Isaac Asimov, quite clearly Da Man.

Or as far as robotics are concerned at least (incidentally a term that he coined himself). A lot of real robot theories and science-fiction would not exist without this man, his most famous contribution evident in the creation of the ‘Three Laws of Robotics’, stated thusly:

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 any orders given 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.

Reading through his short stories is helping get some character building for L E N S himself

-No lo alcanzarás, Mike, es inútil. ¿Por qué demonios veré siempre las cosas cinco segundos después de que hayan pasado? Mike, hemos perdido el tiempo.

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Dupa zile de citit articole stupide, comentarii ale postalacilor, zile in care chiar am asteptat sa vad si eu un om reactionand normal scriu articolul asta. Despre ce e vorba? Despre renumita palma, pumn, lovitura sau cum vrea lumea sa zica.

Toti au comentat ceva la genu: Basescu l-a lovit pe baiat in fata sau Basescu nu avea cum sa faca asta.

Nu ma intereseaza prea mult daca a fost sau nu trucat filmuletul si nici afirmatia lui Basescu: “m-a injurat, sau i-a zis ceva doamnei aceea?”. Traim in Romania, iar marinarul chiar reprezinta o buna parte din populatia tarii care gandeste ca pustanul si-o merita. Asta e partea grava.

Partea si mai interesanta este asemanarea dintre toata aceasta faza si o nuvela a lui Isaac Asimov(de fapt asta e ideea articolului). Nuvela se numeste Evidenta, parte a cartii Eu, robotul si trateaza un subiect foarte delicat, dupa ce criterii ne alegem politicienii.

Stephen Byerley, un avocat din New York, candideaza pentru postul de primar al orasului. Inamicii sai politici incearca sa-l discrediteze, raspandind zvonul, cum ca acesta ar fi un robot(nu fusese vazut niciodata mancand, niciodata dormind si pe deasupra era si un om care nu pricinuise niciodata altcuiva vreun rau).  Aici trebuie sa dezvolt putin. Toti robotii in universul asimovian respecta cele 3 legi.

1. Un robot nu are voie să pricinuiască vreun rău unei fiinţe umane, sau prin neintervenţie, să permită ca unei fiinţe omeneşti să i se facă rău.

2. Un robot trebuie să se supună ordinelor date de către o fiinţă umană atât timp cât ele nu intră în contradicţie cu Legea 1.

3. Un robot trebuie să-şi protejeze propria existenţă, atât timp cât acest lucru nu intră în contradicţie cu Legea 1 sau Legea 2.

Populatia New York-ului incepe sa devina ostila candidaturii lui Stephen Byerley dar acesta pare nepasator si nu renunta la candidatura. Avocatul convoaca un miting electoral, unde multimea aproape numai poate fi stapanita si isi incepe discursul. La un moment dat un om din multime se apropie de Stephen si ii zice:  “daca esti om loveste-ma“. Stephen il loveste multimea se calmeaza si bineinteles ca este ales ca primar. Partea interesanta vine la sfarsitul nuvelei cand apare ideea: Ce deosebire este intre un om eminamente cumsecade, care respecta toate normele, atat cele morale cat si cele legale si un robot asimovian? Desi in aceasta nuvela apare doar ideea ca acel om care a primit pumnul putea fi doar un robot, Stephen Byerley in urmatoarele carti apare ca robot.

Comparatia mea cu alegerile din Romania este usor fortata recunosc, dar ma uimeste tocmai contrastul.

• Marile descoperiri se fac in campanie electorala(palma lui basescu, cei 42 de km, averea lui geoana, mogulismul etc).
• Palmele si pumnii in campanie sunt ceva obisnuit(pupat piata independentei).
• Alesii nostri nu sunt roboti dar se poarta de parca noi am fi.
• Daca Basescu nu scoate un dosar greu cu ceva si mai greu de la naftalina cu care sa prosteasca gloata, cade.
• Geoana o sa iasa doar datorita unei palme.

Asadar, sunt trist ca lumea nu vede esentialul. Am ramas ca in vremea lui Caragiale. Nimic schimbat doar cateva decoruri si cativa actori.

P.S. Stau si ma intreb daca Basescu a fost batut cat era mic.

Update: “Violenta este ultimul refugiu al incompententei”-Salvor Hardin din Fundatia de Isaac Asimov

“Der Mensch ist das einzige Tier, das sich für Informationen, die ihm überhaupt nichts nützen, interessiert.”, sagte einst  Isaac Asimov. Wer also die folgende Zeile liest, wird sie vermutlich gierig in sich aufsaugen und nie wieder vergessen. Nur damit ihr’s wisst: Rentiere fressen gern Bananen.

Recentemente andei lendo alguns contos de Isaac Asimov.
The Last Question e The Last Answer são um tanto interessantes.

Aqui vai o texto, em inglês, que achei sobre The Last Answer

The Last Answer, by Isaac Asimov.

Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough.

The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily. He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him.

There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain. Murray felt an almost giddy lightness as though he were lifting in the air and hovering.

He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated. He had been in the laboratory when the pain had struck, quite without warning, and when he had staggered, he had heard surprised outcries from the others before everything vanished into overwhelming agony.

Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body -

- Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on.

He was down there, sprawled, face contorted. He was up here, at peace and watching.

He thought: Miracle of miracles! The life-after-life nuts were right.

And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed.

He thought: There should be some angel – or something – coming for me.

The Earthly scene was fading. Darkness was invading his consciousness and off in a distance, as a last glimmer of sight, there was a figure of light, vaguely human in form, and radiating warmth.

Murray thought: What a joke on me. I’m going to Heaven.

Even as he thought that, the light faded, but the warmth remained. There was no lessening of the peace even though in all the Universe only he remained – and the Voice.

The Voice said, “I have done this so often and yet I still have the capacity to be pleased at success.”

It was in Murray’s mind to say something, but he was not conscious of possessing a mouth, tongue, or vocal chords. Nevertheless, tried to make a sound. He tried, mouthlessly, to hum words or breathe them or just push them out by a contraction of – something.

And they came out. He heard his own voice, quite recognisable, and his own words, infinitely clear.

Murray said, “Is this Heaven?”

The Voice said, “This is no place as you understand place.”

Murray was embarrassed, but the next question had to be asked. “Pardon me if I sound like a jackass. Are you God?”

Without changing intonation or in any way marring the perfection of the sound, the Voice managed to sound amused. “It is strange that I am always asked that in, of course, an infinite number of ways. There is no answer I can give that you would comprehend. I am – which is all that I can say significantly and you may cover that with any word or concept you please.”

Murray said, “And what am I? A soul? Or am I only personified existence too?” He tried not to sound sarcastic, but it seemed to him that he had failed. He thought then, fleetingly, of adding a ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Holy One’ or something to counteract the sarcasm, and could not bring himself to do so even though for the first time in his existence he speculated on the possibility of being punished for his insolence – or sin? – with Hell, and what that might be like.

The Voice did not sound offended. “You are easy to explain – even to you. You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence – down to the smallest detail. Therefore you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality. It still seems to you that you are you.”

Murray found himself incredulous. “You mean the essence of my brain was permanent?”

“Not at all. There is nothing about you that is permanent except what I choose to make so. I formed the nexus. I constructed it while you had physical existence and adjusted it to the moment when the existence failed.”

The Voice seemed distinctly pleased with itself, and went on after a moment’s pause. “An intricate but entirely precise construction. I could, of course, do it for every human being on your world but I am pleased that I do not. There is pleasure in the selection.”

“You choose very few then?”

“Very few.”

“And what happens to the rest?”

“Oblivion! – Oh, of course, you imagine a Hell.”

Murray would have flushed if he had the capacity to do so. He said, “I do not. It is spoken of. Still, I would scarcely have thought I was virtuous enough to have attracted your attention as one of the Elect.”

“Virtuous? – Ah, I see what you mean. It is troublesome to have to force my thinking small enough to permeate yours. No, I have chosen you for your capacity for thought, as I choose others, in quadrillions, from all the intelligent species of the Universe.”

Murray found himself suddenly curious, the habit of a lifetime. He said, “Do you choose them all yourself or are there others like you?”

For a fleeting moment, Murray thought there was an impatient reaction to that, but when the Voice came, it was unmoved. “Whether or not there are others is irrelevant to you. This Universe is mine, and mine alone. It is my invention, my construction, intended for my purpose alone.”

“And yet with quadrillions of nexi you have formed, you spend time with me? Am I that important?”

The Voice said, “You are not important at all. I am also with others in a way which, to your perception, would seem simultaneous.”

“And yet you are one?”

Again amusement. The Voice said, “You seek to trap me into an inconsistency. If you were an amoeba who could consider individuality only in connection with single cells and if you were to ask a sperm whale, made up of thirty quadrillion cells, whether it was one or many, how could the sperm whale answer in a way that would be comprehensible to the amoeba?”

Murray said dryly, “I’ll think about it. It may become comprehensible.”

“Exactly. That is your function. You will think.”

“To what end? You already know everything, I suppose.”

The Voice said, “Even if I knew everything, I could not know that I know everything.”

Murray said, “That sounds like a bit of Eastern philosophy – something that sounds profound precisely because it has no meaning.”

The Voice said, “You have promise. You answer my paradox with a paradox – except that mine is not a paradox. Consider. I have existed eternally, but what does that mean? It means I cannot remember having come into existence. If I could, I would not have existed eternally. If I cannot remember having come into existence, then there is at least one thing – the nature of my coming into existence – that I do not know.

“Then, too, although what I know is infinite, it is also true that what there is to know is infinite, and how can I be sure that both infinities are equal? The infinity of potential knowledge may be infinitely greater than the infinity of my actual knowledge. Here is a simple example: If I knew every one of the even integers, I would know an infinite number of items, and yet I would still not know a single odd integer.”

Murray said, “But the odd integers can be derived. If you divide every even integer in the entire infinite series by two, you will get another infinite series which will contain within it the infinite series of odd integers.”

The Voice said, “You have the idea. I am pleased. It will be your task to find other such ways, far more difficult ones, from the known to the not-yet-known. You have your memories. You will remember all the data you have ever collected or learned, or that you have or will deduce from that data. If necessary, you will be allowed to learn what additional data you will consider relevant to the problems you set yourself.”

“Could you not do all that for yourself?”

The Voice said, “I can, but it is more interesting this way. I constructed the Universe in order to have more facts to deal with. I inserted the uncertainty principle, entropy, and other randomisation factors to make the whole not instantly obvious. It has worked well for it has amused me throughout its entire existence.

“I then allowed complexities that produced first life and then intelligence, and use it as a source for a research team, not because I need the aid, but because it would introduce a new random factor. I found I could not predict the next interesting piece of knowledge gained, where it would come from, by what means derived.”

Murray said, “Does that ever happen?”

“Certainly. A century doesn’t pass in which some interesting item doesn’t appear somewhere.”

“Something that you could have thought of yourself, but had not done so yet?”

“Yes.”

Murray said, “Do you actually think there’s a chance of my obliging you in this manner?”

“In the next century? Virtually none. In the long run, though, your success is certain, since you will be engaged eternally.”

Murray said, “I will be thinking through eternity? Forever?”

“Yes.”

“To what end?”

“I have told you. To find new knowledge.”

“But beyond that. For what purpose am I to find new knowledge?”

“It was what you did in your Universe-bound life. What was its purpose then?”

Murray said, “To gain new knowledge that only I could gain. To receive the praise of my fellows. To feel the satisfaction of accomplishment knowing that I had only a short time allotted me for the purpose. – Now I would gain only what you could gain yourself if you wished to take a small bit of trouble. You cannot praise me; you can only be amused. And there is no credit or satisfaction in accomplishment when I have all eternity to do it in.”

The Voice said, “And you do not find thought and discovery worthwhile in itself? You do not find it requiring no further purpose?”

“For a finite time, yes. Not for all eternity.”

“I see your point. Nevertheless, you have no choice.”

“You say I am to think. You cannot make me do so.”

The Voice said, “I do not wish to constrain you directly. I will not need to. Since you can do nothing but think, you will think. You do not know how not to think.”

“Then I will give myself a goal. I will invent a purpose.”

The Voice said tolerantly, “That you can certainly do.”

“I have already found a purpose.”

“May I know what it is?”

“You know already. I know we are not speaking in the ordinary fashion. You adjust my nexus is such a way that I believe I hear you and I believe I speak, but you transfer thoughts to me and from me directly. And when my nexus changes with my thoughts you are at once aware of them and do not need my voluntary transmission.”

The Voice said, “You are surprisingly correct. I am pleased. – But it also pleases me to have you tell me your thoughts voluntarily.”

“Then I will tell you. The purpose of my thinking will be to discover a way to disrupt this nexus of me that you have created. I do not want to think for no purpose but to amuse you. I do not want to think forever to amuse you. I do not want to exist forever to amuse you. All my thinking will be directed toward ending the nexus. That would amuse me.”

The Voice said, “I have no objection to that. Even concentrated thought on ending your own existence may, in spite of you, come up with something new and interesting. And, of course, if you succeed in this suicide attempt you will have accomplished nothing, for I would instantly reconstruct you and in such a way as to make your method of suicide impossible. And if you found another and still more subtle fashion of disrupting yourself, I would reconstruct you with that possibility eliminated, and so on. It could be an interesting game, but you will nevertheless exist eternally. It is my will.”

Murray felt a quaver but the words came out with a perfect calm. “Am I in Hell then, after all? You have implied there is none, but if this were Hell you would lie to us as part of the game of Hell.”

The Voice said, “In that case, of what use is it to assure you that you are not in Hell? Nevertheless, I assure you. There is here neither Heaven nor Hell. There is only myself.”

Murray said, “Consider, then, that my thoughts may be useless to you. If I come up with nothing useful, will it not be worth your while to – disassemble me and take no further trouble with me?”

“As a reward? You want Nirvana as the prize of failure and you intend to assure me failure? There is no bargain there. You will not fail. With all eternity before you, you cannot avoid having at least one interesting thought, however you try against it.”

“Then I will create another purpose for myself. I will not try to destroy myself. I will set as my goal the humiliation of you. I will think of something you have not only never thought of but never could think of. I will think of the last answer, beyond which there is no knowledge further.”

The Voice said, “You do not understand the nature of the infinite. There may be things I have not yet troubled to know. There cannot be anything I cannot know.”

Murray said thoughtfully, “You cannot know your beginning. You have said so. Therefore you cannot know your end. Very well, then. That will be my purpose and that will be the last answer. I will not destroy myself. I will destroy you – if you do not destroy me first.”

The Voice said, “Ah! You come to that in rather less than average time. I would have thought it would have taken you longer. There is not one of those I have with me in this existence of perfect and eternal thought that does not have the ambition of destroying me. It cannot be done.”

Murray said, “I have all eternity to think of a way of destroying you.”

The Voice said, equably, “Then try to think of it.” And it was gone.

But Murray had his purpose now and was content.

For what could any Entity, conscious of eternal existence, want – but an end?

For what else had the Voice been searching for countless billions of years? And for what other reason had intelligence been created and certain specimens salvaged and put to work, but to aid in that great search? And Murray intended that it would be he, and he alone, who would succeed.

Carefully, and with the thrill of purpose, Murray began to think.

He had plenty of time.

UPDATE: Mandala screenshots (below)

I’ve begun encoding “Robot Dreams”, a short story about a robot named Elvex (LVX-1) whose positronic brain has been uniquely imprinted with fractal patterns, and as a result has learned how to dream.  This text also features Susan Calvin, the mother of robot psychology in the continuity of most of Asimov’s robot stories.  In my encoding of this text, I’ve run into several challenges:

• I’m finding “otherness” more difficult to determine than I’d expected.  This story in particular is challenging, because Elvex has become more “human-like” due to the unique architecture of his brain– a fact that appalls his creator and Susan Calvin.  The more Elvex describes his dreams, appearing increasingly “human”, the more the human characters try to distance themselves from him and emphasize his robotic characteristics.  In this situation, there is a definite tension between “other” and “same”; I can’t ignore that tension by making that attribute “null”, but how can I determine otherness in such an ambivalent circumstance?  …One solution is to look at the source’s motivation.  Is the source saying/doing something to create distance between human and robot, or to draw them closer together?  This raises a new challenge:
• Can a reference then have multiple sources?  Can multiple sources have different motivations, and thus represent different levels on “otherness”?  If the answer is yes, how do I encode this?  …The answer I’ve come up with is to nest my pr_ref tags.  It’s still too early to tell if this is an effective strategy, but I’m trialing it.
• How do I define my type attributes when it seems that the reference is fulfilling more than one of the possible types?  (e.g. in “Robot Dreams”  Susan Calvin interviews Elvex in her characteristically cold, clinical way.  Most of her questions/statements directed at Elvex can be construed both as “interactive”– since she is “interacting” with the robot– and “descriptive”– since she is describing the robot.)  One possible answer is to look at the possibility of multiple sources again.  The other is to identify a hierarchy of types: emotion trumps interaction trumps description, since all references “describe” something, but not all references “describe” an interaction, and not all interactions are emotional.  Without clearly setting this rule out, I think this is a strategy I followed when encoding “Someday”.  When there is a clearly a situation of multiple sources looking at motivation can again be valuable, and using nested tagging seems the natural answer.

I chose “Robot Dreams” because it has several elements that I felt needed to be explored in my analysis of Asimov’s robot stories.  First of all, whereas in “Someday” the two human characters were male children, in “Robot Dreams” the two human characters are female adults.  I wanted to see if gender and age played a factor (note: my tweaked encoding currently doesn’t catalog age as a factor– if it looks like this might be valuable information to mine, I may add it in future iterations).  Secondly it included Susan Calvin.  Although I have not, as yet, developed an element structure to analyze principal human characters, it has always been my intention for Calvin to be my first attempt.  Not only is her name synonymous with Asimov’s robot stories as a recurring character, but she plays a unique role in them as a foil for the various robots she psycho-analyzes; it would be a valuable exercise to compare the relationship references to her with those of the principle robot characters in the same stories.  Is Susan Calvin characterized as more robot (“other”) or more human?  In comparison, are the robot characters more or less human? Does she elicit more of an emotional response from the figures that interact with her?  An examination of reference sources in this analysis is useful too: does she express emotion more or less than the average robot?

Finally, the problem of “otherness” is central to this text.  I feel that the tension between being “too human” and “too different” is one that makes Asimov’s work so universally engaging, and has not been explored to its fullest.  My XML encoding can– hopefully– reveal exactly how that tension is expressed through the relationships in the text.

***

I have completed a first encoding of the principal robot references in “Robot Dreams”.  Here are screenshots of Mandala evaluating “otherness” from the perspective of the three characters: Elvex (principal robot), Susan (principal human), and Linda (secondary human).  Click on the thumbnails below to view the images in full size.

from "Gandahar (a.k.a. Light Years)"

Here’s a tough one to find and even tougher to find in the English dubbed version (original language French). I place Isaac Asimov’s name as an association to this film, as did Harvey Weinstein (after his purchase of the original version film Gandahar) for American audience attraction. A lot of editing interrupts the story but nostalgic fans of the magazine Heavy Metal may find it interesting to view. Gandahar is the last of three releases by René Laloux, the other two being Time Masters and the cult classic Fantastic Planet. The basic story line involves a fantasy world’s harmonious life being invaded by robotic drones sent to destroy their tranquility. Why? I suppose the intention of the mysterious source may implied….storyline on this one wasn’t the best and I can only surmise that a lot was lost in the interpretation. I did appreciate the underclass mutants in the movie, who step in and save the hero of the movie so he can go on to slaying the evil force later. Nice imagery, voice talents include Glen Close, Christopher Plummer, Bridget Fonda-they even got Teller from Penn and Teller to do a voice.

Somehow, without me noticing, the science fiction writers I remember from magazines of the early-2000s appeared on my bookshelf again.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been on a mission to find copies of the first SF stories I can remember reading—two of them I knew for sure came from an issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine; two of them might be in one of a number of old anthologies of my grandfather’s; and one of them might just be from a dream I had years ago and inflated into a dystopian epic (it happens).

In any case, after diligent Google searching and telephone inquiries with a used bookstore in Oregon, I was able to get a listing of the titles and authors of short stories in Asimov’s from 2002 to 2005.  The problem was that it’s a monthly magazine, and I couldn’t remember if my subscription had begun when I was a freshman in high school, or when my older sister first brought back those QSP-issued order forms for the annual magazine drive.

So: after nearly 7 years, I couldn’t remember the authors, or the titles (shoot, I couldn’t even remember the year).  This may have something to do with the fact that back in those halcyon days of yore, I was a very sweet, very impressionable middle-school girl who found herself horrified by the lurid cover illustrations and pulp fiction content of the publication—a semi-nude, iridescent faerie was not, after all, what Dune and Contact had prepared me for.

I read no more than two or three issues, tossed the rest out, and did not renew my subscription.  I would stick to the classics, I decided.

But for 7 years I’ve managed to vividly remember two stories—or at least, bizarre details from two stories—from one of the few issues I’d read.

The first was about a woman with some sort of genetically-engineered pets franchise: they had a strange name (ploompies?  ploofties?) and were globular, translucent, pulsing masses of the buyer’s own DNA.  And somehow, these creatures were so appealing that the owner could hardly help but bite into them—and get a taste of something sharp and metallic (in my orthodontics-oriented middle-school mind, that jagged pain you get from biting down on a piece of tinfoil with a filled tooth).

The second story had something to do with a girl and her dog; they lived in the “real world,” or rather, the physical world, because when she grew up, she would have to abandon her body and lived in a completely virtual world, like the Internet.  Some accident happens to the girl, and her body is lost—she herself is just barely uploaded in time, but the dog can’t be saved.

This isn’t much to go on.  But paging through lists of titles online, I spotted one called “Junk DNA.”  Alarms went off in the brainpan.  I bought a used copy of the January 2003 issue of the magazine, and checked my PO Box daily until it arrived.

The first story, about the bizarre pets (Pumptis, as it turns out), was indeed “Junk DNA,” by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker.  And here’s the passage that had so stuck with me:

In a dizzying moment of raw devotion, Janna suddenly found herself sinking her teeth into the unresisting flesh of the Pumpti.  Crisp, tasty, spun-cotton candy, deep-fried puffball dough, a sugared beignet.  And under that a salty, slightly painful flavor—bringing back the memory of being a kid and sucking on the root of a lost tooth.

Why that particular imagery was so memorable, I don’t know.  More interesting is the fact that the genre of the story is one I’ve been raving about for the past few months:

“Junk DNA” is science fiction story about a business venture and all the backroom politicking that goes along with economics, invention, and the market.  Sound a bit like…?

(My post on) Cory Doctorow and Makers, his very recent epic of robotics, business, and the “New Work” (like the New Deal, but way more free market);

(My post on) David Louis Edelman and his Jump 225 series, for which “cyberpunk” hardly does justice as a classification—the corporate intrigue behind Bio/Logic and MultiReal (and how could there not be corporate intrigue with sociopathic entrepreneur Natch at the helm?) is just as intense as the science;

Charles Stross and Glasshouse, which won the 2007 Prometheus Award for “libertarian SF” (This, friends, is my life goal), or The Atrocity Archives, which is something of a spy thriller with a science fiction element closer to Lovecraftian horror than anything else (take a look at the January 2003 cover illustration and you’ll see where I’ve found a connection with Lovecraft).

Even one of the authors, Bruce Sterling, will be appearing on my bookshelf when The Caryatids arrives in the mail in a couple weeks.  And the last page of the January 2003 issue is a sort of preview of coming attractions feature, listing authors and stories for the next issue—one of them, by the way, is Charlie Stross).

To think, I thought these were new discoveries.

Mystery Story #2 also happened to be in the Jan. 2003 issue—“Pick My Bones With Whispers,” by Sally McBride.  This was a major lucky break, as I would never have remembered that the second story imprinted on my malleable brain had been the winner of the Pretentious Title Award for 2003.  (Is McBride trying to be ironic?  I sincerely hope so…)

And once again, the topics that fascinate me today, I discover, are absolutely nothing new.  The research I recently did on the millennial generation’s changing conception of the Internet (or, for them/us, Cyberspace)—from a tool to a place that has been increasingly explored since childhood—is all there in the saga of Lizbeth and her faithful virtual pup, Fritz:

Though I’m twelve, there’s still a lot I can’t do in the children’s Net areas, even if Fritz was letting me in deeper and deeper all the time.  There were dark places I couldn’t go, forbidden subjects I couldn’t get data on, tantalizing things I couldn’t see or join or do.  Sometimes it was humiliating to be a flesh-and-blood person.

This sounds so much like one of the responses I got from an interviewee for my paper that it’s almost shocking.  She doesn’t use the Internet to the same extent of her peers—and so (like Lizbeth, albeit less dramtically) resists absorption into Cyberspace.  She told me:

“Everyone talks about how big the Internet is, and I know, because I can go on for hours and hours and still feel like I’ve never gotten into the core of it.  If the Internet was real life, I would be non-existent.”

This interviewee in particular doesn’t care for science fiction—she enjoys borrowing my DVDs of Firefly, but that’s about it.  No 2003 Asimov’s Science Fiction for her.  And still, she easily could have spoken those lines from McBride’s story.

This—like the theme and subject matter of recent novels by authors like Stross, Edelman, and Doctorow—tells me that there’s something in the culture today stories like “Junk DNA” and “Pick My Bones With Whispers” (I’m sorry, I still really can’t type that without cracking up) picked up on in 2003: the increasing interconnectedness of technology and economics, and the transformation of the Internet into an environment rather than just a tool.

Getting that old magazine in the mail today was like a wave of nostalgia, but after reading through those stories again, the sentimentality was gone—the things I missed and remembered for 7 years are mainstream now.

I’ve been working on my encoding of Asimov’s robot stories, and reworked the pr_ref tag to include attributes for the source gender and “otherness”, as well as generalized the source attribute values (phuman, shuman, probot, srobot, nvoice) so it can be used when analyzing a corpus of different texts.

My encoding can now examine the relation to gender of human-robot interactions in the text (i.e. do more female characters respond emotionally to the robots than male characters?  Do male characters physically interact with the robots more? etc.)

I can also track which references demonstrate a portrayal of the robot as “other”, and which references portray the robot as “same” in relation to the source factions in the text.  This otherness/sameness dichotomy is by no means a perfect science, but given a careful reading most references in the text usually imply one or the other.   (Not unlike determining the difference between an emotive and an interactive reference, determining “otherness” relies on interpretation.)

As well, I have made it possible for the principal robot character to reference itself.  This is important in a text like “Someday”, where the robot “the Bard” tells a story about itself.

Click on the screenshot below to see an example of how I’m using the Mandala browser to visualize these features.

The Bard's robot references and their "otherness"

Director Alex Proyas, helmer of such cult favorites as “Dark City” and “The Crow”, steps into the Hollywood limelight with his first attempt at a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster.

“I, Robot” chronicles the life of Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) who has a techno-phobic view of the world’s newest appliance, a life-like robot created by the world’s leading technology giant US Robotics. A link in Spooner’s past is linked to his phobia of the automaton movement sweeping the nation. According to US Robotics, there will be eventually 1 robot to every 5 humans.

Spooner is called to the offices of US Robotics when a leading scientist (James Cromwell), with a secret link to Spooner, has apparently committed suicide. His death seems to have mysterious circumstances which could link to a robot. With man’s complete trust in the new robot technology, it seems too ludicrous to every one except Spooner.

As the mystery deepens, Spooner unravels the very fabric of the robotic giant, locks horns with CEO Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood) and learns more about his automated enemy with the aid of scientist Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan). Through the course of these events he may learn more than he could ever imagine.

It is hard to defend a film like “I, Robot” but I am going to try. For sci-fi purists, Isaac Asimov’s legendary work about the robot and how he will intricate into our society has filled the minds of readers for over 50 years. But the similarities between the film presented here and his work are few and far between. Kind of like last week’s release of Jerry Bruckheimer’s “King Arthur”. Both films take sacred subject matter and re-invent it with a new twist. I would have to say that “I. Robot” is better in a lot ways.

At the core of “I, Robot” beats the soul of Asimov as his 3 laws regarding robots are sacredly left intact and the film does abide by them. Also a lot of the characters have similar names to the people in the text. It is almost like taking Star Trek’s “prime directive” and some of the now classic characters and setting them in a new idea of the future. The core is left intact but in some ways it has been updated and refreshed.

The story, special effects and extremely zealous direction, however, all seem to be brought forth by the collaborators who cobbled this film together. There are influences of “Robocop”, “Short Circuit”, “Blade Runner” and even the classic comic-book series “Magnus: Robot Fighter”. Each of these robot influences echo back to what makes “I Robot” so intriguing, a joy to watch and memorable.

Sure the story does have a lot of sci-fi influences and clichés aside from robot films including “Star Wars” and “Planet of the Apes” but don’t these benchmark sci-fi films influence everything coming down the turnpike these days. It even has the classic sci-fi cliché of the social outcast claiming there is an invasion coming except no one believes him. But that is not what should bring us into the film.

You really need to give credit to director Alex Proyas because it is his magic as a filmmaker that holds this film together. He knows where to play it straight and where to let his lead actor bring on the charm. Also you really have to admire the man’s technical ability. His brilliant inter-laying of robots into the photography is astounding. Proyas is an A-list director in the making and “I, Robot” shows that he can deliver a big Hollywood film.

I also give credit to Will Smith who starts out being very unapproachable with his character but as the film goes we really become fond of his hero. Smith’s Spooner does have a lot of his previous sci-fi heroes inter-laced into Spooner but it comes off as more of a homecoming than an annoyance.

In some ways I think Proyas had something to do with that especially in the chase down scene towards the beginning of the film. It almost felt like “Men in Black” again.

As for Smith’s co-stars, Cromwell’s Lanning is a throwaway character used mainly for effect, Moynahan is timid and sometimes robot-like but it is a sturdy performance and Greenwood is menacing and a good match to face off against the rebellious Smith.

The reason I was so fond of “I, Robot” is because for once it was a summer film that didn’t apologize for trying to be entertaining. The special effects, the performances and the direction are all what people want to see in the summer and this film is loads and loads of fun. It is a great giant popcorn film with a light layering of message.

My only small problem with this film was that it is supposed to be set in Chicago in 2035. I didn’t buy it but if it was 2135, then maybe.

Sure the film doesn’t pave new ground but why does every film have to. It is pure summer fun and what is wrong with that.

If you want Asimov and sci-fi purism then you can always read the novels. Stop apologizing and most of all stop belly-aching, just give the film a chance. If you like science fiction films and want to be remembered how much fun they used to be then this picture is the perfect ticket for you.

4.25 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Mientras Isaac Asimov y Frank Herbert inspiraron la gestación del estilo de ficción conocido como Cyberpunk, son H.G. Wells y Julio Verne quienes resultan en gran parte responsables por el origen del Steampunk.

La premisa es simple, en algún momento del pasado el hombre decidió continuar la senda de las maquinas a vapor y a carbón en vez de seguir el camino del progreso mediante la electricidad. El resultado son avances inimaginados en ciencia y tecnología, que riñen con todo lo que la tecnología contemporánea, basada en lo electrónico y lo digital, ha ofrecido al ser humano.

Contrario a lo que sucedía en el Cyberpunk, en el Steampunk hay una celebración de la ciencia y los avances tecnológicos. Mientras el Cyberpunk mostraba una civilización decadente en pleno apogeo de lo digital, el Steampunk ofrece una visión mucho más positiva respecto al aporte de la ciencia a la humanidad. Sin embargo, la ficción Steampunk también ofrece una perspectiva de lo que sería una sociedad plenamente industrializada y las capacidades destructivas de un progreso basado casi plenamente en consumo de recursos naturales.

Estética victoriana y accesorios funcionales forman parte del vestuario que hoy en dia miles de personas intentan emular. Y no se trata solo de una moda, así como otras tendencias y estilos actuales detrás del Steampunk hay una filosofía de vida.

El Steampunk surge como una resistencia al estilo de vida digital, frío e impersonal al que la era digital nos ha arrastrado. El predominio de las maquinas y las “primitivas” formas de energía generan en el ser humano una necesidad de esfuerzo físico y perseverancia para lograr avances tecnológicos, dejando de lado la inmediatez y recuperando la capacidad de asombro en el hombre.

El trabajo invertido en las maquinas produce artefactos únicos que nada tienen que ver con la producción en masa de la tecnología moderna y esa cualidad única de cada invención las vuelve verdaderas obras de arte. La combinación de madera, metal y cuero vuelve la imagen de los artefactos algo más cálido, lo que se aparta de la estética estéril e impersonal de las invenciones modernas.

Para lograr un look Steampunk se debe tener cuidado con la elección de las prendas pues deben ir acorde al tipo de accesorios propios del estilo.

Ciertamente un estilo que rescata elementos muy interesantes de una época que se caracterizó por el interés y el asombro que aún provocaba el progreso en el mundo, resucitar eso hoy es un signo del estancamiento en que el hombre se ha sentido desde hace un par de décadas… da para pensar no?

The movie „I, ROBOT” takes –over the essentiall part of the SF-book called
„Caves of steel”,by the well-known
writer Isaac Asimov.The title is borrowed
from another book,with the same author
in wich are presented the adventures of
a baby-sitter robot(„Robbie”).
The movie,directed by Alex Proyas,
has the main role on Will Smith,in my
oppinion the most appropriate actor for
this kind of role(Will has the capacity
to adapt very well in the science-fiction world,and he played in another S.F.s:
„Men in black”—I&II,”Independence
Day”).
Somebody(I forgot who—sorry!),
was telling to Isaac Asimov that „Caves
of steel” won’t have the espected succes,
because the SF and police-thing genres
can’t be combined.This fact was denied
by the book and the movie themselves.
The action and the carracters are in the
most part similar:a police-man dedicated to a case,who’s hating the
robots,forced to work with one of them,but finally ending both by beeing friends.Also ,the both book and movie
are based on the three robotics’ laws
formulated by Asimov.In the film,the
robot(Sonny),is an equivalent of the one from „Bicentennial Man”(actor:Robin Wiliams)as a robot with feelings,while
in the book ,R.Daneel Ollivaw it’s similar
with Data from Star Trek(actor :Brent
Spiner).
From my own subjective view,
the film is a succes,even if it has
some little mistakes:the detective is
receiving help too easy in his searchings
wich is simplifying the action,as also the
replacing of the evil caracter from the
book(the police office leader)with a virtual AI entity:VIKI—in my oppinion,
a robot is more easily to defeat than a man,from an existential and motivational point of view.
Although I had critic words at this
movie(I had to!—you know…),it deserves
to be seen.
Have a good time watching it!

Ovidiu Patrascu.

I,Robot Trailer

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

Charlie Chaplin

Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.

John F. Kennedy

Concern with pleasing humans causes the loss of all spiritual growth.

Umberto Eco, Baudolino

He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:–Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the Flower of Heaven–once yours; now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?

John Milton, Paradise Lost

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

Walt Disney

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

Mark Twain

Before all else, be armed.

Niccolo Machiavelli

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 any orders given 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.

Isaac Asimov

This story caught my eye earlier today.

Maybe this means I’m an optimist. Or even a sucker; a fool. All I know is that when I meet Moses, the 60-year-old scientist who runs this place, and he shows me a tiny pellet, about the size of the multivitamin I take every morning, and swears it will provide an endless supply of safe, clean energy, I want to believe him.

Personally, I believe the next major step in technological evolution lies in fusion power. As the non-renewable energy sources of our planet begin to dwindle, people are already looking at greener ways of making electricity. Not only can fusion provide energy with little to no carbon footprint, it produces it at a scale that could provide for our ever expanding population and allow us to achieve things like inter-planetary travel. Isaac Asimov explained that the next level of technology  after constructing flying machines is to take control of our own primary. Fusion would achieve this by replicating the forces that power the sun, ushering humanity into a new age of science and technology. Or maybe I just read too much science fiction.

Aqui se encontram todos os contos do escritor de Ficção Científica, e “inventor” da robótica, Isaac Asimov.

Isaac Asimov foi o criador das Três Leis da Robótica e também do próprio termo “robótica”, além de inspirar grandes fabricantes de produtos eletrônicos de todo o mundo.
1ª lei: Um robô não pode ferir um ser humano ou, por inação, permitir que um ser humano sofra algum mal.
2ª lei: Um robô deve obedecer as ordens que lhe sejam dadas por seres humanos, exceto nos casos em que tais ordens conflitarem a Primeira Lei.
3ª lei: Um robô deve proteger sua própria existência desde que tal proteção não entre em conflito com a Primeira e Segunda Leis.

Mesmo que não gostem de contos de ficção científica, o conto a última pergunta é leitura obrigatória para todos que lerem este post

A ÚLTIMA PERGUNTA

Amor Verdadeiro
Dia, Um
Estranho no Paraíso
Melhor Amigo de um Garoto, O
Pense
Ponto de Vista
Robô AL-76 Extraviado
Sally
Segregacionista
Sensação de Poder
Versos na Luz
Vitória Involuntária

Download Do Livro “Sonhos De Robô”

Esse post vai ser complicado, porque gosto é que nem cu – cada um tem o seu e o de bêbado não tem dono. O fato é que volto a escrever neste empoeirado blog após fazer algo bizarro: ouvir os audiobooks da série Crepúsculo, de Stephanie Meyer.

Você, caro nerd, lembra do seu primeiro livro lido (sendo obrigado ou não) que realmente gostou, despertando seu gosto à literatura? Eu comecei com Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, do glorioso Machadão, e desde então tenho devorado livros regularmente.

Eu sei que sou meio bizarro, mas a maioria dos livros que são a porta da literatura para as pessoas são aqueles de temática infanto-juvenil. Quantos nerds não começaram com os livros de Pedro Bandeira? A Droga da Obediência, Brincadeira Mortal, Um Crime Mais Que Perfeito e por aí vai. Mas isso foi pra uma geração, e as coisas mudam bem rápido.

Um exemplo mais recente é a série da J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, que ainda teve o mérito de amadurecer a temática dos livros e os próprios personagens no mesmo ritmo do público, construindo uma legião de fãs totalmente alucinados e fiéis à autora.

O meu ponto é: esses livros, se bem analisados, não apresentam nada surpreendente. Suas histórias são simples, comuns e com uma linguagem que segue a mesma linha. Porém, é uma leitura fácil.

Minha irmã leu toda a série da Stephanie; logo depois, começou a ler As Crônicas de Nárnia, de C.S. Lewis, amigão do Tolkien. É por isso que eu digo, literatura “porca” pode servir ao lado bom da força, desde que o leitor queira essa evolução. Já os nerds pasteurizados, que se acham megaboga cultos por ler os clássicos hypados e cult, poderiam muito bem se lembrar de que livros medianos podem render uma leitura prazeirosa e despojada, para dar uma “respirada” no cérebro entre Isaac Asimov e Arthur C. Clarke.

Pense nisso.

Just to refresh the concept, Dr. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics aren’t real laws. They are a literary plot device. Dr. Asimov knew that there were work arounds for them. He always found reasons to work around the three laws in his robot stories. What you WILL find to be true is this:

1.Robots are machines. Machines, like humans, age and break down if not properly maintained. A faulty machine will injure or kill the first person that is careless.

2. Any military that uses robots on a field of battle will have some type designed for defensive/offensive combat. If you don’t want to be killed by a military robot, stay out of it’s line of fire.

3. Hobby robots made out of sturdy plastic will bite your fingers just as hard, if not harder, as metal when you grab them in the middle of program execution.

In the recent movie Astroboy, the robots mention in passing about Asimov’s three laws. “You know, a robot may not injure a human, yada yada yada.” The laws have no effect on these guys. And if you think they should, you need to stay away from your blender. You might like the number of fingers on your hands.

Cortesía de Isaac Asimov, o para ser más preciso, de un extracto de su mejor novela: The Gods Themselves, que pueden descargar, por cierto, en un antiguo post de mi previo blog.

Veamos el extracto, en inglés original:

Carátula de la primera edición.

“Let me give you a lesson in practical politics.” Senator Burt looked at his wristwatch, leaned back and smiled. “It is a mistake,” he said, “to suppose that the public wants the enviroment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort.

“Now then, young man, don’t ask me to stop the Pumping. The economy and comfort of the entire planet depend on it. Tell me, instead, how to keep the Pumping from exploding the Sun.”

Lamont said, “There is no way, Senator. We are dealing with something here that is so basic, we can’t play with it. We must stop it.”

“Ah, and you can suggest only that we go back to matters as they were before Pumping.”

“We must.”

“In that case, you will need hard and fast proof that you are right.”

“The best proof,” Lamont said stiffly, “is to have the Sun explode.”

Cualquier parecido con la realidad no es pura coincidencia, pues Asimov, desde 1972, año en que escribió la novela, ya estaba pendiente de la crisis ambiental que sufrimos.