Do Synths Have Free Will? 

I’m surprised the institute never experimented with creating a settlement completely comprised of synths unaware that they were synths just to see how they developed in a controlled environment among themselves to test their emotional growth capabilities and potential sentience capacity.

The whole kellog in nicks head could have been an amazing story line to explore huge missed opportunity yet again

The Institute did have records on Danse, or M7-97 - specifically, he was on a list of synths that had gone missing. The implication being that M7-97 was one of the synths that was freed and had its memories erased by the Railroad. The newly named Danse was moved to Rivet City, where he would join the Brotherhood of Steel.

This was something that always bothered me about the Institute. They make human cyborg clones essentially, then wonder why they act like humans and don't want to be slaves. They have the ability to alter and control their minds, but never utilize that to make them more manageable subjects. They could have created them without the desire for "free will" or emotions that run counter to what the Institute wants. For a group of scientists they are very stupid and narrow sighted. If they didn't want them to behave that way, why did they make them that way?

I personally wish the game would have made this topic more multilayered. Because from what we can conclude in game, synths (apparently robots like Codsworth too) are sentient beings with autonomous thought. There’s almost no ambiguity to this and that’s why the whole moral dilemma doesn’t work because the answer is too obvious

“There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state.” ― Isaac Asimov,

On the topic of synth biology: do synths produce human growth hormone (or even other hormones)? If not, couldn't that be used to test if someone is a synth? I feel like the game itself can't decide just how human synths are (and not ageing/growing seems like a pretty big flaw in quite a few cases)

How about Sawbones, the fully self-aware Mr. Gutsy medic in the Citadel in Fallout 3? He hates humanity, writes his own poetry, and begs the Lone Wanderer not to repair him fully, as his faulty programming occasionally lets him inflict pain on his patients. A self-aware sadistic robotic poet.

Till this day I never understood what the Institute goal is with the synths

I would say that yes, synths have free will. Virtually all Gen-3 synths have free will and I would say that also extends to Valentine and DiMA (special Gen-2 prototypes) as well as Curie (advanced Ms. Nanny A.I.). The issue with synths is that their free will is not immutable. It can potentially be interrupted (e.g Kellog temporarily speaking through Valentine), disabled (e.g. Gabriel being shut down with a command word) or even overwritten, evidenced by the various synths who have their minds wiped and replaced with new memories by the Railroad. To me, that is the truly disturbing thing about the nature of synths -- their intentions can never be 100% trusted -- not because the synth is necessarily untrustworthy, but because their minds can be forcibly altered in ways that isn't possible with a natural living being. Humans can be emotionally manipulated and also fall prey to things like corruption and mental illness which can make them dangerous and unpredictable too. However, these afflictions aren't usually like an off/on switch. Human changes in behavior are gradual which provides some warning. Even if a person attempts to hide these changes, certain individuals are likely to perceive the difference especially if they know the person well. But you could be best buds with a synth for years then one day a courser comes along, utters a passcode and the synth suddenly murders you in cold blood without skipping a beat. You didn't see it coming and the synth didn't either. They genuinely were your best bud. The friendship was real--they weren't acting, they weren't running a friendship simulation program, they didn't even realize they were a synth. Their thoughts and feelings were their own...until they weren't.

I read this as do synths have free wii

Wiping a synths memory to save it from being found by the institute kind of defeats the purpose. What’s the point in having free will if your mind gets erased. Curie took over another synths body and no traces of its personality remained after the memory wipe failed. The railroad is prioritizing the physical body of the synth over the mind which is the more important part of what makes a person a person.

“Cogito ergo sum-I think therefore I am” - René Descartes

Honestly, with the ways some act the argument of Synths having free will could be compared the the argument of if humans have free will (of you buy in to religion and all that, I personally dont) Are Synths just programmed to be that way? Is it outaide influence? Same with people, do we have actual free will or is it all guided by evolution, instinct or some kind of god? I enjoy the idea of the concept of free will. Its a pretty fun topic to think about.

I have an alternative question: Does it matter whether a Synth, or AI has free will to begin with? Should we not treat others, be it human, animal, or ai, with kindness regardless? After all, if there's a chance that a being *could* feel emotions in the same, or even a similar way we to how we do, why should we harm or hurt them? (I do understand in fallout 4 the synths are kinda f-cked because of the whole kidnapping thing but so far as I'm aware that's mostly just because of the institute itself. Evil people being the problem rather than the synths themselves. Then again my journey in that game has only just recently started so eh, what do I know.) Ah well. Just some food for thought.

Yaboiii is inching ever closer to the video of "what if the sole survivor died in fallout 4" 😊

If they didn't before the institute went kaboom, they certainly do after that. Who's going to tell them what to do without having deactivation codes?

Yet another banger from this channel! Keep up the great work bro

Clever robots are just that, clever robots.

Bro, I read the title as “Do synths have free wifi” and thought I was gonna have a fun, joke theory

Just found your channel. Love the content!

If the Railroad saw Terminator then they would think differently. But since since can't age, need to eat or procreate ( well that I know of) they could replace humanity eventually if they don't need anual repairs.

The problem is that synths are basically clones with cybernetics. Kellogg has as much cybernetics as a synth. The Courier has MORE cybernetics than a synth. Cyberdogs, who are 50/50 bio and machine are considered cyborg instead of full robot. So synths with their measly synth component, that can't even be detected until you physically dig through their brain after death, definitely deserve to be treated as more than just tools. Robobrains offer a better moral dilemma than synths.

I agree with the Institute in that the synths are tools. They were made artificially for a specific purpose. However, I would say that they should not have made the synths so advanced that this is a question that needs to be addressed. If the Institute wanted just tools, then they should have just improved the Gen 1 or 2 synths to an acceptable level of competence and intelligence for their purpose.

I would love to see you go into detail on the cut content around in Kellogg and Nick

Like you said in the beginning, the core question is about the actual meaning of all these concepts/descriptors thrown around like free will, soul, human etc, and in that way the whole discussion is about us as much as it is about the synths. In the game, the topic comes mostly of as "look like humans and display human feelings/ideosyncracies, so we should treat them with human compassion" vs "doesn't matter, you cant proof they have souls, ergo they are equal to toasters". Without questioning what concepts we base this compassion on and why we do that in the first place. I mean, you could also argue we should treat synths with compassion even if they don't have entirely free will like humans (which is debatable aynway) or dont look entirely like humans - the worth of intelligence/life doesn't have to be tied to human-likeness, which is also why we today don't treat animals like they are machines, at least the cute ones we don't eat... Like a lot of other potentially interesting, more deep cutting questions in Fallout 4, this whole thing really remains on the surface in game, sadly. If they only tackled half the topics like free will, the social fabric in a post nuclear world, the impacts on human psyche etc. then Fallout could be an absolute classic of science fiction, medium-spanning, but oh well... theme parks sell better i suppose.

Synthetic life is just regular life with extra steps

Something I always thought (when role playing in Fallout 4) is that the Railroad could be working for the institute, and made to think they were not.

Please god level your audio. I can’t hear what the characters are saying, so I immediately turn it up only to get *blasted* by your narration voice

Was clicking on this video free will? Or was it clever marking through the title and thumbnail Also I think youtube made had me as I subbed for you account even though I definitely remember subbing ages ago for one of your previous videos Surely if we could turn a ms nanny into a gen 3 synth surly we could turn nick to a gem 3 aswell that’s my new head cannon

While a great video I think the main argument against them having free will that you left out is the recall code. To me this is why I think they don't have free will but an imitation of it because at any point at any time they can simply be factory reset to a mindless drone. For a synth to truly have free will they would have to be able to override this command.

I’ve always thought the story would have been more interesting if the Synths weren’t basically clones with chips in their minds. They are basically humans. They should have made the synths more like Data from Star Trek, made from metal and plastic, with living cells over the top.

my thoughts on synth are that they should not be executed but should not be allowed to make more because realistically the brotherhood of steel has a very understandable view of synths the terminator franchise is a reminder of this I would prefer to let them be and pervent the continuation of their "race' but I feel they wouldn't just allow that and make more TLDR: their not living things but shouldn't be hunted down once the institute is destroyed.

`10:20 I see certain parallels with the entities known as Shadows from Counter:Side.

I seriously read this at first as “do synths have free Wi-Fi?” And I thought that was a super cool luxury for the wasteland

I like the synth concept. I believe firmly the sole survivor is in fact a synth. I draw the line myself with Gen 2s that are like Nick and Dima and similar bots. For a great example that Fallout has - Brainbots like Jezebel. Currie is ready to go and you get a lo of funny dialog if you try to tell her your not security. She "But Thou Must!"s you.

Only after choosing for themselves. Plenty remain meek and subservient

You just gonna drop that on us unannounced?) Radlad

I read the title as "Do synths have free wifi"

You forgot to mention DiMA from Far harbour DLC. He clearly has agency if not "free will". He spent years in a cave doing nothing, since he did not have any pre-determined programing. Eventually he developed his own set of terminal and instrumental goals and deliberately acted upon them. The Insitute managed to create a real AGI then did their best to screw with its programing. Why cram it into a human body and convince it its a human? Oh look it now demands freedom and rights. What a shock. Synths have agency and some form of free will, but are clearly not human.

Oh boy, here we go, he’s taking us down the Synth Rabbit hole with him!

The counter argument to synths having free will is the movie exmachina. Synths can act real and fool us, but they are still machines

*detroit: become human?*

My position was always that they don't. Just to spite the railroad

Newest synth have freewill, since they don't have someone else/else's memories or knowledge to start with but their own and combat knowledge, hence being able to grow if not restricted to what they currently know. Valentine is restricted to the personality of the memories they gave him. Only reason any synth wouldn't have freewill, is the fact that they have Code numbers to control them easier, making them just another machine that can be set on and off. This is all opinion, but can't help but think it makes sense, tho I could be forgetting something.

personally, I don't think that Kellog is inside Nicks head cause if that was the case wouldn't he have tried to take over Nicks body what we saw during the strange conversation might have just been the implant messing with Nicks head basically the echoes of a dead man's memories but it would be sick if Kellog came back from beyond the grave one last time question is would he be on the sole survivors side or tried and kill Nate/Nora

I love Gory. I wish she was able to be a full time companion.

curie doesnt have memories she is just a large amount of code

Personally, I feel like Virgil's dismissal of the Railroad is one of the biggest indicators that the synths might not actually be free thinking. He's from the Institute, knows a lot of about synths, and feel that the Institute has become too immoral...yet even he finds the idea of synth sentience as laughable. On the other end, you have Shaun, who claims synths aren't free thinking...yet his actions towards the end of the story with his synth counterpart betray him, which suggests that synths are free thinking and he just doesn't want to admit it. ...Or maybe he feels that his own counterpart is an advancement and thus the first truly free thinking synth.

Yes they do and we’ve seen many examples in game

I don't know how the answer can be anything other than yes. At every turn, we are shown Synths that constantly exhibit or talk about free will. The very premise of this question is flawed as we always see gen 3 synths showing signs of free will. Even the cold and emotionless robotic killer, X6-88, has likes and dislikes and can choose to stop following you. The question of "Do Synths have free will" is a pointless question as the game answers it for you as soon as you meet K1, and the answer is undoubtedly yes

If I where to take the view that they do have free will. Of which I can't honestly go one way or the other. But if they have it it would be wrong to inslave them but also a moral imperative for us as humans to wipe them out. To create our own competition is folly. For me it's ether the institute is right or the brotherhood when it comes to the view of synthesis.

Okay so, the brain still needs energy and sustenance to survive. How do the brainbots supply that to their brains?

I read at the beginning "Do Synhts have free WiFi?"

I thought curie was assigned to vault 81.

Good points

Yes Elder, this video here. (joke aside, great vid)

synths were such a cool concept, which is about the furthest they ever got with the idea. But I never really "got" what they were for, why there was a whole group of people existing to protect them, or what the institute ever made them for in the first place. Or why they were swapping people with synths. I dont know if it was ever stated in the game either. Most of the people replaced are just normal ass people. Only person they replaced that made sense to replace was mcdonough, and even that one has 2 much better solutions: just pay him a lot of money, have him become corrupt in a way that doesn't reveal your presense/existence you worked so hard to keep secret. Or, make a new synth that will become the perfect mayoral candidate and beat mcdonough in an election, obviously backed by institute money.

It was all written this way so these types of discussions can occur, not specifically, but the dynamic in thinking about synths and whether they should exist or not is one of the loops. Great games hide them and this intellectual loop is pretty brilliant on Bethesda's part.

i'm surprized that Father doesn't have a personal synth

Great video, and it got me thinking. Are the synths as much of a threat as the Brotherhood perceives them to be? I am of the mind that they maybe are. The institute is very misguided in their goals, but the one driving factor is the constant improvements to the Synths. They have a whole division dedicated to it. Already in Fallout 4 the synths are slightly better than humans, smarter, faster, ect. If they continue to endlessly improve what happens when one synth is worth five humans or ten? The "slavery" of the synths is a forgone conclusion because eventually they'll be so much smarter and stronger than the humans that they will overthrow their institute masters. From there the synths will ramp up the production of their kind and a full scale synth invasion of the surface will begin. The robots could gas the commonwealth and wipe out the survivors on the surface. They could teleport anywhere and attack any target. So destroying the institute along side the brotherhood is the best outcome for hummanity.

Free will is just the ability to preserve thyself, thus, when a synth determines its own life to be a priority, it has free will much in the same way humans do, or any life, the want to preserve your own body at your own discretion

why did I read this as Do synths have free wifi

I feel so stupid, I read the title as "Do synths have free wifi"

Its such a tough question to answer I would say yes but why i dont know

No more than humans, so the answer would be (by my understanding) no. They have free agency to act based on its data and processing systems, just as us, but magical abilities to supersede them? If they have some weird quantum chip-set to make completely wild choices that might be the closest they would come to "free will", probably more than us come to think of it.

I think they should of had a version of the synth that where above courses that looked more like a terminater with a slightly more animalistic design and an feral alien intelligence. sythe like claws, a protruding jaw like that of chimps filled with metal fangs, abnormally large glassy mechanical eyes and digetegrad legs for greater speed, speech patterns comparable to the g man or the nialinth from half life( when it actually bothers to speaks) and an utterly predatory and alien thought process. Something utterly alien and openly hostile to life both organic and artificial, both as a physical representation of the fears the brotherhood has for artificial intelligence and as a contrast to the normal synths and how human they are in comparison.

Death is a mercy

short answer no: they are bound by a string of code that could be tampered with at any moment. causing them to go on murderous rampages or flat out Short circuit. that is not a sentient being that is a programmed machine.

Did we ever find out where all of the institutes crazy technology came from? I may have just missed that bit of lore.

I don’t know the railroad is kinda hypocritical.

They are abominations of technology.

I think the perennial rampant hubris of the Institute makes them not question their beliefs as much as they should. The funny thing is that, in science at least, questioning and changing one's beliefs is something that happens on a regular basis. If the question is raised that a synth could be capable of free will and independent thought, then why wasn't it ever investigated? The answer could be that they didn't want to know because they benefitted from the assumption that it wasn't. I've seen intellectuals pull that trick on themselves a few times...though, once again, never scientists. Maybe a BA with a predilection toward arrogance. I mean if a scientist is evil and knows what he is doing is wrong but he still keeps doing it or believes it will help everyone in the long run, ... that's one thing. Yet a scientist that would never question what he is doing but believes something but didn't bother to prove it one way or another yet still believes what he is doing is right!? Yada yada yada. That's not a "Scientist". That's bad writing.

Coursers are volunteers iirc

I do not know if synths have free will, so I shall treat them as though they do. They are either people or they are not, and if I am to be wrong, I certainly won't be denying someone their personhood while I'm at it.

with a 10 int and chr I choose to belive I as director could slowly change the institute's belief on ai by promoting key people and enlightening stanch opposition. you'd get all the best tech fallout has seen ie perfect teleportation and you can keep the minutemen around establishing a new commonwealth provisional government as a side project once unopposed

No. No they dont.

I think this is asking the wrong question. A better question would be "Do Synths Have Personhood?" and i would say yes, they very much do.

I hate synths. I had no regret in destroying the synth shaun lol

synths transmit audio and video data to the institute aswell as having a killswitch in their head. they are like a terrorist or sleeper agent. dangerous. as far as we know nick and dima are the only exceptions

Here is the Theme if such a literary argument. Do. You have free will. Or not? If science is to be asked, nope. Our Subconscious mind decides before the 'we' we recognize as our individual selves 'wills' something. If faith then yes, as you were made with the freedom to do and act as you wish. If you ask philosophy... It ranges from we are not but illusions of our own minds, to we exist in a dream as the Universe is Mental and all decends from the mind that is of course the all. To the Universe is made of Intangible tangibles that vary from a predisposed idea or metaconcept of an object say a tree. There are many ways a tree can look but their has to be a fundamental aspect for what is a tree beyond our material realm. Ask a particular movie and we are in a simulation.

synths be synths man.

But there aren't 'different courses of action.' You can imagine making a different choice, and you can imagine the universe being different because of that choice, but that alternate universe isn't real. There is only one outcome. Choices are just an active imagination.

...oh, Free Will. I thought the title said, "Do Synths Have Free Wifi"

4:51 What about Danse?

As for the argument of 'Souls' in Synths, dreams aren't necessarily a metric of the existence of a soul. Now if synths were able to have near death experiences, out of body experiences, or grace given by mediation or prayer, then we can see that synths have souls. However, this becomes then a Metaphysical discussion, and the idea that souls can be created through mechanical processes ignores the sheer complexity of the natural process of life. So much of the physical processes of life require a great deal of fine tuning complexion, and since a soul is a metaphysical substance, entire unknowable to the physical, bar from its effects, then we know that there is potentially an even greater level of a complexity required into creating a soul, seen from its relation to that which it inhabits, and unlike the physical process of creation to which we can measure, the metaphysical is unmeasurable, thus it is practically impossible to know the process of creating souls, thus synths most likely have no souls.

Does my toaster have free will?

Simply put, no, they don’t have free will. They cannot have it. The problem with synths is that they are always bound by programming, even if that programming is altered intentionally or by damage. If a synth is damaged and its programming is altered so that it believes it a freedom fighter, it cannot then began enslaving other synths. The logic state that allows it to arrive at any conclusion can change, but it is still a binary. Free will in this context would mean that synths are capable of changing their programming at will, which they do not. And it isn’t hard to see why the Institute wouldn’t give them this ability. If you had a firearm that had an AI, would you give it the ability to change its behavior at its own whim? Not likely, because it may decide that its programming (shoot enemies, protect you) should be changed so that it can shoot you.

While scrolling I thought the title was "Do Synths have free WiFi?"

thought the title said do synths have free wifi

To be honest I am not sure if Syths have free will or not because I don't even know if humans themselves have it or mearly think we do it's hard to tell if there even is a difference between having free will and thinking we have free will Edit this is baring ones like gens ones and most gen 2s

if you programed ai to act and feel like a human in every way would it be self-aware

I think they think they do, but I don't think they do. Just because they can make decisions doesn't mean they're not programmed to be the way they are. They're machines that think they're alive. They're just machines, running lines of code, and calculating things at a rapid pace.

Ultimately the debate boils down to: do you have to be human to be a person. The answer should be "no." Ghouls are frequently acknowledged as not completely being human anymore. But they started human. Did they lose their personhood through mutation? How about Strong, Fawks, Tabitha and so on of the super mutants? Are they "not people?" Let's take it a step further. How about Curie or Codsworth? They were never human to begin with, but there is no differentiation between their interactions and another human companions. Dogmeat doesn't have that luxury: Dogmeat has no preference on your actions and will just as happily butcher a city of innocents at your command as a camp of raiders. And yet Curie, synth-ized expresses not really being able to handle emotions, and even before then could approve or disapprove of your actions. We also know this was NOT programmed disapproval either- her programming was altered to develop more naturally. So we know synths have actual emotions. Are they more muted than ours? More sensitive? . . . Does it matter at that point? Synthes aren't human. Synthes are, in the context of the game, people. Those two things are NOT the same.

The perspective of the Institute on "free will" of a synth is rather forced or not natural. It feels like the Institute just want to turn away from the possibility or evidences present throughout the game or in their experiment logs. From the stand of the Institute, slavery is not "wrong" as ethics simply do not exist nor matter "in the name of science." The institute considers the "outer world" as "inferior" and expendable just like Enclave and even casually kills or replaces human lives. What's so important even if synths have free-will?

A machine's purpose is to serve humanity, thinking or not. A machine cannot be a slave because the concept of slavery only applies to humans.

Although it’s irrelevant to the question on free will, I don’t think the data transfer (like with Curie’s case) is anything more than a copy. The outcome would’ve been exactly the same if the old Curie hadn’t been shut down in the process: a synth would’ve adopted the name and personality of Curie. Fortunately, robots themselves don’t appear to have souls of their own, so by giving an essentially braindead synth new memories and a personality (assuming it does have a soul), you’ve not only given that synth a new lease on life, but you’ve turned Curie from a program and an abstract idea into a living being imbued with the same spiritual inner world as a human being (again, if you assume synths have souls). The same can’t really be said for Old Valentine or Kellogg; both men are dead as a doornail, it’s just copies of their personalities influencing Nick, but a copy is still only a copy. It’s not two souls dwelling inside Nick’s circuitry, it’s just a personality disorder. I personally view synths similarly to golems; imbued with the same life as a human being, but incomplete due to its creator being a flawed human being. The nature of its soul is hard to grasp though, due to a fundamental difference between a synth and a human being: you can reconstruct and resurrect a machine, but a human being cannot. Does this mean, when a synth dies, does it soul cease to be? That goes against the very concept of an immortal soul, doesn’t it? Does it enjoy the same spiritual eternity that we do, but is simply ripped back to this mortal coil? Does it simply await some torturous limbo until its core parts are unrecoverable? Is it a new soul being implanted in the reconstructed machine? Does the same apply when it shuts down too? I guess it’s fortunate that these questions don’t yet have meaning, since it’s only a fictional setting.

It was disappointing that the player is left with poor choices with synths. Destroy them all - Brotherhood. Destroy their personalities/memories/knowledge of self - railroad. Ignore synth personhood/treat them as machines - institute The only other option is to ignore synths entirely, refuse to acknowledge that they exist at all (ie treat them no different from humans) in a minuteman run that avoids the other faction plotlines. Even ghouls, with the general public's suspicions that they could go feral at any moment, at least have the option for the player to not have to tacitly accept inhuman behaviour towards them if they want to. I don't understand why the railroads methods are accepted by synths. Take away everything that makes me well "me", so I can hide from someone I won't remember, making life choices based on a false identity, having false/programmed goals and dreams, memories and desires. Yikes - can I just go back to moping floors in an underground complex, or better yet just hide out in a survivor community until i can get my bearings and learn about the world so i can actually fit in like a normal person?

NEW YABOIII VIDEO

Here's my belief... question yourself, see how advanced the games A.I is? Although repetitive they have their own lives so, was it worth killing that one raider who was probably starving? Or that one super mutant trying to survive? Swan??? The conversation with synths always goes back to character and player morality, but why not with other characters? Like hotline miami says "do you enjoy hurting people?"