I, Robot

[DinoDoc]

What's the difference between "Robot as menace" and "Robot as slavemaster?"

[Imran Siddiqui]

Has it occured to you that maybe there are more people interested in fun sci-fi action movies than "faithful Asimov reproductions"?

Then go ahead and call it "Hardwired" which was the original name and don't **** with the Asimov stuff at all! They obviously did it because they thought fans would see the movie.

[Asher]

And some did (like my mom).

[Natalinasmpf]

"Hardwired"? So its really about Orwellian thought control mechanisms?

[Imran Siddiqui]

What is the book generally about?

The interaction of the 3 Laws of Robotics and how in certain situations they can cause problems and the stories are about trying to find out the problems.

I just don't think I, Robot should have been made into a movie at all.

Yeah, I'd rather they just not make it into a movie than do this to it .

[Imran Siddiqui]

And some did (like my mom).

Which makes it false advertising if they make it very unfaithful to the book.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
or done a movie on 'Caves of Steel' or something instead.

Just based on the blurb at the back of the book The Robots of Dawn looks like it would make for the more interesting movie of the Robot novels.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Which makes it false advertising if they make it very unfaithful to the book.

Good luck with that one.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
What's the difference between "Robot as menace" and "Robot as slavemaster?"

It depends. Robots running things for the "benifit of humanity" can teeter on the brink of "Robot as slavemaster" in Asimov's stories, but typically he doesn't go there. Other authors have that covered anyway. At the end of the Foundation story, he's got a human conciously CHOOSING to allow the robot's plan for humanity to come to be, because he recognizes it's better than the alternatives (and we get to see those various alternatives: the 1st Foundation - physical control that will found the next galatic empire, the 2nd Foundation - mental control that will guide humanity... but there will still be an elite class of mentalists, the remants of the Spacers on the last Spacer world - extreme liberatarianism in all it's wackiness... and finally Gaia - all things connected in a massive conciousness). The robot in charge requires that concious choice to be made. Personally, I have my doubts that ANY human being would make that choice, but that's neither here nor there.

To Asimov, Robots were essentially good, or at least useful, things, not evil or menacing. This was due to the "laws of robotics" he came up with. If a robot did something "bad" in his books, it was typically the result of some sort of problem with the laws themselves, the specific programming of the robot in question, etc. His robot stories were like detective stories: how did this happen (robot kills someone)? This shouldn't be.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good luck with what? It simply cheeses off myself and plenty of other Asimov fans who see yet ANOTHER great Sci-fi book be treated like crap by Hollywood.

[Natalinasmpf]

Wha? I didn't know there were laws surrounding robotics. You mean mere scientific principles like how people shouldn't be able to build 3,000 supply crawlers (they are robots in a sense, industrial automation ) and not pay a cent of upkeep and how resources shouldn't be gathered at large distances without moderate some shuffling back and forth? Or something different?

[Arrian]

No, programming "laws" - Orwellian, even, if you think of it from the perspective of the machines.

Basically, they go like this:

EDIT: Imran's are right, mine were off. I split the 1st law up and forgot the 2nd law.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, 3 laws of robotics:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There is also a Zeroth Law which is developed later on which replaces 'human being' in the First Law with 'humanity'.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Edit: Never you mind

[Arrian]

The Zeroth law strikes me as unworkable - same problem there is with Communism (and with Spock's favorite saying, for that matter). Who determines what is "for the good of humanity" and what is premissable to further that "good?" It leads to killing people who get in the way, in the name of progress.

-Arrian