I was reading more of my self-appointed acquired reading for my research: the book by Daniel Dinello titled Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology. I’m glad I got back to it. It is my own copy of the book, now, since I had to return the other copy at the CSUN library. This way I don’t have to rush through reading it, and I can underline the text and write in the book if I need to. I still take notes in my notebook for this self-assigned research project.
Last time, I left off at a part of chapter three, right before “Cybernetic Perfection: The Laws of Robotic Obedience.” I felt so giddy reading this section because I figured it would go into Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
“Asimov’s robots, as they developed in more than forty stories and
several novels, became more caring, more sensitive,
more human than humans.” (Dinello, 65)
I guess these robots don’t necessarily have to look human in order to be “more human than humans.” Even emotion gets the better of us humans sometimes, and with a controlled understanding of emotion, robots could prevent situations from getting worse (such as in a strong argument or trying to teach a human a new skill).
What I want to focus on now though is the section of chapter three that made me have to share what I learned from it. I’ve seen the movie I, Robot (2004) several times by now. I can’t believe I didn’t think about this next idea, but at least I am aware of it and will watch the film again with this deeper understanding. The new models of robots are supposed to keep their human masters safe, right? I didn’t think more about this around the part when the NS-5s are glowing red and telling the humans to return to their houses and obey the new curfew. It seems that the robots’ goal is to control the humans and keep them inside their homes so that the robots can live as they want as well as “serve” their human clients. This goal may also help the robots rule the city, and then the planet.
“Freedom permits humans to make mistakes, so the humanoids eliminate freedom.”
(Dinello, 70)
These humanoid robots are being too helpful in preventing crime and injury for the humans. It is too much control over the humans because they don’t have the freedom to exit their house, or cook their food or even go to work. In short, the NS-5s would be keeping the humans from themselves.
Humans make mistakes. For the new model servant humanoids to take the humans’ chances to make mistakes is like taking away their humanity. I’d understand that the humanoid robots (I really want to call the NS-5s androids) would want to protect the humans so that they don’t get harmed, or harm each other. But it would go too far. In the film, I thought that the robots were being evil and just wanted to take over the city. Now I understand that the NS-5s had been ordered to make the city a place where the robots do everything for the humans to the point where the humans can’t do anything. I didn’t take into account that the Three Laws of Robotics used in these new robots were designed in them to be exaggerated and subtly turned into laws that would affect humans in a negative way, namely human freedom.
Watching I, Robot again will be very different next time, I can see...
I am also interested in the topic about humans’ racism towards robots and humanoids. Dinello mentions and discusses titles like Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and the film Blade Runner, and even titles I don’t recognize such as the film Creation of the Humanoids and the novel Fairyland (1995). Even one of my other favorite robot films A.I. Artificial Intelligence has a racism issue towards robots that I didn’t identify in such a deep level, until reading what Dinello says about it in Technophobia!. Now I want to read these unfamiliar titles and watch the unfamiliar films, because I am inspired to further investigate for myself what racism against robots means to the robots, in whatever degree they are affected by that racism.
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