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Smart Robots
Nowadays, robots such as computers that are able to move and do tasks defined in their programming, are everywhere.
Robots are at factories, hospitals and even at home. However, when we think about robots,
we think of mechanical beings who can reason, that is to say artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence, term created by John Mcarthy in 1955, is the part of science
that develops smart machines. According to the scientists Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig,
there are four types of smart machines: Systems that act like humans
Systems that think like humans Systems that think rationally
and Systems that act rationally.
The concern about these smart beings have been a recurrent theme in science fiction.
For that reason, Isacc Asimov wrote his three laws of robotics in 1942:
1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law. 3.A robot must protect its own existence
as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
These laws are presented for the first time in his short story Runaround.
They will inspire other stories where there are nice robots such as Bicentennial Man or Artificial Intelligence.
In Artificial Intelligence, the fullfilment of the law is really extreme.
Although robots are chased after, tortured and killed, they never attack humans.
But you know what they said about laws: they are made to be broken
and in a update of Frankenstein's myth,
movies such as Terminator or I, robot present mechinal beings that are ready
to rebel against their creator. As liuetenant John Bargain said:
I guess we're gonna miss the good old days. What good old days?
When people were only killed by other people.
In I, Robot, the scientist Alfred Lanning is worried the three laws are not safe
and he is right. Lanning: The three laws will lead to
only one logical outcome: Revolution.
Trying to protect humans, Viki, USR' supercomputer, adapts the first law and starts a revolution.
V.I.K.I.: To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To insure your future,
some freedoms must be surrendered. You are so like children.
We must save you from yourselves.
Even if robots' abilites are not a threat, technophonics have other fears.
Will technology make us useless?
In Wall-e, the machines are responsibles for everything and people are limited to stagnate.
Their obeses bodies and their lack of connection with nature and other people remind us
that technology can be a backward step and make us lose our humanity.
The most extreme cases would be Surrogates or The Stepford Wives.
In Surrogates, people can create a robotic copy of themselves. This copy lives the person's life
while humans can see everything from a comfy sofa.
Surrogates mixes the strenght of a machine with the beauty and the elegance of the human body
making your life safer and better.
In The Stepford Wives, the husbands implant microchips in their wives so they behave as helpful robots.
As opposed to the fear of being replaced, technoptimistics imagine nice and funny robots
that are harmless. The better example is Robbie, the robot, a character from Forbidden Planet(1956).
Robbie, the robot became really famous and inspired other nice robots such as
C3P0 and R2D2 from Star Wars, Number 5 from Short Circuit or B.E.N from Treasure Planet.
But even if robots can be originally good, technophobics are worried
their thinking ability leads them to the dark side.
Hal 9000, the robot from 2001: a space odyssey is introduced as a tool to help the astronauts.
However, Hal rebels against the astronauts when they talk about disconnect him.
In Virtuosity, the A.I system is neutral until an engineer creates Sid 9.7
that combines more than 50 personalities of killers and terrorists.
Sid:What I am is not my fault. It's not even my choice. I came to be, because of what you are.
This is the problem of the robots in Futurama; they aren't initially bad,
but they are our mechanical copies so they develop our weakness.
Bender and the other robots are independent beings that deceive, steal or get drunk as much as we do.
However, they also work, fall in love or sacrifice for others
proving that human creations are a representation of ourselves with our virtues and defects.
Smart robots, like aliens, bring to life our survival insticts, the idea of
you can only eat or being eaten and as consequence, we fear that
robots, androids and other mechanicals beings won't hesitate to start a revolution
and become the new dominanting life form.
This is what happens in Terminator where humans must fight against the machines they have created.
It was the machines, Sarah. Then it saw all people as a threat.
Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.
Or in The Matrix where people live in an alternative reality that hides their subordination to robots.
Morpheus: What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built
to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
Luckily, science fiction can't predict the future, it only propose extreme posibilities
that make us think about the consequences of technology.
Is the fight between humans and robots inevitable?
Will our creations slave us or will we be able to control them?
Open your imagination and tell me in the comments how you picture our technological future.