Johnson 1

Recurrent Elements in Literary or Artistic Work

For years companies have found new ways to find different avenues to put to use

the robot. Scraps of metal put together to make a man made assistant and worker. Every

generation it is something new in the news or internet about how computers and robots

will help in every day living. There is always talk of what the next best thing a robot will

be good for and how they can tweak the newest model to be better then the last. The most

recurrent element seems to be the actual revision of improving the robot on a daily basis.

Man first made robots to help in homes and factories like in Karel Capek’s

“R.U.R”, until the robots turned on them and then humans became the minority race.

Once they built them with just a little more than the regular the robots turned on them.

They were made to be playmates with children as in Isaac Asimov, “Robbie”, with Gloria

being 8 she believed Robbie was her best friend with feelings. This robot did everything

for her and with her. Then her mother took Robbie away from her only to have Gloria’s

father reunite them and Robbie save Gloria’s life. He, I believe had some type of

emotional connection to Gloria.

They were pretty basic, couldn’t speak, didn’t eat food and whether they had

faces or not was up to the builder himself. They then began to make them a little more

sophisticated by adding programs that the robots/computers could understand and

respond to humans. Some had faces and programs to understand and carry conversations

with humans. We now have robots that run through hospital floors at UCSF hospital that

carry medicines, linen, and trash from patient room to patient room and/or nurses

stations. We have drones that are on pending approval to be flown for major companies

as a delivery option for consumers. Not to mention the cars that drive themselves now.

Those too are a form of robotic technology. The talk of robots at war is a big one for me.

If we could make them sophisticated enough to fight overseas we would be able to bring

our troops back to their families.

I think robots will always be something evolving of the future, it brings a lot of

new things to us as consumers and just beings on this earth. I believe as long as we

continue to live on this earth, we will continue to find new and improved ways in

coexisting with robots, drones, and computers.

Robots being Science Fiction Characters

Robots have been around for so many decades and transformed into so many

different things for humans over time. Science fiction is about how science will change

the human condition. Robots are the perfect character to see change progress within the

human condition and that is why we continue to utilize them in everyday living. Robots

have always been seen as a futuristic being and as time progresses we are seeing that they

are in the here and now.

Robots have been in comic books, movies, magazines and cartoons since the early

1900’s. They seemed to have been an exciting character as years went by and humans

were able to fix them into sci-fi stories to better excite the readers and watchers. They

can be superheroes and/or villains and make stories more exciting than if they weren’t

apart of that particular story. Humans can only do and go through so much in a story

before we begin to believe it’s not real or even possible. When robots are put into movies

they can be built with bionic strength and can use over 10% of the brain or software put

into them. This always makes for a pretty exciting movie or book when you are looking

for excitment. Robots in any given story can have so much more excitement to offer and

as the years have passed, they continue to get bigger, stronger and smarter than any

human in the same story. Movie makers and book writers know that they can make the

impossible seem possible with robots in their plots. There is even a devoted channel on

TV to science fiction, aka sci-fi.

Robots do not have feelings or emotions, they don’t bleed or hurt. They can’t love

or hate, they simply are there to be fill ins. It’s easy to put something that isn’t real and

make the impossible come to life. Science fiction characters give that to writers when

writing a story and allows the readers to believe anything is possible. Robots, I believe

create an illusion for humans that allows them to be in their own world when reading or

watching a sci-fi book and/or movie. That is the best reason that robots are very

interesting science fiction characters, they keep us imagining and wondering how the

evolvement of the robot being used as science fiction characters will change science

enough to change human condition.