Sometimes, my classwork is awesome

[ultranos]

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
)

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

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.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

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.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

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.