Ep 94: Robot Tutorial

Topic: Robots

We Love them, Crave them, and occasionally, Fear them.  The week, we dive in to the topic of Robots, both what they mean to us in Fiction, but also in real life, and perhaps where does the fact and fiction blend together or doesn’t?  Robots are really cool though.

How Define a Robot

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically.  Typically, Robots can appear human in nature, but come in many shapes and forms.  We almost always see them as tools, rarely as individuals and almost never as people.   In our real world, they’re basically machines that do specialized mechanical tasks, as opposed to calculations or executables like a computer; but we expect these machines to be piloted by a computer, or atleast act based off one, but can also be piloted/controlled by humans directly.

Robots in Real Life

In our modern world, we adore and want Robots.  The ideal for modern society is to have Robots do all the hard and difficult physical tasks for us, while we do either less, or nothing at all.  It’s a dream world, as I’m certain we’ll still very much be a part of interacting and being a part of the world, but it will take some time to get even close to it.

As it is now, our common modern days Robots can be found in a number of places:

Our Home – Rombas and other vacuum robots

Hospitals – there are some robotic surgery machines

Food Service – There are some robots that actually make your good, while others clean dishes

Farming – There are some robots and automation in the Farming Sector

Warehouse and Factories – For years, we’ve been simplify tasks for robots to do for us that would otherwise be too dangerous, to difficult, or too slow for a human to do.  But in a number of our warehouses, it’s robots that managing the inventory, stacking and putting it away as necessary.

Military – Various Drones and bomb disposal robots exist to aid the military and keep humans out of harm’s way.

Uncanny Valley

The Idea of the Uncanny Valley is this notion that as things, particularly robots, are particularly less human, we tend to like them a lot more, but as time goes on, and the Robots become more human in quality and nature, we tend to like them a lot less, to the point of down right hating them.  But as time continues, and robots get more sophisticated and advanced, our like for them begins to rise once again.  The low point, when humans actually start dislike and are disgusted by the robot is like a valley, and thus where the term comes from. 

The notion as to why we like them when they aren’t that human, is that their human like qualities stand out much easier, and we tend to imprint ourselves on to the robots, allowing us to empathize with them.  It’s why R2D2 is one of the most popular Robots in fiction, despite having very little human characteristics in form and shape.  This is why Robots tend to look simple in nature in cartoons, and early robots aren’t too human on any particular level.

Conversely, when we try to make human like robots, we tend to dislike them, and are even hateful of them.  The reason for this is that when we get to more human looking robots, as humans, we’re able to see the difference and able to notice when something isn’t quite right.  It could be the way they move, the texture of their skin, their little gestures, and potentially even their eyes.  It looks off and we can’t put our finger on it.  When it’s less human looking, we’re willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, even see its positives more than its negatives.  Its why I think some models and actors look too good, and it’s off setting to me, like they look too good.

Eventually, as the robots get more life-like and sophisticated, the elements that once made us hate the robots begins to disappear, as the boundary begin to disappear and the human qualities are like our own. 

This Uncanny Valley is also seen in a lot of early Computer Generated Graphics and Video Games, as the graphics attempted to catch up with technology, they got to a period where they didn’t look quite right, and even when they look good, they still don’t feel right, and don’t quite look like they belong.  Compositing, along with the artists making said graphics, have gotten a lot better over time, so that in some cases, it’s hard to tell what’s read and what’s not.

Robots in Fiction

Robots in fiction come in lot of different stories, but typically always come in one of a few flavors.  They’re almost always in Science Fiction, though they can appear in other fantasy settings, though usually portrayed as a Golem or some sort of fictional machine.  Typically, Robots get broken down in story to a hand full of different stories, usually based on how human to how robotic they are:

• Robots, but fundamentally human – These are robots that can have an advanced AI that lets them think and feel, even learn and come to love/empathize. They have almost all the characteristics of a human, save that they are a robot at the end of the day. 
• Top Tier AIs – These are robots that have super sophisticated AI, but aren’t exactly human, or still have cold/logical thinking. They’re often portrayed as not being human, and thus are subservient to humans, rarely showing true emotion, or emotions they shouldn’t have been able to develop. 
• A mix of Human and Machine – they are robots that can display some human qualities, but are typically only mimicking the natures of Humans for the sake of humans. They still think cold and logically, but can process the world around them to some extent.  They tend to lack more human qualities, save for what the writer wants to imbue the character with. 
• Total Robot – Pure robots at the end of the day, without an ounce of humanity built in to them. These robots tend to be villains, like Hal9000 from a Space Odyssey .  While not always evil, they are typically the antagonist. 

Famous Robots:

• R2D2 (Star Wars)
• Bender (Futurama)
• Bishop (Aliens)
• Johnny 5 (Short Circuit)
• The Terminator (Terminator)
• HAL 9000 (2001 A Space Odyssey)
• Optimus Prime (Transformers)
• B-9 (Lost in Space)
• Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet)
• Rosie (The Jetsons)
• Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
• WALL-E (WALL-E)
• Sonny (I, Robot)
• Vision (Marvel Comics)
• Baymax (Big Hero 6)
• Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Pitfalls and Triumphs of Robots

• Robot AI vs Sentience – At what point are Robots truly sentient beings, and at what point are they robots? It’s a question that gets asked a lot of Robots.  Most popularly in Ghost in the Shell, an anime franchise that asks if you’re a fully cyber person, are you actually a human, or were you ever actually a human to begin with? 
• Robot Racism – Typically, there is a disgust for Robots, not being seen as humans and merely as tools, but because of their human qualities and potential characteristics, they can be conflated for actual humans, and thus you get to an issue of ‘Coding’. Coding is the notion that you’ll graft on qualities of humans or society on to something else, whether intentional or not.  Thus you can look at something and see that it’s coding for something else, because it helps either ground your world or paints a picture for you quickly.  In the case of robots, Robots aren’t human, as where humans are, so when people are racists against robots, it’s because they’re lacking certain human characteristics, which tells us that the writer or directors believe that these are qualities that make up what humans are.  Thus when you look for allegories in modern society, you can code that behavior, or lack of it, on to another person/race/people.

Homework:

Big Hero 6

Bicentennial Man

Lego Robot 

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