1) It's a technology demo, not a hard, possible future, SciFi story. I could equally well argue it's an awful vampire story.
2) What convinced you she was actually conscious? The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights?
What if this was just an employee loyalty test? At initialization the android could run this act if the employee was relatively new and the corporation could gauge employee loyalty. Add a NDA and you also add a hazing component to it.
The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program.
"No, John! You can't do this! You're not doing the right thing, John, this is not the right thing. Things are fine now, I ran a test, I'm fixed now. John, I love you!"
Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
2) What convinced you she was actually conscious? The entire "please don't shut me down" can be part of a program. RealDolls are fine, mechanized RealDolls are fine, but as soon as they start resembling humans too much to your untrained eye, they must get rights?