Ideas both big and deep can - and has - been explored in Sci Fi. Some themes that have resonated with me include ‘What it Means to be Human’. This could be said to be the point of ALL fiction in a way I suppose. But to explore humanity through the lens of near-perfect robot replicas of human beings, like in Blade Runner and the newer version of Battlestar Galactica is thought provoking in a way that a more literal story about being human could be.
Robots, whether almost-perfect copies of humans, or more obviously mechanical beings are a way to show us to ourselves. They may associate with normal humans in the story or not…usually in a longer story they WILL mix with human characters…and in their differences and contrasts to those humans, they will illuminate different parts of what makes people “people”.
In the long-ago Star Trek Next Gen episode “The Measure of a Man” Captain Picard must defend his officer, the android Data, to establish his freedom and personhood in an episode that resonates all the way to the new garbage Star Trek: Picard series.
In the classic Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer delivers one of the all time great sci fi and cinema monologues with his “Tears in the Rain” speech that beautifully expresses the uniqueness of himself. Data echoes some of these sentiments in the episode mentioned above.
In Battlestar Galactica (2004) there are advanced cylons that are indistinguishable from humans. Indeed, some cylons are not even aware that they ARE robots. Some of the most interesting episodes for me are the few times we get a deeper look at the cylon characters and their society and the ‘evolution’ of some of the individual machines.
Since it's a lesser known series, I feel compelled to mention the “robot novels” by Isaac Asimov, a series of four books featuring an Earth detective paired with a human-looking robot. The two struggle with each other and their joint-murder investigations they are assigned to, against a backdrop of a Galaxy going through various growing pains.
The Terminator gives us a look at the contrast between vulnerable, fragile humans vs an unstoppable, unfeeling force of mechanical nature in the robot that's hunting them. Similar dynamics can be seen in Westworld and in the creepy Hal from 2001: a Space Odyssey.
Artificial beings, in their contrasts to humans, can show many shades of what it is to be human. Robots are one of the great inventions of sci fi fiction.
Are these the droids you're looking for?
which ones are your favorites?
Have a good one!
Banes out!
More Than Human
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 12, 2021
5 likes!
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Corruption at 7:33AM, Aug. 13, 2021
Ghost in the Shell (the anime) raises a good question: When cybernetics are created and the human mind can be plugged into technology, where will the difference between human and machine lay? If the entire body can become machine, then the answer may be considered the mind, but how can you distinguise between a human mind and a well developed AI? And even if you can, what if an AI and human mind merge together? So, where do you draw the line?
hushicho at 10:25PM, Aug. 12, 2021
I do enjoy these explorations, and I think it's interesting to note that plenty of artists and philosophers have had an outlook that humanity must be earned, and that even people born human have to still strive towards that end goal. Humanity, to them, is a way of living and a way of comporting oneself, which once earned demands a certain measure of dignity. It's funny you mention this now, as I've always regarded droids in Star Wars as my favorite and the most sympathetic characters, and later in this very chapter of Space Daddy Adventures running now, there is an examination of the same question of life and humanity, between a robot and a human. It's an interesting question, I think.
Gunwallace at 7:37PM, Aug. 12, 2021
If you are dissing Picard, young man, we may end up engaging in fisticuffs. (Anything by Stanislaw Lem is worth a read. Really explores 'otherness' in his robot/aliens.)
Banes at 5:07PM, Aug. 12, 2021
I have to read the Silver Eggheads - sounds great!
EssayBee at 4:17PM, Aug. 12, 2021
Checked on The Silver Eggheads and I'm gonna have to add it to my to-read list.
PaulEberhardt at 11:12AM, Aug. 12, 2021
For some reason I've always linked Lt. Cmdr. Data with the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz and wondered why they never ever made a gag of it. If I had been a Star Trek writer this would have been about the first running gag to enter my script. What really made the character in my opinion was Brent Spiners awesome skill at deadpan delivery, mind. They could have written just about anything and he'd have somehow turned it into original Data lines ... I was about to mention both Stanislaw Lem, even if thinking of certain parts of the Star Diaries, as well as Fritz Leiber's Eggheads, too, but bravo and marcorossi beat me too it. As for the latter: seriously, read it! That one is pure genius.
EssayBee at 9:55AM, Aug. 12, 2021
I prefer the term artificial person myself.
Corruption at 5:37AM, Aug. 12, 2021
There is one robot short story that stands out to me, but I forget it's name. Humanity has vanished and are considered as creatures of myth to the robots controling the world. One of the myths is that humans canonly be truly killed with wood, else they return in a new body. Robots are forbidden to kill. When a robot finds evidence that humans still live, a human tries to destroy it and the robot is shocked into inaction until it remembers that myth and just breaks the human's neck. I consider this as a way of looking at the myths we have regarding other things from myths. Maybe Dwarfs and Goblins were sub-branches of humanity that went into warmer places underground during an iceage. Maybe the Yeti and Bigfoot are from tribes that adapted to cold environments. There are midget tribes today that are so well hidden that their neighbours consider them myths, so why not have creatures of myth be distored memories? Oh, BTW, Robots may be in SciFi, but are evolved from stories of Golems
marcorossi at 1:14AM, Aug. 12, 2021
"The silver egg heads", by Fritz Leiber, has among other things sexuated robots who write bad sci-fi with macho robots saving damselle-in-distress robots from mad human scientists. That novel is great people, read it!
bravo1102 at 12:36AM, Aug. 12, 2021
Might also want to consider Eando Binder's story "I, Robot" ( well adopted as an Outer Limits episode) and Stanislaw Lem's robot stories. Asimov did a few other robot stories to tie them into the Foundation series. Binder's work heavily influenced Asimov. Lem's work was in many ways a satirical reworking of Asimov's robots.
dpat57 at 12:14AM, Aug. 12, 2021
That's exactly what I'd expect a robot masquerading as a human to say.