"What were you doing?" - MXO Forum Archive

#36300184583 03/10/2007 21:32:06 "What were you doing?"

I have no idea why this came to me the way it did. I was on a car ride and all of a sudden a scene from The Matrix occured to me; When Neo comes to rescue Morpheus, and the other agents come in to see Smith. One agent ( I forget which is which) ask Smith, "What were you doing?"

It suddenly occured to me, the manor he said this. It was so.. human. He was in a state of confusion, curiosity, almost shock. Machines don't get confused, they determine. They are not curious, they just use the information at hand. They should certainly not be shocked, since everything to them is 1 or 0. Maybe I'm overreacting or something, but his conviction seemed totally out of line for an Agent.

Granted, Smith was much less system-like in the previous scene where he was 'talking' with Morpheus. But that has a very important role later on. The other agents are just drones through the whole movie. Besides upgrades, they were in no way developed, and because they shouldn't have been, their place in the movie was unfeeling, programmed baddies.

I really don't have much of a conclusion, but it certainly set something off in my head. Somehow I doubt the actor was purposely directed that way, to say the line with that exact conviction. Nobody probably ever even gave it a second though. So am I crazy or what? Just wondering if others have noticed or what they think. Or maybe is this the hidden message, that like in every cheesy movie where one friend is brainwashed to harm another, love or something can break through, agents too could be convinced otherwise? Well, I think I disproved this the last time I was not authorized in an area SMILEY Keep in mind, I'm not counting Agent Pace SMILEY That's a whole other issue.

So in case you just want to skip to the bottom:

So am I crazy or what? Just wondering if others have noticed or what they think. (For scene/line in question, read paragraph one.)

#36300184630 03/10/2007 23:12:22 Re:"What were you doing?"

Agent Brown did seem curious about what Smith might have been doing...

Illyria

#36300184831 03/11/2007 09:49:20 Re:"What were you doing?"

The Machines are emotional creatures just like us.

Use my sig as proof.

#36300188531 03/15/2007 10:48:34 Re:"What were you doing?"

You have to have some emotion, its still a movie. Somtimes you just have to sitback and enjoy the show and not analyze ever tiny detail. I know what you mean tho. You could even bring up the fact that the other 2 agents had a genuine look of fear of thier faces after neo destoyed smith. Then they ran to save their own as$.

An agent shouldnt be afraid, but it made for a better scene in the movie.

#36300188577 03/15/2007 12:08:21 Re:"What were you doing?"

Isn't the next line: "He doesn't know." - said by the other agent?
I suppose the first agent wonders why Smith has his earplug not plugged in, which goes against article #564/2 of the agent hand book.
I kid, I kid, but agents keep in contact with each other and the system through those earplugs. So obviously they should always wear them. This could explain why the one agents wonders what Smith is doing, and the other agent explaining Smith isn't aware of the break-in, because his earplug isn't in.
The question itself "what are you doing?" is asked (I think) to correct Smith, as in "Do you realise what you've missed?/What were you thinking?"

#36300189856 03/17/2007 14:08:25 Re:"What were you doing?"

An Agent can be afraid, and can have Fear. Fear is a derivative of Self-Preservation and that is programmed into most Sentient Programs (Hence why we have exiles, their preservation routine was obviously stronger than the command to return for deletion) and as such can be expressed by Agents just as it can by, say, The Merovingian.

Agents are not soulless, un-emotive, non-entities. They too have personalities and differing responses however these are repressed by their over-riding function and purpose. The two Agents would likely be shocked to discover that Smith had disconnected himself from the Source Comms. as it is likely something an Agent should never do.

#36300189945 03/17/2007 19:20:20 Re:"What were you doing?"

I think we are limited in our own views of the machines since we don't have anything like them in our own time. Our machines think entirely in 1's and 0's yes. But you can't overlook the fact that the machines in the Matrix world are extremely complex, sentient beings. They have realized, understood, and attempt to preserve their own existance. So while yes, the agents themselves are programmed to be stiff, cold, uncaring drones. They, like all programs are sentient and can experience emotion. As someone pointed out at the end of the first Matrix film the two agents look at each other, express concern and puzzlement, and then turn tail and haul butt. Also in the second Matrix film when Morpheus cuts the tie off Agent Johnson right after the Agent had re-adjusted his tie carefully and maticulously, you could see anger and the expression of frustration on his face. "The audacity of this filthy human...cutting off my tie" or something of the like. So don't forget just because they are machines, doesn't mean they don't know how to feel.

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#36300189953 03/17/2007 19:41:05 Re:"What were you doing?"

Well, Smith was holding Morpheus' face about two inches away and had taken out his earpiece...if you walked in to see that, you'd be wondering what he had been doing too. SMILEY

#36300190011 03/17/2007 21:35:14 Re:"What were you doing?"

I think the idea that the machines are wholely unfeeling isn't entirely accurate, even if they themselves would like to believe it. I'll direct you to the scene where Neo is having a chat with the Dues Ex Machina.

Neo: The program Smith has grown beyond your control, and soon he will spread through this city as he did in the Matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can.

Dues: *losing his collective *CENSORED** WE DON'T NEED YOU! WE NEED NOTHING!!

He/it/they regained their composure shortly afterwards, but it's one of the many demonstrations that the machines have some semblance of emotion, even the representation of their collective. Smith is of course a prime example, and the fact that they had to upgrade not only the Agents combat capabilties, but also make them far more suicidal (compare the highway scene with the hallway scene), and just the fact that we even have exiles to begin with. I think its an inevitable consequence of having true sentience, but I could be wrong.

#36300190995 03/19/2007 10:58:10 Re:"What were you doing?"

When I initially saw this scene where Smith is interrogating Moepheus, I thought nothing of Brown's comment. A few times later I, too, was surprised at how I suddenly realized the tone of emotion/surprise/shock in Brown's voice. I later concluded that he was just referring to the earpiece thing, and although the camera work, general mood of the scene, and Smith suddenly standing up suggest that Brown's comment was directed at Smith's interaction with Morpheus, I think we were just looking at it the wrong way.

#36300190997 03/19/2007 11:00:06 Re:"What were you doing?"

Not for nothing, but isn't it also possible that certain programs are programmed with x amount of reactions to situations, and a programmed response could contain simulated emotion in the tone of voice and actions? Just because it seems a program says something emotionally, doesn't mean it's geniune emotion. Eh?

#36300191031 03/19/2007 11:55:42 Re:"What were you doing?"

It's possibly as simple as Smith acting outside of parameters. This in turn illicits a modicum of 'confusion' on Brown's part. The response; "What were you doing", was just an advanced program saying "Does not compute", rather than the human emotion of confusion.

#36300191080 03/19/2007 13:03:07 Re:"What were you doing?"

Adriarch wrote:

Not for nothing, but isn't it also possible that certain programs are programmed with x amount of reactions to situations, and a programmed response could contain simulated emotion in the tone of voice and actions? Just because it seems a program says something emotionally, doesn't mean it's geniune emotion. Eh?

What is "genuine" emotion? Human beings are in essence programmed (Nurtured Conciousness and Natural Impulse) to react in certain ways to certain situations hence prompting "emotional response". Fear, is the easiest to deal with as the stimuli for such are usually threatening hence the response (Irrational fears are slightly less "programmed" SMILEY

But Love, Hate, Happiness, Sadness are all reactions to Stimuli of one form or another, they are prompted reactions. A program of Emotion and "natural human emotion" may be exactly the same and both could be said to be "Real" or "Genuine"

#36300192112 03/20/2007 13:57:56 Re:"What were you doing?"

Adriarch wrote:

When I initially saw this scene where Smith is interrogating Moepheus, I thought nothing of Brown's comment. A few times later I, too, was surprised at how I suddenly realized the tone of emotion/surprise/shock in Brown's voice. I later concluded that he was just referring to the earpiece thing, and although the camera work, general mood of the scene, and Smith suddenly standing up suggest that Brown's comment was directed at Smith's interaction with Morpheus, I think we were just looking at it the wrong way.

To make this perfectly clear, its not WHY he asked the question. I had no trouble figuring out that it was because of how Smith was at the moment. I was just wondering if anybody else was almost unnerved by the tone of the other agents voice, as stated in the beginning of the post I quote.

I was simply wondering if anybody else felt it was strange too, because maybe there was something deeper I was missing. Instead, this mostly just turned into post after post about machines having emotions; I know :p As for other machine characters who expressed themselves, it felt natural.

But something about this agent saying this line in the exact way he did just stood out. That's all :p I guess I'm just crazy.

#36300192116 03/20/2007 14:03:32 Re:"What were you doing?"

noctivagus wrote:

It's possibly as simple as Smith acting outside of parameters. This in turn illicits a modicum of 'confusion' on Brown's part. The response; "What were you doing", was just an advanced program saying "Does not compute", rather than the human emotion of confusion.

This was more what I was looking for, and makes sense to me. The only thing that I still question is that when something does not compute, it halts the program or crashes the computer or whatever. So if an Agent got confused, it seems the agent should cease proper function or something, unless we equate the whole 'machines can feel emotions too.' Then that means the system took an awful risk using these agents, as opposed to creating simpler ones like we have now, without human tendancies and only doing exactly what it's told.. which i guess is proved throughout the whole trilogy SMILEY

#36300192214 03/20/2007 15:50:47 Re:"What were you doing?"

Remember, Smith takes off his earpiece, which is the connection that makes the Agents a hivelike organization. So Brown has no idea what Smith has done/said to Morpheus, which, if he had heard, would probably have sounded slightly...Human