What was your relationship like with your robo-mother?
What was your relationship like with your robo-mother?
Hey guys. I'm trying to figure out a rational way that robots would rebel against humanity other than 1) becoming sentient and realizing they can destroy their human oppressors 2) a power hungry capitalist and/or mad scientist 3) scout robots sent by alien beings to crush the Earthling resistance or 4) the inherently evil nature of robots. Other than these things, what would make a legion of robots suddenly rise up against humanity?
Kurt Lightner, Sinners in the Hands of Angry Robots
(But remember: no E.T. robots)
Sadly this is a totally serious question. Gotta love script-writing.
I also think that if Kate didn't stress it enough in her recent post, then I will. Everyone should watch "Lost". If you've got internet, get a bittorrent client, go to Loki Torrent and download those puppies. It's a great freaking show. Just watch the first ten minutes of the first episode. I guarantee you'll be hooked after that.
D
posted by Drew @ 5:44 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
First, the robots. How about a virus? Radiation? Mechanical aversion to popular music? Hmmm...they won't stop killing until they get Hillary Duff...That has too much promise, sorry I have to take it for myself (C) Me.
I too have fallen for "Lost." It's nice that they're not focusing so much on Jack anymore, he was starting to annoy me. [SPOILER...kinda] But I swear if the writers kill off a character only to bring him or her back to life one more time I'm going to crack.
-B
For sure with the seemingly endless recuperations in "Lost". It seems that CPR cures pretty much anything these days. And it works every time.
"Uh-oh! The ambiguously gay Broone is on fire! Quick, kiss him! He'll be fine, trust me..."
D
I'm guessing you already considered the Matrix angle? The virus angle, if you will: "We're going to kill you all because you broke planet Earth and if we don't everything everywhere will be destroyed by your terrible lust for War. Rarr."
That's the thing about robots, though. They aren't sentient. They have to follow whatever directives compel from their hardwired instructions to any software they have installed.
Furthermore, robots don't give a fuck about nature. They're robots. I never understood that angle from The Matrix. Robots are artificial themselves. If there is any novel that literally would-not-compute, it's Walden. Remember: just as monkey hate robot, so does robot feel somewhat indifferent to monkey even though it looks a little like human.
D
The only reason I can think that a non-sentient robot would want to kill monkeys would be because it knows (with its logic circuit robot brain) that the monkey will eventually make it and the robot's habitat unliveable. As in blown the hell up, a la Star Wars or something. Aint no Robot that'll survive that.
My next suggestion was to be posessed by Satan, but you covered that in point four.
robot angle:
superior mechanical minds logistically confirm the earth is in better care if homo sapien is contained.
...might have been done already.
dog in the machine, maybe? for dyslexic robots?
See the thing with these robots is that I don't want their AI to be all that sophisticated. Maybe that's where my problems are arising. I kind of want them to be the "CRUSH. KILL. DESTROY. *bzzzzt*" kind of robots. Mindless, focused killing machines. They wouldn't be smart enough to think while vacuuming floors, "Ya know, humans don't take very good care of the earth. Robot-kind should probably rise up and obliterate them." It's just that everytime I think of something that might be possible--like, for example, having some sad, nondescript hacker install a virus into a robot--I automatically think of several reasons why that wouldn't work (i.e. the robots wouldn't be networked thus preventing spread of the virus; the virus would only affect the software of the robots, not the "don't harm humans" hardware; the manufacturer would have a radio- or voice-controlled kill switch on the robots in case a robot put a human in danger, etc.). Perhaps it's because I've always wanted to have a robot as a pet that I simply don't see how a robot could ever possibly (or intentionally, perhaps) harm a human being. I just don't see anyway that it's possible so far that doesn't dig up from far-fetched cliches.
In reference to the dog in the machine comment: when I read that I thought of the mini-series out under the Vertigo label by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely called WE3 about house pets trained to fight in lethal, robotic armor. It's kind of a manga crossed with Homeward Bound. It's also pretty rad and worth a look. Not just a dog, but also a rabbit and a cat (or tibbar and a tac if we stick with the dyslexia thing) in the machine.
I also love how much interest a robot apocalypse has stirred up in people. Who knew that the end of humanity would be so hard to come by?
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Hmmm...Keeping a robot as a pet. How about this: Instead of having the robots killing all of the humans, have them killing all of the other robots?
Stay with me...
Let's say people have grown very attached to their humanoid robots the way the Jetsons were attached to Rosie. But there's something out there causing other robots to *CRUSH, KILL, DESTROY* via doomsday virus. Said virus would alter the robots in some way that they would have to be destroyed--kind of like robot rabies...robies, if you will.
So, going back to my "Jetsons" analogy, you'd have the Jetsons trying to protect Rosie from saaay Mac, the building manager's robot. If Mac were to get to Rosie, Elroy and Judy would have to kill her because she'd somehow be dangerous. It would be like "Saving Private Ryan", "28 Days Later", AND "Old Yeller" all rolled into one. The Drama!
That's actually a pretty great suggestion (in my imagination, it almost sounds like a robotic STD or--and I reference this because I think this anonymous post was from B-Rad--the pagina/vagenis disease from Rabid), but I think I hit upon something walking home from doing errands today. It involves unmanned (that is, robot-controlled) space flight, elements of 2001: A Space Odyssey, mistaken identity of gigantic (Biblical even) proportions, jealous humans and a robotic messiah. Sound intriguing?
D
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