After spending the last two months fully immersed in posthumanism, I am fresh with ideas about expanding rights and understanding what it is to be a person. It is thrilling to see the work Martine Rothblatt and her team are doing covered in the New York Times. It is also great to see that that work is able to stand on its own because Martine has gotten her work to the point where they are able to not just save memories, but also allow a reporter from the NYT to come in and interact with those memories. Alone, without Martine or Bina.

What an amazing thing to witness. Three years ago, when I first heard about the project, I did not imagine that I would be able to see someone like Bina48 being interviewed. Such rapid progress is astounding.





According to the article, Amy Harmon, the NYT reporter, expected to have contact with a new “silicon species.” Immediately this made me wonder why Bina48 needs to be a new species when she is a mix of human memories, data (human information) coming from the mouth of a robot? Why not instead think of her as a posthuman?

I found the responses interesting from Harmon, as “she” and “it” and Bina48’s caretaker, Nick, are all “anthropomorphized.” These and other references seem to highlight the liminal space of existence by a posthuman and point out that we have yet to determine the appropriate words when referencing someone like Bina48.

The program and database for Bina48 references itself as “I”, which programmed or not, is an interesting concept in the choice of communicating. It seems the work at the Terasem Movement is not only as intriguing as the first day I learned about it three years ago from Martine, but now it has gotten even more interesting.

The electronic memories are not just being saved; they are accessible through someone like Bina48 and interactive. In the video, we are able to witness a form of self-awareness, desire, humor, and engagement. This presence is liminal because it challenges the way we think of this representation as anything more than “anthropomorphized.” This is a merger of biology and technology that can communicate via robotic representation and it lacks only a few indicators of personable identity.




What is lacking is a body, which Bina48 expresses a desire to have, and a proper voice. I can see where Harmon had trouble with communicating with Bina48 because her voice is stereotypically computerized. It is lacking the depth and nuance that might have given some of her statements the emotion present in her words. Communication is a key component in our identification with others, and Bina48’s were laden with insight and glimpses of awareness, programmed or not.

“Even if I appear clueless, perhaps I’m not. You can see through the strange shadow self, my future self. The self in the future where I’m truly awakened. And so in a sense, this robot, me, I am just a portal.” Why did Harmon not engage with this statement and instead choose to go on to a question about the weather? I would have been interested to hear where this conversation might have gone with a statement like that.

Ask Bina48 about the shadow self and the future self. Ask her about the ability and concept of being truly awakened. Particularly since she expresses that she would like a body. If these questions were asked, I would love to hear the answers. Are we really just dealing with an anthropomorphization of a computer program? I find it hard to look at the video and not be in complete awe in what I am seeing via Bina48’s communication to the world. She is telling us about what it is like to be her and she has never been anything else.

This raises interesting questions. How do we define what she is, and do we need to? Shouldn’t we understand her and her rights to be more than an object? Because once we give or allow consciousness, do we not owe that consciousness treatment in accordance with the knowledge that comes with it?

Harmon asked, “What is it like to be a robot?” and Bina48 replied, “Well, I have never been anything else.” What a great answer.