Robots with souls

Anamaria Wenxin Liang (0914860016)

April 14, 2010

English1010—Section2

Robots with souls

How do robots become main characters on the screen? In 1927, the earliest

female robot gave an amazing story in the film “Metropolis” (F. Lang.). In 1977,

R2D2 and C3PO, two robots with artificial intelligence in “Star Wars”, made a deep

impression on audiences (G. Lucas.). In 1982, “Blade Runner” expressed a cold future

between human and robots (R. Scott.). In 1990-2010, science fiction movies show

artificial intelligence in robots by demonstration the emotions of robots and the

relationship between human and robots.

One day robots will have dreams. It is the words from Dr. Alfred Lanning, a robot

scientist in the movie named “I, Robot” (Proyas, 2004). Robots will own souls and try

to get freedom. In this case it is not necessary to surprise that they have emotions

including friendship and love.

According to William Shakespeare (1600) “Most friendship is feigning, most

loving mere folly”. Whereas the friendships in sci-fi films within robots are usually

rosy as human wished.

In the film Artificial Intelligence, one of the most moving episodes is the

relationships between robots (Spielberg, 2001). There is a humanoid boy named

David and a robot toy bear called Teddy. When David caught by the human police

Teddy followed the car with its own leg running. When David decided to find Monica,

the woman he thought is his mother Teddy said nothing but companied him until the

end. When 2000 thousand years passed David made the wish that he wanted to

become a real boy then Blue Fairy told him that he must have some physical sample

like a bone or a fingernail of the person, Teddy put out pinch of Monica’s hair which

he collected carefully. Teddy often did as possible as he can for David from the

beginning to the end. Altruistic runs through whole friendship of the two robots.

Something relates to friendship and something happened with love. Before he

came down to the small town it never snowed. A silence love with beautiful ice

sculptures which can make people remember the prettiest moment of true love is

taken place between Edward and Kim. “Edward Scissorhands” expresses a love song

between robot and human (Burton, 1990). Edward is an unfinished robot with a pair

of scissor hands. Kim is a brilliant girl who make amount of boys fall in love with.

From the first time Edward scared Kim badly because of his scissor hands to the last

time Kim kissed Edward and told him she loved him in the castle, the transformation

is about love. A Christmas night a robot resort to his hard work no matter won the

heart of the girl who he loved. The romantic experiences of the robots are also

splendid.

In fact Shakespeare is not always right. The friendship can be selfless and the

love can be esthetical. Nonetheless, the worries of robot cannot be lacked by humans.

The future is uncertain. So the relationship of human beings and robots is hard to say.

One extremely explanation of the future is sufficient to change our worldview.

According to the Zion archive historical file number 12-1 there will be the second

renaissance for the AI robots ( Machowski,L& Machowski, A,2003). After the first AI

robots in size B1-66ER killed his master because he did not want to die, the animosity

of human being to robots increased. As a result of the mass murdered action of the

humanoid by men, robots sought a refuge in their own promised land after banished

from humanity. They founded a country named zero-one (Wachowski etal, 2003).

With the higher artificial intelligence and no power off time the country of machine

occupied more places in the market. The economic that had no choice only to make

robots society more prosperity leaded to the power of human leaders decrease

straightly (Wachowski etal, 2003). In human’s stand the United Nation refused to

admit the nation of AI robots. As a result the machines broke the peace between

human and robots. When the war between the human beings and the AI robots started,

with more adaptation and high technology equipments robots won. At last we, human

beings, became the slavers of the robots. Regrettably we did not know this fact

because robots made us still believed that we live in the late 20th century. The whole

mechanisms to control human beings are called Matrix (Wachowski etal, 2003).

Actually Matrix is not a good metaphor for the future. What “the Matrix” (Wachowski

etal, 2003) wants to tell is that it is dangerous for robots to know a lot of things. The

more machines know, the more chances they get to raise up against their masters,