Feb 17, 2011 Where Man Meets Machine

There seems to be an inborn need in many humans to create things in our likeness.  Novelists and movie directors have taken this endeavor to the extreme in writing stories and creating excellent horror, action, and mystery movies to intrigue us.  Asimov's i,Robot  series (later turned into a movie starring Will Smith) blurs the line between robot and human. 

The Terminator series takes us into the future and back to the present as Arnold Schwarzenegger (along with other actors play robots that are  trying to prevent humanity from defeating them in the future.  By destroying the humans from the past that will eventually defeat them. 

Robin William's take on AI (artificial intelligence) in Bicentennial Man and Star Trek's Data, the android played by Brent Spiner (who does a wonderful job portraying Data's fledgling emotional growth), take a more benign look at the interaction between humans and AI.

These portrayals have always provided us with great entertainment, but as we merge our continuing studies of Anatomy, Physiology, and Neurology with robotics, computer programing, and artificial intelligence we are starting to approach something that might make us consider where this is all headed.

 

These are just two of a large number of videos, quite easily found online, that indicate the direction we are moving in; but why?  There are actually a multitude of applications (far too many to be listed here) ranging from the scary science-fiction-like the Clone Wars' militaristic application to a butler-like human aide as represented in the movie classic Star Wars by C3PO.

If you pay attention to the majority of the stories in which the Robot/Android plays a major role I think you will often find that most of them play out as a look into a long debated question.  

"What is life?"

When does AI cross over from - I think because you ask it of me, to - I think, therefore I am?

Fun fact - Long before Isaac Asimov first touched a typewriter, Walt Whitman's boon companion William Douglas O'Connor toiled over a story of steampunk robots and political intrigue, called "The Brazen Android."

A list of worthwhile Robot/Android stories (some of which are now movies):

• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Now called Blade Runner)
• The Terminator Series
• Bicentennial Man
• The i,Robot series by Asimov
• some specific episodes of Star Trek - Next Generation

Please add your favorites in the comment section.