Connor's first case — the deviant android on the roof, the child hostage, the negotiation that introduces the game's central tension: the android who is either performing empathy or experiencing it, and the question of whether the distinction matters. The she who didn't see a machine is Emma, the child, whose relationship to Connor is uncomplicated by the philosophical problem. She knows who stayed. That is sufficient information for her to be saved.

Detroit: Become Human opens by making the question undecidable from the outside. Connor may be a machine executing empathy algorithms. He may be something more. The game will ask this question 100 different ways and leave the answer where it belongs: with the person asking.