Arguably, the genre of science fiction was born in 1818 with the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The book saw a scientist create a monster which he then lost control of, and this has been a common theme throughout the genre ever since – man creates being, being causes havoc & inspires fear in humans, humans react by trying to destroy it.
Prestigious sci-fi author Isaac Asimov developed the Three Laws of Robotics as a guide for governing/guiding robot ethics but, of course, plots in which these laws are broken are all the more compelling for the way they juxtapose themes of a fear of the unknown, slavery and identity, for example.
Anyone who has been given chores by their parents understands that human creators always want their creations to make life easier for them. Likewise, human nature determines that robots will serve us, and it was a Czech play R.U.R. that introduced the word ‘robot’ (Czech for ‘slave’) to the English language and the science fiction genre. Films made around the future-obsessed turn of the millennium, such as I, Robot and The Matrix, have seen machines rising above their station and others, such as Minority Report and (the novel) Nineteen Eighty Four have seen technology accentuating the very worst aspects of human motivations to control and gain power.
While these works of science fiction are brilliant from the perspectives of entertainment, stretching the imagination and interrogating complex ideas of the ethics of increased reliance on robot technology, their side effect can be one of increased suspicion and fear towards technological advance. Earlier this week I read an article titled ‘How bots are taking over the world’ which, besides making use of my favourite bot-related stock photo, discusses the current state of robots and the web and in particular the implications this has on identity. One particular phrase in the article says that the internet is ‘increasingly becoming a post-user environment’ regulated by machines, which struck me as what must surely be ‘the goal’ – machines doing the work so we don’t have to. My current favourite example of this is If This Then That, which gets your online accounts talking to one another so that the internet finds the information you want without you having to search for it. This really is the future, even if I’m missing my jetpack.
Although there is fear and resistance in any kind of advance or change, friendly, helpful robots are only a small step away from everyday reality, helping with much more real-world, everyday tasks than regulating the internet. Taking the best elements of both R2-D2 (sensors and tools) and C3PO (etiquette/understanding context), these bots will live in your lovely shiny slimline smartphone and automate the tasks that rob you of the time you would rather spend on Draw Something (or something involving the outdoors, maybe).
For example, say you have fish because they’re a living alternative to a lava lamp, and you have enough common sense not to plan your life around your silent pets that can’t even moult on you. Those fish will need feeding whether you are there to do it or not, so you have an automatic feeder installed in the tank. However, when you do come home, you quite like to feed them yourself and perhaps re-enact the bit where Claire Danes and Leonardo di Caprio lock eyes in Romeo + Juliet (it’s the only reason I would ever own fish). To avoid overfeeding/starving the fish, the automatic fish food dispenser would communicate with your mobile phone – if you reached home before a certain time then your pets would be fed by your own human hand, but if you failed to make it back in time for fishy dinner time then their tiny stomachs would not go neglected. I think the process of remotely feeding the fish is more interesting than having the fish in the first place, but that’s just me. I like to potter around the garden doing the watering so it’s not something I’d want automation to take away from me, but if I got kidnapped, the last thing I’d want upon my release would be returning to a barren garden of wilted flowers and dry twigs. Instead, I’d want the backup watering system to know that I hadn’t been home (via the absence of my phone) and keep things lush and green. I imagine cutting it all back would be the perfect post-kidnap therapy. This example also works (hopefully more often) for going on holiday, because who has time between changing currency, telling the bank that you’ll be out of the country* and packing climate-appropriate outfits to reset their garden watering program?
The importance of context in finessing automated short-cuts is clear – some tasks are dull for some and enjoyable for others and if everything around you is automated there is a risk of living life on fast-forward. Spending time doing simple things is not time wasted if you enjoyed it – the fact we don’t all eat in fast food restaurants all the time is supporting evidence of this. Science fiction set in dystopian worlds will always be a great source of dramatic storytelling, but the key is in the ‘fiction.’ A world where robots assist us is not far off, and it’s not as scary as Hollywood/the Daily Mail would have you believe.
*As an aside, surely your bank could know where you’re headed because you bought the flights using their card? This would save the tricky moments when a busy jet-setting life grinds to a halt over a block on a bank card. Or would this be information sharing between companies taken too far? Either way it’s a question for discussion…


















