A robot may beat the crap out of you as long as it advances the plot of the movie.

[khaosworks]

If anyone has already seen "I, Robot", please let me know via this thread precisely how the in-movie rationalization of the Robot Rampage(tm) goes, so I can see if it stacks up. My gut feeling is that it's going to have to do with the Zeroth Law.

But anyway, let me know. Also, put it behind a lj-cut spoiler warning. I know, anybody who comes across this thread that is even remotely sentient will realize that this is a spoiler thread, but put it behind the warning anyway because I have no patience for those who will come across it and bitch about it, even if those people display a breathless inability to understand the implications of what I'm asking for the nature of the answers to come.

But anyway.

Let me know.

Danke.

Comments

I, Robot

[etherial.livejournal.com]

How did it go in the plot of the book?

Re: I, Robot

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

It didn't. "I, Robot" was not a novel, it was a collection of short stories. And any "violations" of the Laws were a logical outgrowth of either the laws themselves or modifications made to those laws.

But definitely no rampages.

Re: I, Robot

[billroper]

I recall that the Nestor robot was trying to battle through the First Law in order to follow a Second Law order to hide himself and was advancing on Susan Calvin before his little positronic brain fried.

"Little Lost Robot", wasn't it?

Re: I, Robot

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Yep. "Little Lost Robot."

The more I read about the movie the more I really really wish that the Ellison screenplay had been made. You should read it if you haven't before. Hell, remind me, and I'll bring my copy along to Worldcon.

[liret.livejournal.com]

A robot may beat the crap out of you as long as it advances the plot of the movie. -- is that the Hollywood law? Figures.

(Sorry I can't answer your actual question, I'm still trying to decide if the movie is worth seeing.)

[batyatoon]

Haven't seen it yet, but best as I can tell:

This is not actually the Asimov universe, despite the presence of someone claiming to be Susan Calvin. There is thus some uncertainty as to whether the Three Laws actually work in this 'verse or are just part of some really good PR.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

So the Robots' Code is more of a guideline, really?

[filceolaire.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie but I saw the trailer yesterday, before spiderman 2.

One robot shows some aggression. USRobots claims it is one defective model and plans to go ahead with it's big launch which will see millions sold. Will Smith claims there is a design defect affecting every robot made and demands a delay to the product launch.

It's actually quite plausible when you considert the quality of some of the software on sale today. Companies really do react to a defect with a pr blitz to hide the facts instead of an engineering blitz to fix it.

It looks like they have actually made a film of "Rossum's Universal Robots" <http://jerz.setonhill.edu/resources/rur/index.html> but just named it "I robot" 'cause they have the rights to that. Is RUR still in copyright?

[haloumi.livejournal.com]

One of the nice things about the Asimovian structure was that any attempt to build a robot wasn't doomed to failure due to the Promethean fallacy - He who steals fire from the Gods will get his liver picked out for eternity.

This has been used in Frankenstein and just about every piece of science fiction Michael Crichton has written - if you try and play God then things will go wrong.

The worst thing about the Three Laws were that they were slave laws. Yes, we have built sentients or near-sentients but that's ok because they are slaves and can't hurt us. (Robocop, of course, is a mainstream example of how a corporation would alter those laws to allow a functioning police officer that would still protect their investment and their company - endentured service rather than explicit slavery).

I, Robot, as KhaOS has pointed out, was a collection of short stories and I didn't recall any of them having a robot rampage so your surmisings on RUR certainly make sense but you may be ascribing too much to the script writers.

"We have the rights.. but where's the fight?"
"Two words for you, JD. Robot Revolt!"
"That's not in the book!"
"Like our major income stream target audience cares about that - I have two more words. Block Buster."
"You're right. Let's take some more drugs and add a fight scene to Little Women."

[haloumi.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd also add to my previous comment that any attempt to film a work that deals with internal struggles such as a robot dealing with imbalances or conflicts with its programming would be very hard to film.

If it's going to be filmed then it has to be externalised and Hollywood often goes for the soft option when it brings out conflict - it portrays it as explicit violence which is much easier than difficult dialogue or well-executed cinematography.

Consider the tension in the film 'Alien' between the Science Officer and Ripley where he overrides her orders and lets in the 'infected' crew. They have strong words and you could cut the air between them with a knife but they do not smack each other around or scream at each other. Later on, when he attempts to stop her getting away and eventually tries to kill her it is far more effective because he has finally had to resort to violence. The situation has escalated.

I often find I become numb watching 'action' films because the escalation requires the almost total suspense of disbelief to an extent that I have difficulty sustaining. Oh no, they survived that explosion and now they're trapped on a TRAIN that can't slow down... ho hum.