Week 3: Robots

The industry of robotics has been one of deferred variation and ambiguous representation. Robots in the media have been portrayed as villains, friends, helpers or the classic example of humans being treated as such: mechanic. We have discussed this variety of portrayals from the lecture videos by our professor Vesna but reinforced by our guest lecturer Machiko Kusahara as she talks about robots in Japan and their great contributions to perceptions of robots. She highlights Kenji Yanobe work of the astronaut looking robot that could easily be seen as a human robot.
Image result for kenji yanobe
Kenji Yanobe.

For some reason there was this one movie that kept popping into my mind when i was thinking of related topic. This movie was Chappie. In this movie Chappie is a stolen police robot in a dystopian futuristic sci fi movie who is given new programming. Originally the movie set out to set up the police robots has a character to despise. As the movie progressed the audience grew an emotional connection to the character. I could be reading too far into the movie, but i think the takeaway was a great response for a bigger picture of societal views on robotic mechanics.
Image result for chappie
Chappies character personality.


It exemplified the fear of robots and the progression towards acceptance through empathy. This relates to societies initials feelings towards robots, and our new found acceptance for them in today's fast media age. As a society that uses robots in everyday life;  from automated voice messages to industry models that assemble cars, we have come to unknowingly integrate and accept their presence and aid as mentioned by Kerstin Dautenhahn. This helped engrain this weeks concept into my head. It emphasized the different portrayals and their roles in our world today and how it relates to the different takes on how they are viewed and presented to the mass media throughout history.

Image result for industrial robots
Industrial Robots
Sources:
Online, UC. “Robotics pt1.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRw9_v6w0ew&feature=youtu.be.

Online, UC. “Robotics MachikoKusahara 1.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQZ_sy-mdEU&feature=youtu.be.

“Chappie.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 4 Mar. 2015, www.imdb.com/title/tt1823672/.


http://www.yanobe.com/artworks/

Dautenhahn, Kerstin. “Roles and Functions of Robots in Human Society: Implications from Research in Autism Therapy | Robotica.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 23 Sept. 2003, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/robotica/article/roles-and-functions-of-robots-in-human-society-implications-from-research-in-autism-therapy/7D21C55108070C0F3F300BC2C213A588.

Comments

  1. Katie LaFranceApril 22, 2019 at 11:27 AM

    Hi Nicola,

    You made several great points about why we should be concerned that we are so dependent on robots/artifical intelligence in our everyday lives. I agree with you that our world needs to be careful in how much trust we place on these arifically intelligent systems. This reminds me of a tv show I used to watch called "Person of Interest" which explores the idea of what our world would be like if these systems became smarter and more powerful than us humans. Great post!

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  2. Megan ChuApril 22, 2019 at 4:11 PM

    I thought your analysis of the movie Chappie as eliciting an emotional response from the audience towards robots was really interesting! I thought it tied into several of the TED Talks included as this week's resources where lab robotics sought to create robots that are capable of empathy themselves.
    Furthermore, I totally agree with your point that we've started to incorporate the presence of robots into our everyday lives. After all, tons of people use Siri or Amazon Alexa's or another form of digital assistant and it's totally normal! Overall, I thought you expressed the various societal response to the growing field of robotics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. emilymDESMA9April 23, 2019 at 8:48 PM

    I found your analysis of the humanization of robots in film/media to be really well thought out and fascinating. We humanize robots to the point that artificial intelligence seems normal. You definitely point out an awareness that I had not previously thought about. This awareness is how we view these robots and how we have come to a point of thinking of many of them as living breathing creatures, when in reality, they are manufactured. I thought you did a great job of tying together this week's media/resources and creating a blog post that was not only informative, but also quite interesting to ponder.

    ReplyDelete

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