In this episode, Data becomes a father. He creates another android, naming her Lal. This episode not only re-examines Data’s rights, but the rights of all androids like Data. It also tackles a very difficult subject: tech and ethics. The most emotional moment to watch was when Lal came to realization that she would be separated from her father. Experiencing a flood of emotion, and not knowing what to do with it, she went to Counselor Troi’s quarters. The something in my eyes began to appear with the words, “I feel…” while she struck her chest with the tips of her fingers, later to be followed with, “This is what it means to feel!” This episode is a very powerful episode for me.The actress who plays Lal does such a remarkable job in her role as well. She is able to portray so many emotions even when remaining as an android. I really wished that it could had more time with Data and Lal on the show but then again, this single moment in time was probably more impactful than any long story arc it could have had.

Technology and Ethics are two crucial aspects of the engineering world. They dictate how we do things, solve problems, relate to each other and communicate.
Obviously, we are becoming more dependent on technology in our lives and work environments. As Rick Smolan said, “Every time there’s a new tool, whether it’s Internet or cell phones or anything else, all these things can be used for good and evil. Technology is neutral; it depends on how it’s used.” (Brainy Quote) Engineering is no different in this respect. We use tech to solve calculations, generate models for our buildings and communicate with our colleagues. We can also become too dependent on it to some extent. It would be virtually impossible to go a day with out using tech in some fashion.
Likewise, ethics are an essential bedrock of any industry or business. Ethics are the hidden guideline for how we coexist and work together in a quality manner. With out ethics much of every industry would be corrupt and impossible to navigate fairly. Bidding jobs, contracts, safety, and many more engineering-based core principles would be at jeopardy with out ethics.
Is there a parallel between ethics and tech in the work space? I believe technology some what negatively effects ethics. The more we use tech the less we work together to form solid relationships from what trust is built. This allows for less ethics overall since there are less face to face interactions. Ethics are supposed to be woven into our industries naturally, but it is difficult to uphold those ethics when we spend less and less time together.

This week’s Star Trek is very shocking to me. It is mainly about Data creates another android named Lal and he treated her as his daughter. And he teaches her every aspects in human life.  This actually surprise me because because it is really hard to create a robot that knows how to think and act like a human because it requires a lot of knowledge in computer science. I am a computer science major  and I know how difficult it is to code a very simple program. Coding a robot with definitely take tremendous amount of time and experience in order to do that since you want the robot to act as a human, you will need a lot of complicated codes in order to do so.  This frightens me because Lal is not created by humans, she is created by another robot. This means that Data is smarter than majority of his crew mates. I have watched a lot of movies and shows about how robots start to fight against human beings because they believe they are smarter and they don’t want to be controlled by humans. And currently, even though the robots/technology do not have their own conscious yet, they are slowly substituting with humans. There is a supermarket near my high school and the supermarket didn’t hire any cashier, they use technology instead. The technology has improved so much recently, and I am not saying it is a bad thing. Since technology also helps humans in many ways especially in medical field

This week’s Star Trek also makes me feel emotional too. Even though both Data and Lal are robots, they behave very similar like a regular human. Especially when Lal are starting to pick up those lessons. She learns that the world is not as good as what she thought, she got bullied by her classmates, the captain of another star ship tries to take her away from her father. All of those are things that humans will go through when they are growing up. At the end, Lal can finally feel emotion, but this takes her life as well. She is no longer there.  Even though I do not support creating a lot of robot because I am afraid they will take over the world, I do want Lal to stay alive since she just begins to feel like a human. However, this can foreshadows that a robot is a robot, no matter how smart they are, they are not going to be humans because humans have emotions- one of the strongest weapon that a human has, while robots don’t. Therefore, I think that is the reason why the director decides to let Lal died. The directors doesn’t want there is a robot who is similar to a human while it is not considering as a human. Therefore, I started to worry about Data, because from this episode, Data behaves exactly like a human. He wants to protect his child. He wants his child to learn. All of those characteristics are very similar to humans. As a result, I made a prediction that Data will not be alive at the end of the Star Trek. Hopefully that is not true, but this is my thought. Robot is  robot. Human is human.