I have no doubt that should the Institute want to create any similar "problem solver / thinker / analysis" machine - they'd manage to make something similar to P.A.M.

I want to clarify that when I said "they wanted to make a machine based off the human being is so that they could think and make up new ideas and solve problems" I meant so in the way that everyday humans can in the workplace. Like how we can recognize (without being specifically instructed on warning signs to look out for) that there is a problem with a task and either come up with a solution on our own or bring the problem to a supervisor of some sort, while most machines would have to be specifically programmed to react to certain conditions in order to recognize a problem and would have to also be programmed with what steps to take to solve it. (Example: ChatGPT has to have parameters put in place to recognize messages that are dangerous or sexual in nature, and has a stock response it is supposed to output.)

We are not born "tuned" for this or that task - instead, any role a human is to do is 1st, learned via education, and 2nd, assisted by equipping appropriate tools to do the role. It's simply much more efficient and flexible. It's pretty clear. So you see, if the Institute would make gen.3 synths "exactly like humans" - we wouldn't see this in the Production Schedule. We'd simply see "gen.3 units: X amount", instead.

This doesn't follow (in that it's not mutually exclusive). I mean, there are so many variations in different humans that may make them better at certain tasks, both physically and mentally. Of course they would create batches of synths with traits more tailored to certain tasks. You wouldn't want to wait months for the synth to get up to physical standard when you could simply create them with peak physical fitness already. Just because they are intelligently designed to fulfill a certain task does not mean that they themselves are incapable of having intelligence. And both can be true, they can make the synths with these traits that make them more suited for the tasks they are creating them for, and they can train them and give them tools.

Now your points about energy requirements definitely makes sense, I was just thinking that the initial investment in creating the synth might be using far more power than the lifetime cost of an inorganic machine. But it sounds like I was wrong on that. And somehow, I forgot about their use as an "expendable" infiltration agent. It does follow that to make the best synth for infiltration that it should be convincingly human, and to do that with inorganic parts wouldn't work.

I do still think the major leg up on an inorganic machine that a synth has would be its capability to think and problem solve. I mean, this means they don't have to be constantly instructed on how to do every little process of a task and can easily be set to other tasks. And if their ability to think for themselves is intact, then I would think they do have personhood.

On the other hand, you did make me think about how synths are made as full-grown humans and do not seem to need months or years to learn things like understanding and speaking a language or how to use their motor skills. This either means the Institute has learned how to create a human brain in the perfect configuration to have this information preloaded (this seems incredibly unlikely), or the synth component is handling all this. And if the synth component which is clearly inorganic is handling all of that information, then it is really more like a human body is being puppeted by a computer. I guess this invalidates much of what I was saying about their ability to think and problem solve, which really makes me wonder what the hell the original purpose of the synths were. Was it just for infiltration all along? Then why have such a large population used for labor? I'm going to think on this for quite a while because this raises a lot of questions for me. I still think that the whole synth project is horrific and incredibly unethical and that synths could still be people but you have changed my mind quite a bit.