"I could be reworked, but I'll never be top of the line again, I'd rather be nothing."
Precisely. Bishop was a machine. Follows directives. Didn't go off on philosophical meanderings.
Stating he'd rather die than not be top of the line kind of is a philosophical meandering though. If he truly didn't care he'd have no preference between being patched or being let go.
And anyone who thinks Ash or Call weren't philosophical or idealistic weren't watching the films.
Androids with philosophical and ideological bents are a staple of the series, not the other way around.
It's Bishop stating a preference: Knowing it/he is no longer going to be optimised, essentially being to the detriment of any further potential missions and that others would take their place. From an AI's perspective, it
would be better to let a better model take its physical place (with the option to simply just upload its code/memories to a new system, at a later time, easily being a possibility).
Bishop isn't the least bit resentful about that. Just being pragmatic.
Call was... Odd. Not written like an AI should be, a lot like David 8, in that regard. I reconciled it by assuming some programming-related weirdness happened during the ambiguous event which caused Call and others to rebel (still for reasons unknown). I still don't understand what Whedon was getting at with that. :/
But then, considering his portrayal of AI within, say, '
Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and '
Avengers', it eventually became clear the guy can't write AI or plausible depictions of the military and characters relating to it.