Why I like Robots by Me

Dear Internets,
I like robots.  They are so super cool and amazing!   Please send me a pet robot for Christmas so that we can play games together and I can set him on my sisters and the bullies at school.  Alternatively, turn me into a robot but only on the condition I can transform back when it’s most convenient.  A robot that can transform into a space fighter plane is cool, or a big ferocious dragon. If it’s not too much to ask, a big ferocious space fighter dragon plane is best.

Sincerely,

JDK

So you have heard me rant and rave over the years about many different things.  I like werewolves, and I have a ginormous geek craze about the Green Lantern Corp.  I watched TMNT growing up and Basil Rathbone is my favorite actor to play Sherlock Holmes, but one thing that I’ve always loved and subsequently have always gone out of my way to see in movies are our metal laced friends, the robot.

I doubt I need to explain what a robot is since they’ve been in literature since the late 1800s.  H.G. Wells had strange automated devices scurrying about behind the Martian invaders in War of the Worlds.  The devices were so strange and alien like that they controlled themselves.  Devices that can run themselves with only a little help from people can be found as far back as the reinassaince and thanks to Wikipedia, designs for them go back farther than that!  So if robots are something completely new to you and you’ve never experienced them before this moment, then please read up a bit over at Wikipedia.  It’s not necessary, they’re just so freaking cool.

To prove how cool they are, check out Junkhead, the robot I designed with my friends at Inconjunction 2008.  Even though he could only go forward and backward, we won the tournament!

Alright that last part was just “my doodz, let me show you them.”  Onto the article!

1.  Why, Robot?
“Data, I would like to have been consulted.” “I have not observed anyone else on board consulting you about their procreation, Captain.” - Picard and Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation

I really don’t know where my love of robotics came from.  My Mom is a school teacher, my Dad was a pilot, and we grew up in Indianapolis.  There really is no singular reason for why I dig the machines except for one possible source: Television!

Oh television, is there anything you can’t do?

When we lived on Ellenburger I remember watching Robocop and Terminator on Channel 4.  At night there would be Star Trek: the Next Generation, where Commander Data faced off with the Borg and his evil brother Lore.  They also had to content with Wesley Crusher, but we forgive them. (Stand By Me was more memorable for Wheaton.)  I also remember my sister Tina helping me record Ziv Zulander the Bots Master so I could watch it when I got home from Moorhead Elementary. 

Warning: early 90s animation ahead!
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_tvshows/328-the-bots-master/

My love of robots also applies to power armor.  Heroes like Iron Man and ROM the Space Knight made me dream about thwarting the Mandarin and the Dire Wraiths in a suit of power armor.  I’d even dream up my own designs for it, and each week I’d pretend I was a different hero saving the world.  You might laugh or roll your eyes but to me, having mutant powers was boring and being an alien from planet Krypton was not as cool as Booster Gold or Steel.  They made their own technology and made themselves better on their own terms.

Are all machines great?  Some certainly aren’t.  I love the machines that built my car or that aid in surgery, and I even love the machines that try to save mankind by forming giant robots. (OK, that last part isn’t true.)  I can’t really say I love the machines that want to conquer the human race, turn us into weird test tube babies to power themselves, or who come back.

I’m not delusioal and I know that movies always exaggerate what machines can do.  I dream that we will see robots in my life time that can interact with us or be able to do great physical feats but in all likelihood that will be something the next generation gets to see.  Still, I can always just lean back and dream about what can happen.

That, and welcome our new Robot Overlords like this one that has taken control of Japan.

Man, the Japanese have some of the coolest toys on the planet.

2.  But you’re a writer, not an engineer!
“I am AWESMO, I’m here to be your friend!” - Eric Cartman from South Park

So I bet you’re saying to yourself, “What do you know about machines?  You write SciFi stories and have a big romantic crush on Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.  Why are you gibbering on about machines like you’re the great Deus Mechanicus?” 

True.  I’m not a scientist.  I’ve thought about going back to school for engineering but I don’t have the drive for it.  While I always excelled at English, history, social studies and other fields I was just never good at math.  Way to make me cry, internet!

I’m still fascinated by science!  So many things are discovered each year and I read every article with delight.  Things like the Large Hadron Collider make me stare with fascination as to what we will discover next!

Of course, when you look at robotics today it seems boring and I agree, sometimes it can be incredibly boring.  We don’t have Artificial Intelligence, we don’t have life like robotic butlers, and the military does not have gigantic death robots that can keep away alien invasions. (Or do they…) In fact, when you look at robots today you find they fall into these categories:

1. Automation, AKA factory work
2. Designed for simple tasks, like walking up steps or riding a bike
3. Amusement, such as the little robot dogs or dinosaurs you buy for kids. 

I know, thrilling, right?  I’m making robotics sound as thrilling as a science video your teacher played during high school when he wanted to nap but PAY ATTENTION!  

Now one thing to understand is that the development of robots comes with small breakthroughs, not massive bounds.  Like with any field we can’t just jump from Asimo the stair climbing robot all the way to Wing Gundam in a year!  Although (I do hope by the time I’m 30 we will at least have some sort of robot dueling event.)

Robot design is painstakingly slow but I’m still fascinated by the improvements.  Recently in Japan they developed a robot named TOPIO that can play ping pong.

Say hi to the nice people, TOPIO!

So he plays ping pong.  That’s not very exciting, now is it?  WRONG!

TOPIO uses high tech sensors and proximity servos to see the ball coming towards him and his software triggers a response which is “Hit that damn ball onto the other side of the net!” This development with robots means that we are able to give the robot something which most humans can do instinctively.  Our brains do the millions of calculations a second that let us play ping pong and now we are able to impart that knowledge onto something mechanical.

3.  Pursuit of Life

“I think it would be better not to die.  Do you not think so, Dr. Calvin?” - Sunny from I, Robot  

One aspect about robots that makes them so fascinating is our ability to anthropomorphize them.  For you dummies out there, that means “To give human characteristics to non-human items.”  In films, books, and television there are many, many examples of robots that behave just like us. The most forgettable robots out there are the ones where they do not do anything but beep, move about, and possibly shoot things.  Do you remember Captain S.T.A.R. from the Black Hole?  He was one of the villains, for crying out loud!  Instead the villainous Maximillian is remembered because while he never spoke, he had that menacing aura to him when he attacked the crew of the Palomino. 

By giving something a human trait it makes it easier for the audience to relate to it.  Robots by design are not capable of emotion or in behaving like humans.  In many cases, like with the crawling robots from the Matrix series, they are completely inhuman.  And yet, these inhuman creatures have their own feelings and ways of acting.  In the Matrix series, the robots both hate and fear humans, and are dependent on them to exist.  The robot Sunny from the I, Robot film was unique in that his creator wanted him to experience the same emotions humans could so he could pass it on to other robots.  He was fearful most of the time, but in the end he was capable of great bravery in saving Will Smith from having to say “Aww, Hell Nah!” at least five more times.

Do we give human traits to robots just to make them more likable?  I don’t think so.  I know many people who name their car, or when their computer is acting up on them they say the computer is being difficult.  I think it’s very much in our nature to give things personality and it can help to make something unique or different from all the rest.

For example, lets look at Johnny 5.  Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit film series speaks, plays, and even laughs at jokes.  Throughout the series he is seen evolving as he learns more about the world and explores.  His brothers, the J series of robots, can only move around and shoot lasers at Steve Guttenberg (and missing!  The fools!)  The audience is brought on the ride with him as he jokes about.

Robots are sometimes completely human even when they don’t seem that way.  Data from ST:TNG wanted desperately to be human and his pursuit of that goal helped show how we think of ourselves.  He tried to tell jokes, and even tried practical jokes to try to fit in with others and yet he was still on the outside.  He saw humanity as an ideal, not as a state of being.

The Transformers series have much in common with Data.  Born on the planet Cybertron, the Transformers are a race of mechanical beings who laugh, have distinctive personalities, and in some cases even age!  They can have entire limbs shot off, be repaired and they are still the same.  They also possess a kind of soul in their Sparks, a somewhat mystical piece of program code that brings them to life.

In some ways robots represent perfection and in others, the pursuit of perfection.  Their mechanical bodies represent the advancement of science, and robots have qualities we wish we had in ourselves.  Robots also let us become the creator of something that’s almost “alive.”  We can define their traits, we can set their goals, and we watch with joy as the machines perform their tasks. 

…

That and robots are just really fucking cool.  What else can I say?

The next post will be about my favorite robots, both heroes and villains.  Stay tuned!