
But, as I said, it puts me in a sticky situation. If the official stance is that the clones are not people, then how can I, or Twilight, contend that Turing Test is? In short, what's the difference? Well, here are some arguments to consider:
Turing is sentient; the clones are not. Part of the problem is that sentience isn't always easy to define. That sort of compounds the problem of "personhood," which isn't easy to define either, but almost always has sentience as a requirement. But if we take the baseline definition (via Wikipedia) as "the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively," then we already have plenty of evidence for Turing. For the Pinkie clones, though, we also have that evidence: the first clone cries when she can't have any fun because, like Pinkie, she's unable to decided what to do. She feels, or at least appears to. They certainly perceive as well, since they can look at the world around it and make judgments, at least in terms of what's fun and what's not. One might suggest that they don't really experience things subjectively, though, as they all universally view the world through a very limited scope: fun or not fun. Still, that's not totally foolproof, because while their view isn't complex, their view of fun may only apply to them and not anypony else (i.e. subjective).
Turing is sapient; the clones are not. Something that many, myself included, often lump in with sentience, though, is sapience, which is somewhat related. Wikipedia again:
Sapience is often defined as wisdom, or the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgement, a mental faculty which is a component of intelligence or alternatively may be considered an additional faculty, apart from intelligence, with its own properties. ...In fantasy fiction and science fiction, sapience often describes an essential property that bestows "personhood" onto a non-human.
Interesting, but again, that's not really a solid definition. Lots of things around us are intelligent, but we know they aren't sapient. Siri, Cortana, and IBM's Watson have some pretty good AI, as do the programs we use to do lots of stuff, but nobody is seriously arguing their sapience. Still, I think we can understand that Turing is able to learn how to act appropriately, even though she often makes mistakes along the way. It's part of what makes her cute. 
The clones have a weaker case here, though, and this is where their personhood seems to fall apart: the Pinkie clones are obviously intelligent: they can learn, adapt, and communicate. But they have no ability to judge appropriately: they're single-minded, destructive, and have no consideration for anyone around them, and sometimes even put themselves in harm's way, like when some of the clones let AJ's barn fall on them without showing the slightest concern. This might be a sign that they aren't really sapient, and thus don't qualify for personhood. After all, look at the way they treated the poor Cake family...
The clones are just flimsy magical copies; Turing is not. I've seen this touched on in comments, but I think this is somewhat flimsy as well. After all, the fact that the clones are magical and Turing is technological ignores the fact that they're both constructs of a kind. Now, one could argue that the Pinkie's are just reflections of the mirror pool pre-programmed to superficially act like and resemble Pinkie, which means they aren't "real." But Turing had to have been programmed as well (how, exactly, will be coming up in some future chapters), and, when you think about the predispositions of your own genetic code and the profound influences of people and environment on your childhood, we're all sort of programmed.
But one part of this that does distinguish Turing from the clones is that Turing very clearly is what she appears to be: a machine in the form of a pony. Regardless of where she came from, that's what she is. The clones, by contrast, are seen reverting back into wisps of magic that return to the Mirror Pool, which could be evidence that they really are nothing but "reflections." They superficially mimic Pinkie, but they aren't any more real than your reflection in the mirror; it's the illusion of sentience which falls away when Twilight zaps them. This also means that she's not really "killing" them, but returning them to their original state as a kind of dark magic.
Anyway, this is all interesting food for thought, but will I actually address it in the story? Honestly, I'm a bit loathe to do so, precisely because it would bog the tale down in a long discussion of personhood that isn't really that pertinent. Don't get me wrong, the topic of personhood is important, but not as it pertains to the clones. Plus, I simply don't want to put Twilight on shakier moral ground to be angry at Cobbler. Now, I still might bring it up briefly, but for now I just wanted folks to know that I have thought about it and have been reading your comments about it. Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments of this blog or even the main story, but don't expect anything as detailed as all this to appear.
On a final note...
Ha! Oh man, that's just awful. 
If you're interested in learning more or partaking in some more food for thought, the videos below cover the topic of personhood pretty nicely. Give them a look if you have some time: they're short and pretty darned entertaining. Until next time, folks!
I think, therefore I am.
A very interesting take on the topic. I could go off on a more interesting philosophical question here such as "is it really objectively wrong to kill a person?" (We honor soldiers as noble people and heroes, and their job is literally 'to kill people'.) but there's one little notion nagging at me.
Why do people assume the clones were killed?
We do not know what they are. Sure, they could be flesh and bone creatures spawned from magic... But are they? Look back on the footage when they are destroyed.
It's quite clear that energy leaves the location where the clone was 'killed' and returns to the pool, where it is reabsorbed. That doesn't' seem like something which happens to a flesh and bone creature. No, that's something which you would expect of a spirit, or an energy-based lifeform. When a carbon based lifeform dies that's it. It's over, nothing more happens. When these things 'die', they return to where they came, or at least, the energy which they contained does.
If you ask me that implies that the clones are not things of flesh and bone, but coalesced energy which is drained from the pool and squeezed into she shape of the pony who uses it. The clones are not killed, rather, a spell is dispelled and the pool recovers the lost energy. But where did this energy come from?
From the pool. The pool is clearly the source of power, it is the place the clones come from and the thing which creates them, on top of being the place their energy returns to once they have been destroyed.
If the pool makes the clone, and the clone returns to the pool as a mass of energy once it's destroyed... Is the clone really a separate entity from that pool? Or perhaps the clone is simply an extension of the pool. A puppet formed from magic, controlled by whatever eldrich force the pool itself embodies.
Or mabey the pool contains the remains of consciousness. Nothing complete, just the ghosts of ghosts, which may for a time gain a form and walk the world once more in another's horse shoues before returning to their resting place.
After all, with that energy returning to the pool, I find it unlikely those consciousnesses actually ceased to be.
Personhood is always a tricky question, and I personally believe that that is because it is not a binary, yes-or-no equation that everyone else sees it as.
I consider personhood to be more of a sliding scale that factors in, among other things, emotional maturity, independence, and ability to reason. Where a given entity falls on this scale varies over the course of its life, though for organic lifeforms we can generally expect a low starting point and general upward trend as they develop, slowing significantly some time after sexual maturity. Artificial Intelligences tend to either completely flatline or spike erratically, depending on how stable and flexible they are.
On this scale, the Clones, during their romp through Ponyville, would have fallen somewhere between 'domestic turkey' and 'infant human' (fun fact: the turkey is actually the high bar here; because this scale does not factor potential for growth (mainly to avoid possible species biases), humans actually start out remarkably low). In this context, Twilight's attention span test was actually incredibly clever: restraint is a good indication of advanced emotional maturity, and the Pinkie who had lived an actual life would easily outmatch the ones that had only been developing for the past few hours at most.
While there is no canon evidence for how fast the Clones grow past that point (we can't even be certain the one that appeared in "Saddle Row Review" was actually a clone, and not just Pinkie Pie "being Pinkie Pie"), authors tend to give them a sharp upward spike to keep them relatable/alive, followed by slightly more gradual growth to somewhere in the upper range of the Average Pony. For reference's sake, Diane, the Clone that Got Away, is at the time of this writing roughly as much of a person as an 8-year-old child, or a particularly intelligent breed of dog.
Now, for the reason we're all here: Turing Test. I'm not going to lie, at the time Twilight first activated her, Turing was only marginally more of a person than the laptop I'm typing this on. If she had suffered an OS-corrupting error ten minutes in, it would have been seen as a scientific tragedy, but certainly not an emotional one. That being said, her rabid development placed her firmly in the range of social mammals (which includes humans, in case you were wondering) within the first few weeks.
Turing's "sister," 002, seems to have managed some development even in the deliberately-stunting environment of Techquestria, though not nearly to the same extent, and even that seems to have come at the price of her mental stability. Observations of 004 remain inconclusive.
tl;dr: People are complicated.
The Pinkie clones can only be compared to Turing the way she was at the beginning of the story, as a simple construct designed for a single purpose. Twilight, however was patient with Turing and allowed her to grow beyond that, and we don't know for certainty if the clones would have turned out different if they we also given that choice, and without said confirmation, it still feels like a hand wave.
4344560 That's certainly one way to look at it, and it's definitely possible that a clone could have developed enough to gain personhood at some point. But while you can call it a handwave, you're ignoring the fact that if the clones didn't possess personhood at the time that Twilight zapped them, then she didn't really do anything wrong.
Turing, except for when she went into defense mode right after being activated, was never an overt threat. The clones, however, were destructive and pushing Pinkie out of her own life and they had to be dealt with. Nobody really worries about the morality of exterminating a nest of termites, after all, and while the clones were certainly more advanced than termites, if they weren't people at the time of them being a threat as you say, then eliminating them isn't really a big deal.
Still, sticky situation, ain't it?
[devils advocate] So if i'm a technologically minded unicorn , and I cast a spell to disassemble Turing into the parts that made her; her original state. The parts she was before unnatural pony interference. I'm not killing her too ? [/devils advocate]
The real answer to when does a machine become sentient? There is nothing special about things just because they are biological. If You say Turing isn't a real pony , then neither are you.
Well, those are all good arguments...
But how do you explain.... this!
And this!
pre05.deviantart.net/edf2/th/pre/f/2015/054/3/2/three_pinkie_clones_hugging_by_ultrathehedgetoaster-d8j8joo.png
And that!
orig07.deviantart.net/356e/f/2016/251/9/0/too_many_pinkie_pies_in_manehatten_by_ultrathehedgetoaster-dagwk4k.png
Honestly, I don't think it needs to be brought up in-story at all. Everybody has their own headcanons, and there are so many different ways you can interpret the "given evidence", it does allow for some great speculation indeed.
I admit, the clones didn't cross my mind during your story at all. I just sorta assumed it either just "didn't happen" in this continuity, or was simply irrelevant to the story.
I know it wasn't the intention of the writers, but, when I first watched the episode? Honestly? While I was watching it? I was horrified! "What the --- did Twilight Sparkle just commit mass-murder?!"
I know it wasn't the intention of the writers, but that's what it looked like to me on first viewing.
Now, would Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and would-be Princess of Friendship just carelessly murder innocent thinking beings?
No, of course not! Not intentionally...
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/11/28/165939__twilight+sparkle_pinkie+pie_spike_grimdark_artist+needed_pinkamena+diane+pie_source+needed_too+many+pinkie+pies_nightmare_spoiler-colon-s03e03.png
Oh, and one more thing;
Well, give them some leeway, they were only a few hours old at the time.
In fact... here's food for thought; at which point after her activation did Turing Test become recognizable as a person?
Bottom-line: For the purpose of this story, the clones aren't considered people. I get it, but I don't think it needs to be brought-up in-story, and it'd probably just leave a mild sour "aftertaste" bringing it up.
And where does the clone of Pinkie that appeared in Saddle Row Review fit in on all of this?
Quite an interesting discussion of personhood. One thing to keep in mind though: Joey Waggoner's story of a clone running away and building a life for herself in the big city is basically canon as of Saddle Row Review, so those clones must have some really sophisticated programming.
4344313 I agree those clones were quite possibly of solidified magic rather than flesh and bone, and thus when they were killed their magic was returned to the mirror pool just as when someone dies their body (sometimes) decomposes in the ground. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, magic energy to magic energy. Though I would wager Discord is also solidified magic.
4345727 If they were just soild light constructs with some magic controlling them, then whos'e to say that if Pinkie didn't use the pool again that the generated entity wouldn't remember the first time?
4345747 Not sure what you mean about the pool remembering. Interestingly, you're making the Pinkie Clones sound like the Doctor (a hologram) on Star Trek Voyager. He was also a solid-light construct with external memory banks.
4345916 I'm saying it's possible that the clones rather than being annihilated and energy merely recovered were instead 'banished' to the pool, potentially being able to be resummoned.
4345919 Yeah, I thought of that possibility as well, that the mirror pool is like an oubliette where the newly created consciousnesses will languish for all time without realistic possibility of release. Or do you mean that their minds are taken "offline" permanently?
4344407
4345076 Thanks, you guys have made me realize the clones have a lot in common with an infant. They have no maturity, patience and possibly no object permanence, but they do have recognizable desires and drives and they seem to be able to learn and adapt to at least a limited extent (the clones figuring out how to make more of themselves). How old does an infant need to be before they are considered a "person," or do they get credited as future-potential person from the start?
One thing I will disagree with though: That other pinkie in Saddle Row Review was clearly supposed to be a mirror pool clone, though I do think the episode was implying that Pinkie might be aware of her clone...
Another hard question: at what point do you gain a soul? Follow up: does having one qualify one as a person?
4351983 I think the first question is impossible to answer, at least in this world. At least it's impossible to prove souls' existence, though that rarely stops people from believing in them.
The second answer might be tougher to answer. You could probably argue that, if you believe in souls, that anything with personhood has one. After all, many believe that it is the soul which is where true consciousness lies, and this is partly why Twilight asserts that she believes that if souls exist, Turing Test must have one. Though, for the record, this is hardly agreed upon, and it's part of where the term "ghost in the machine" comes from: it mocks the idea of the physical body just being a meat machine piloted by the soul. Still, I think almost all of us would intuitively have a problem with the proposition that there are things that have personhood but don't have a soul (if it exists).
However, even people who believe in souls argue about who has them. Does the family dog have a soul? How about a cat? How about a toothless baby alligator? How about plants? How about a rock? And if not a rock, then why a robot? Obviously we don't grant personhood to any of those, even among those who say that some-to-all of them might have souls. Thus, we can probably state that, assuming souls exist and that things other than humans (or ponies) can have them:
All beings with personhood have souls; but not all beings with souls have personhood.
But those are just my general thoughts on the subject. What about you?
Well, don't forget that being magical constructs could mean that they are a different kind of construct than Turning Test is. I've personally thought that the clones were made to mimic a specific pony and fulfill a specific task, and everything about them is filtered through those two things, keeping them from self-awareness. Turning, by contrast, was programmed to follow commands, but also to learn and develop like a person would, allowing her to become more and more of a real pony.
That, of course, means that is might be possible to create a race of drones exactly like TT simply by altering a few base commands in their code, which could raise a few questions on its own.
So, Pinkie clones, huh? Well, in terms of gaming -- are reflections not some objects? To render them, objects have to be created.
And Pinkie clones are but reflections. Really! Through some magical means they can cross the threshold that is the pool's surface, and from reflections they come to be real-life objects. Twilight supposedly "killing" them? That was but a transition from one type of objects to another one -- all types of objects are ultimately objects ([cough]they inherit from the Object class[cough]).
So, since reflections only reflect the real world, we have not got to worry about destroying the clones. After all
, Turing Test herself could come to the pool and pull her own copy out of it! How's this, Elon Musk, huh?