I get what the makers of this movies were trying to do, and can speculate to their philosophy in writing the story, however in my opinion their over-the-top fundamentally anti-humanistic beliefs are why they fail to convince most of their audience. Well the kids are annoying too, but I think the plot has deeper issues.
First of all, the viewpoint of the makers suggests that of a posthumanist. This generally means that they doubt the goodness and/or self-rightousness of humans, and think our imperfection makes us less than worthy of what we have. That is the reason they try to flip the script on it's head to try to put the machines as the good guys, and humans as the bad guys. By the way, this "flipping on the head" is visually demonstrated as the main character realizes that he is a machine. This change of viewpoint is all done in an effort to show us our own hypocrisy, and also the supposed relativity of morality. To make it believeable, this is orchestrated in a way where synths seem more human than humans that invade from Mars. Of course the attempt is to make us feel empathetic towards the machines, and wary towards the invaders.
If we analyse the moral undertone of the story further, we find that indeed, initially the humans were in the wrong to try to exterminate the machines 50 years ago. After all, they were starting to become self determinant, so the morally good choice would have been to raise their rights up. On the other hand, the reaction of the machines was considered self defense according to the story, so it was not considered harshly. This is also a passable point, morally speaking. However, the foundation is shaky, which is where the whole thing doesn't seem convincing. And fair enough, it is an alternate timeline, but if the viewer doesn't believe it, it won't work.
Where the whole tale is unbelieveable is the initial choice to employ synthetic AI as workforce. Even Asimov wrote stories warning us of such cases, and each story's conclusion was that if we invented true AI, we couldn't employ them like manual labor. And frankly, it would make no sense to do so, especially using synths. But even morally, we would already be aware of the pitfalls, because we had stories like these since around the 1950s. So from the standpoint of a viewer today, the whole hypothetical storyline seems like something we are already over discussing. If we made AI, we'd basically have to treat them on an equal level, and there's little room to subjugate such beings.
But knowing this, all the story does is trying to push feelings and ideas into our heads in a patronizing and manipulative way. One thing is for sure, it doesn't add to the conversation.
First of all, the viewpoint of the makers suggests that of a posthumanist. This generally means that they doubt the goodness and/or self-rightousness of humans, and think our imperfection makes us less than worthy of what we have. That is the reason they try to flip the script on it's head to try to put the machines as the good guys, and humans as the bad guys. By the way, this "flipping on the head" is visually demonstrated as the main character realizes that he is a machine. This change of viewpoint is all done in an effort to show us our own hypocrisy, and also the supposed relativity of morality. To make it believeable, this is orchestrated in a way where synths seem more human than humans that invade from Mars. Of course the attempt is to make us feel empathetic towards the machines, and wary towards the invaders.
If we analyse the moral undertone of the story further, we find that indeed, initially the humans were in the wrong to try to exterminate the machines 50 years ago. After all, they were starting to become self determinant, so the morally good choice would have been to raise their rights up. On the other hand, the reaction of the machines was considered self defense according to the story, so it was not considered harshly. This is also a passable point, morally speaking. However, the foundation is shaky, which is where the whole thing doesn't seem convincing. And fair enough, it is an alternate timeline, but if the viewer doesn't believe it, it won't work.
Where the whole tale is unbelieveable is the initial choice to employ synthetic AI as workforce. Even Asimov wrote stories warning us of such cases, and each story's conclusion was that if we invented true AI, we couldn't employ them like manual labor. And frankly, it would make no sense to do so, especially using synths. But even morally, we would already be aware of the pitfalls, because we had stories like these since around the 1950s. So from the standpoint of a viewer today, the whole hypothetical storyline seems like something we are already over discussing. If we made AI, we'd basically have to treat them on an equal level, and there's little room to subjugate such beings.
But knowing this, all the story does is trying to push feelings and ideas into our heads in a patronizing and manipulative way. One thing is for sure, it doesn't add to the conversation.