ultranos | Sometimes, my classwork is awesome

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Sometimes, my classwork is awesome

Yes, I know I should be writing/debugging hardware code right now, but my brain is absolutely fried. (And this project is due by 8:30PM, so I'm trying really, really hard not to be utterly screwed and just pushing myself to the limit because I don't even remember the last time I had 8 continuous hours of sleep.)

Anyway, once I make it to midnight, my week suddenly looks a lot better and I can actually think about some of the other projects I have. One of which is for my sci-fi/fantasy class. The first half of the class is reading/watching classic examples of cyberpunk. The second half is student-driven, wherein we present topics of our choice to the class. So, I need to find a topic. The requirements are "a) in sci-fi and/or fantasy, and b) you can write 10 pages on it".

I just might have gotten convinced by a friend of mine to do a paper on artificial intelligences and extremely humanoid robots/androids in sci-fi.

Have I mentioned said friend has absolutely no idea of my fascination with a certain Stargate villain and, in fact, has possibly never even seen Stargate?

So anyway, dear flist, I need sources for this paper. Hit me up with some recommendations for books/movies/essays/tv shows/video games with interesting humanoid robots and/or artificial intelligences (specifically not including Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, as those are covered in class already)?

(My current list includes:
TV: Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and newBSG (which I may or may not include, as I have not watched it and I do not know if I'll have the time to mainline it prior to the paper being due).
Movies: Terminator
Games: Wild Arms, Xenogears, Portal
)

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* Earth 2 - the future society tried to "rehabilitate" criminals by implanting them with new personalities and essentially an encyclopedia and made them tutors for children. They had various mechanical bits (specifically an arm that was extra strong and could display holograms). One of the characters was one of these. There tended to be problems with something malfunctioning and them going insane and killing people.

* Lt. Cmdr Data in Star Trek was a fully functioning android (who had an evil twin brother) who couldn't use contractions or understand humor/have emotions (until the movies when they created an emotion chip for him). There was an episode where he was put on trial on whether he was man or machine (an engineer wanted to disassemble him for study) and various others dealing with his uniqueness.

* Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey was arguably one of the originals.

* Terry Pratchett has a book in which Golems try to be more "real" (Feet of Clay) and Ted Chiang's Stories of your Life and Others has at least one golem story. You could also dig into Jewish folklore on Golems (one of the Sarah Connor Chronicles episodes talks about them).

* C3PO and R2D2 on Star Wars

* The Fifth Element maybe? She wasn't exactly a robot/AI but you could argue she was a form of artificial intelligence - though not created by man.

* I, Robot? Asimov in general?

I'm *sure* Bradbury did something with this. And Heinlein. I'm blanking on specific titles to send your way though.

I think Earth 2 might have had a robot-thing (that was mostly a servant) early on too, until it gone blown up. And their vehicles were partly robotic.

The robot was called Zero, iirc. And I don't think it ever died, just, um, was constantly used to haul things around and had no real AI capabilities.

Zero does sound familiar.

For some reason I have this memory of him losing his body at some point (that episode with the cyborg not!Terminator thing shooting at them?) and people carrying around his head. But maybe it was detachable for special purposes.

Point that it didn't really have AI capabilities.

You know, I should not be surprised at all that you mentioned golems, since I was planning on drawing on that concept heavily as historical/folklore background. THE MINDMELD STILL WORKS.

We are freakish :)

(to be fair, golems do also come from my cultural mythology...)

MINDMELD IS STRONG WITH US!

(oh, Farscape had an artificial thingy once or twice, but probably not to the point where you should bother if you haven't seen the whole series)

I think MacGyver fought killer robots or AI security systems a few times.

I think MacGyver fought killer robots or AI security systems a few times.

'The Human Factor', season 2 of MacGyver. *g*

and an episode of the tv series Probe as well.

oh yeah! the great 80's movies.

Short Circuit (No Disassemble!) and the sequel.

Batteries Not Included.

That tv show - um...Small Wonder where the dad built a robot daughter and the family tries to keep her robot-ness secret.

There's definitely at least one X-Files ep that would work, although it's rather hilarious in hindsight. *g*

I don't know if this would work for you, but it might for me--taking a short nap. I know my brain just. doesn't. work. if I didn't get sleep of some kind.

*nods* Yeah, I decided to take a 4-hour-ish nap last night rather than pulling an all-nighter. I think it helped.

2001: A Space Odyssey (artificial intelligence, but not humanoid).

The Neuromancer trilogy by William Gibson (birth of an AI, which sometimes appears as humanoid, but in simulations rather than in real life).

Data in Star Trek: TNG.

Isaac Asimov's Robot series (film versions include I, Robot and The Bicentennial Man).

Oh, and the Alien movies - almost indistinguishable from humans - the reactions of people when one is revealed is v. interesting.

Fun subject to study!

Ooh, I forgot about HAL! *is a bad geek*

I'm not sure if I want to include Neuromancer or the rest of the Sprawl Trilogy, mostly because we covered that in class too. But you raise a good point about it. Hm. Might be good to tie it with something.

Oh, huh. I forgot about the robots in Alien.

Isn't it a fun subject?

You mentioned you were drawing parallels to golems? I think I still have some articles on golems saved from a paper I did on folklore and science-fiction, if you want?

That'd be great.

(if you want to email rather than post here, use ultranos AT gmail.com)

Ooh, the mention of Neuromancer reminded me of Charlie Stross's Accelerando. It's about the technological singularity, and therefore full of AIs and similar weirdshit.

Also, WALL-E. Short Circuit. The Iron Giant. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Iain Banks's Culture novels.

Ooh, I've been meaning to read that. I generally like Stross's stuff.

Thanks!.

I think SF authors both Tim Powers and James Blaylock have done stories/books with humanoid robots/golems.

Somehow, despite never having managed to read one of Powers books, the fact that he has done humanoid robots/golems is entirely unsurprising.

maybe the movie "Screamers"? (based on the PKD story Second Variety)

Huh. I'll check it out.

There's the two Outer Limits episodes called Mary 23 and somethign else, the latter of which starred Michael Shanks.

(Oh and it looks like they did a version of I Robot with Leonard Nimoy.

This is my hint to finally watch some of The Outer Limits, isn't it?

MS was a robot?

(come to think of it, wasn't Lexa a robot/android/ship/thing in Andromeda? And am I imagining that MS was some sort of robot also when he guest starred?)

On Andromeda (which yes, Lexa was a robot), apparently MS also played a robot (and perhaps CJ too). I have YET to see either of those MS episodes!

The "Mary 23" Episode of Outer Limits is a sequel to another ep I can't remember (or Mary 23 was the original and I can't remember the sequel's name). But MS played a computer technician...essentially a robot repairman for this nanny robot a scientist was testing out in his home.

Doctor Who had more than a few episodes in regards to robots.

Robots of Death springs to mind (there's bits of social commentary mixed in, iirc, and the robots are designed to look non-human which causes phobias)

The robot doggie K-9 is possibly not quite what you're looking for, but still amusing.

(Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, of course, had Twiki, who was mostly comic relief)

I'm not sure how good it actually is (I found it read like crack), but Alan Ballyntyne's 'Recursion' dealt with what makes machines sentient and humans superior and what makes us individuals, etc. The sequels appear more of the same, though the first one bogged me down about halfway through (dude, I do not need your wanky fantasies, thanks).

Ghost in the Shell, all three movies. And Stand-Alone Complex the tv series are also excellent discussions of what makes us individuals and human, and there's AIs and prostheses and all sorts of fun stuff.

Oh jesus fuck, I can't believe I forgot GitS. (Oh hi there, watershed moments in my psyche as a child, I FORGOT YOU.) And now you've managed to remind me of the other bloody obvious AI in Serial Experiments Lain.

(It's a miracle I haven't drowned in my own cereal bowl...oh wait, I haven't eaten cereal lately.)

I'll admit I'm looking for more serious interpretations, rather than comic relief, but I'll also admit this is a very nebulous concept at the moment. So I could go in any direction.

Bwah. I was going to edit. It's Tony Ballyntyne, not Alan, though there's possibly only one of him writing slightly pretentious computer-generated-AI schlock.

ALSO. There is Forbidden Planet and Robbie the robot. I once wrote an essay on him.

Edited 2009-03-03 02:11 (UTC)

saw this in 'debrief', so I don't know if this is past your deadline...
One I haven't seen mentioned here is A.I. (Steven Spielberg move ). Basically, a futuristic retelling of Pinocchio (but then aren't a lot AI storylines?). Bonus is that is comes in just short of 2 hours, so not bad for research.

This got linked in Debrief? I'm torn between shock and laughter. :)

The proposal was due last night, but it was just to make sure we're actually thinking about something so we're not doing it the night before. So, no, not past my deadline. :)

Hm. I remember when that movie came out, but haven't seen it. Thanks!

Hi! I hopped here from the SG1 newsletter.

artificial intelligences and extremely humanoid robots/androids in sci-fi.

A series of books that immediately comes to mind starts with Caves of Steel and follows on with The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn and is by Asimov. In the first book, a police detective (Elijah Baley) on Earth investigates a murder, and is partnered with a humanoid android. It deals a lot with Lije's reaction to and interaction with Daneel (the robot) and also about the effect on a civilisation that robots have. I loved the books, especially the growing bond between the human and robot.

Good luck!
Someone else has mention Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and that is another one of my great loves. Apart from some wonderful world building, and a revolution, you get to follow the development of the AI who runs the moon. I think I'm right in saying he doesn't appear as a robot, but at his most human communicates via video screens and a human looking avatar that he creates therein. Excellent stuff.

Ooh, Asimov. I haven't read nearly enough Asimov.

Thanks!

Books:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein
Bicentennial Man by Asimov (also the movie)
I know Saberhagen wrote some stuff in his Berserker books, but haven't read them.
He, She, and It by Marge Piercy
In Fury Born by David Weber

Thank you!

I'll check those out.

Probably too late for this (I came here via the Debrief) but you can't forget the mother of all androids, Futura from the b/w silent film Metropolis. That was the first thing I thought when I saw RepliCarter in Season Five.

Not too late (the paper/presentation is not due until mid-May).

Okay, I've been looking for an excuse to watch Metropolis. Thanks!

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Sometimes, my classwork is awesome

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