If you think you can beat Nature, you’re not merely afflicted with hubris;
your affliction could
prove terminal.

That’s the message of cautionary cinema sci-fi. This popular movie genre
proclaims that man’s
quest to control his environment with technology is no stroll along a
yellow-brick road to wondrous
things, but a green-mile march to self-destruction.

The dangers of living in our own technological future comprise the leitmotiv
of I, Robot, a new
movie inspired by Isaac Asimov’s classic story collection of the same name.

The film, which takes
place in 2035, is set in downtown Chicago, a sunny version of the seething
urban environment Ridley
Scott created for Blade Runner. The streets teem with humanity, yes, but
there are robots
everywhere. The sophisticated cyborgs seem benign, as they collect garbage
and walk dogs. They’re
as helpful and humble as Hudson, the butler.

But homicide detective Del Spooner, played by Will Smith, is leery. He
suspects that the newest
models of the apparently deferential automatons, widely used as household
appliances, are beginning
to chafe under their titanium collars. The whole scene is reminiscent of
imperial Rome, a city
filled with slaves -- a worrisome underclass that just might decide that
their lot needs improving.

Nonetheless, few share Spooner’s disquiet. “Robots don’t feel anything;
they’re not alive,” he’s
told. And indeed, the robots are merely “lights and clockwork,” right?

sophisticated
software, controlling anthropomorphic bodies that look as if they’ve been
assembled from brushed
metal bike parts rustled from Lance Armstrong’s garage. And if that

calm your nerves,
consider this: they all come with a warranty. They’re programmed to
rigorously conform to the
three robotic laws famously espoused by Asimov in his stories. The laws boil
down to this: “obey
humans, cause them no harm, and protect yourself insofar as this doesn’t
compromise your human
masters.”

Well, as everyone knows, software’s seldom perfect. A technological guru

U.S. Robotics, the
industrial concern cranking out these synthetic bipeds, warns of “ghosts in
the machine” --
presumably the interaction of various hunks of code that might lead to
unexpected behavior.
Behavior that might make the robots all-too-human. Behavior that might make
them break the laws.

I, Robot is more than a look at the sociology of fictional, hi-tech
companions, dealing with such
wrenching problems as whether androids can have emotions or a soul. And,
despite large dollops of
robot combat, it’s more than just a futuristic action flick, too.

That’s probably because Asimov himself was less interested in the action

in concepts. “His
stories were very cerebral,” says Robyn Asimov, daughter of the writer.
“Action wasn’t his thing:
ideas were.”

Well, the ideas are there. Yes, the film is both engrossing and fun (Will
Smith excels at
delivering deadpan lines). In addition, these are not your daddy’s robots,
restricted to standing
around uselessly and occasionally muttering “Danger, Wil Robinson.” These
upgraded bots have more
agility then a 12-year-old, and more energy, too (the future has clearly
improved on lithium-ion
batteries). It makes for a fast-paced film.

But I, Robot delves deeper: it forces us to confront what might soon become a
real scenario, rather
than just a movie plot. There’s little doubt that by the year 2035,

be able to buy the
compute power of a human brain for the price of a lunch. That’s right: a
chip with the processing
power of that gray CPU in your skull will cost no more than a single bill out
of the ATM machine.

Now admittedly, there are some who believe that, despite such capability,
machines will never be
capable of human-style intelligence. But that suggests that there is some
sort of unfathomable
miracle going on between our ears.

The alternative view is that synthetic sentience -- thinking machines that
can “write a symphony,
or turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece” -- is not only a possible
development, but one that
will probably occur in this century. Asimov wrote his robot stories in 1950.
A bare two
generations later, it’s possible that the fiction will be superceded by

If we do invent thinking machines, how will we handle their interaction with
us? Will we be able
to forever cripple their initiative, with laws similar to Asimov’s, in order
to avoid situations in
which the created turn on their creators? Can we always pull the plug on the
androids?

That may not be possible. Another approach is to reach an accommodation with
synthetic
intelligence; simply shake hands and “get along.” The precedent for this
isn’t good. Thirty
thousand years ago, there were other sentient beings on this planet: the
Neanderthals, hominids
with brains even larger than ours (although their intellects were inferior).
The Neanderthals
couldn’t compete: they evolved only slowly. There was no way they could
overtake us in the mind
race. They were driven extinct.

However, artificial intelligence, unfettered by Darwinian evolution, could
overtake us. So a
society in which two thinking species co-exist may be a fundamentally flawed
concept.

Ideas about how we treat, or will be treated by, synthetic cerebrals, is more
than just grist for a
film. It’s speculation for our own future. And keep this in mind, too:

happens on our world
is likely to have analogs on others. If we find intelligence elsewhere in
the Galaxy, I wouldn’t
be surprised if it turns out to be their robots; beings whose interests and
activities may go well
beyond walking pets or collecting the garbage.

I, Robot is gripping entertainment. But it might also be a useful insight
into our own future, and
into other societies’ past.



--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcneill@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
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Phrase of the week :
We wait for light, but behold darkness.
ISAIAH 59:9
It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
ADAGE
:-))))Snort!)
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