How movies shape our future vision of technology?
Do you believe smart robots will abolish the mortal race?
This is one of the first questions I ask my scholars at the university, when I educate them about new media technology, robots and liars in pictures. Frequently half of the group confidently raise their hands. When I further ask why, they incontinently source wisdom-fabrication pictures like Terminator or contemporary series similar as Black Mirror. Some indeed relate to the Matrix-Scenario and suggest that the robocalypse has formerly happed. And we're intentionally in the Matrix, while our bodies are producing energy for smart robots. I am occasionally impressed that physically insolvable stories about humans as energy creators are satisfying! So pictures about robots must have a strong effect on us if they can educate similar beliefs.
How did robots become such a dominant part of Sci-fi pictures?
Let's cave into the history. During industrialization, technological progress was frequently seen as a big problem. There were colorful revolutions against technological development across Europe, utmost famously by the Luddites in England. They initiated a violent rebellion against automatic weaving machines.
Automatization, or robots will one day in the unborn take our jobs. Hmmm yes, sounds familiar, doesn't it? Some say, we're passing another artificial revolution right now.
So if robots are doing all these terribly boring jobs for us - why are our unborn fancies of them frequently so dark and dystopian?
Well - in liars, nothing gets the blood pumping like fear, and a maturity of sci-fi pictures draw on this emotion a lot! Hand in hand with fear, we've a deep seductiveness of the unknown.
For illustration, the old Jewish character Golem can be a villain or a victim – man or woman, or both at the same time. The golem is brought to life by writing ‘verity’- ‘emet’ on his forepart. And be killed again, when removing thee-letter, by changing the necrology from "verity" to "death".
There are colorful other characters similar to the ancient Greek Talos from Hephaestus, Frankenstein or Maria from the 1920ies movie megalopolis. This artistic memory continues to shape contemporary characters similar to Dolores from Westworld. But artistic memory isn't “just” stories – it also impacts how we perceive robots in the real world.
What exactly do sci-fi pictures impact us about?
First, in a maturity of sci-fi narratives, after a flourishing period of peace, unborn societies collapse into a dystopian end- time script. Robots relieve us from spare work and are then for our pleasures. But as soon as they develop a ‘tone-conscious’ state, they rise up against humanity. In this particular transformation, Filmmakers fantasize robots as intimidating and uncanny.
So the introductory communication is although we first believe that robots are then for our own good, in the near future they will turn evil and kill us all. Is there a deeper beginning problem with the power- relationship? The word robot was first chased in 1923 by Karel Capek in his notorious play R.U.R “Rossum’s Universal Robots”. It has its origins in the czech term robota, which means forced labor. The story of R.U.R. depicts a classical relationship between robots and humans, where robots serve as slaves for their mortal masters.
Numerous exemplifications in literature and art depict power relations of robots and humans (r2h), poisoned by the archaic patterns we know from mortal to mortal (h2h) socio-profitable structures the master-slave relationship. Our atrocity to each other is projected onto a technology which unnaturally differs from mortal intelligence, provocation or requirements. Indeed the philosophically deep movie ExMachina ends with a fight between the creator and the robots. And spoiler-alert yes, Ewa the main character frees herself from slavery but in this unique illustration, we feel that she has the right to do so!
While ultramodern series stretch this history over several occurrences or indeed seasons, this main bow is widespread. However, the clash between humans and robots is ineluctable, if we believe in the stories we’ve been told.
But are we telling the stories of a future we want to live in?
Still, will it be so surprising that they will try to rise against us? So further, among us humans, if we humans produce robots in our own image and enslave them. Robots are widely created by an#evil pot. The moment's questionable power of tech-companies is imaged in the society of the future.
This negative perception of robots isn't a mortal universal. Historically, the idea of robots originates in the myths of colorful societies around the world. moment many people appreciate the souls in every thing, yet Animism, considered to be a proto-religion of our species, would find it natural to see robots as able of hosting their own souls. Perhaps robots are enchanted by the beauty of the world, too?
As real robots take further responsibility across mortal gests , we need to decide on the way they're approached, integrated and reflected in our society.
So should we sweat AI-robots or not?
Moment, the debate of killer robots has reached United Nations Level, were “murderous independent armament systems” have come a major concession sluice. But fear doesn't help with the understanding of a complex, unknown technology. Rather, it clouds our view on it fully. You should surely sweat an aggressive honey badger in front of you. But in discrepancy to what fear- mongering pictures want you to believe, neither shooting with big ordnance or fighting them with your bare hands are particularly smart strategies to deal with AI robots. Let’s pass to avoid this mess.
What can we do rather?
Movies communicate in a different language. The further we learn to read movie the same way as we learn to dissect textbooks, the better we can reflect on their impact on us. There's a subconscious influence on us from the pictures we watch. And our performing studies impact our conduct. Hence, wisdom fabrication not only speculates about the future, but also shapes it!
We can assume, that there will be a day forthcoming, when we need to inclusively decide on the rights of what the EU lawgivers call electronic persons. Understanding where our fears, futuristic fancies and believes about robots come from, is thus pivotal for us as citizens of the world.
We’re living in a digital time, where new tech is in a endless state of getting. Technological reality is advancing faster than our understanding of it. However, we won’t stop the advancements of robots, if we like it or not. Yet we may be suitable to produce a vision different from enslaved robots serving their mortal master under the specter of a important evilcorp so frequently told in scifi pictures.
Moment, AI is being developed both, behind unrestricted doors inside pots who lately gave up on not being evil and out in the open, at foundations, universities and github. We need to start spreading ideas from positive SciFi stories as well, where evil corps were overcome and decentralized. Perhaps one way is to tell further robot stories about a future, in which we really want to live in.
