Week 3: Robotics + Art


When the topic of industrialization is brought up I tend to think about factories and mass production. The creation of machines was responsible for such mass production. A machine that we all use today was starting to be formed and created at this time in history too. It is the machine we all know today as the computer. Instead the first similar to its kind was the Turing Machine. An English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist named Alan Turing created the machine. Professor Vesna mentioned in her Robotics pt.3 lecture “he was a phenomenal genius and really made a major impact in computer science and artificial intelligence, and is considered the father of computer science.”

Courtesy of: http://www.rutherfordjournal.org/article040101.html

While learning about Alan Turing from this week’s lecture it reminded me about a movie I saw a few years ago. To my surprise, when I looked up the movie I found that it was actually based off of Alan Turing. The name of the movie is The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch played the role of Alan Turing who decrypts German intelligence codes for the British government.

Courtesy of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game

I believe we have responded to industrialization in society quite well. Having an industrialized world with all sorts of new technology has been beneficial for efficiency and practicality in households and the work force. Although we have benefited from it, I am weary that future technologies involving robots may threaten the human way of life and overrun us. I therefore agree with Rodney Brooks TED talk about robots, mentioning that we are on the cusp of robots becoming common in our lives and that he can’t imagine a future without our world being populated with robots.

Viewing the video on Dirk, the homeless robot was quite interesting to me. Many of the people surrounding him believed he was a real homeless human. However, when people started to talk to him and ask questions he did not respond so they started to question what he was? Finally people got close enough and took off his hat to find out he was instead a robot. It is crazy and slightly frightening that a robot can blend in among humans.

After visiting the electric circus website you start to understand that people who create what are considered “robots” or electrical beings do not know what to distinctly considered themselves. They are both an artist and an inventor.
Courtesy of: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidleinweber/2012/08/08/hft-comes-to-dominate-markets-in-five-years-in-living-color/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.


Citations:

Brooks, Rodney. “Robots Will Invade Our Lives.” TED. Feb. 2003. Lecture

Electric Circus Dresseur Der Automaten. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

Mirenfred. "Dirk the homeless robot/www.electric-circus.eu." YouTube. YouTube, 07 Sept. 2008. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

The imitation game. Dir. Morten Tyldum. Perf. Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. The Weinstein Company, 2014. Film. The Imitation Game. Web.

Vesna, V. (n.d.) Robotics pt3. Lecture.




Comments

  1. Eric Liu YifanApril 26, 2017 at 12:40 AM

    Wow, you have such an insight with robotics. And I agree with you, and Rodney Brooks, that robots will be filling up the society in our future. On one hand, it will create such convenience in our lives, just imagine how much work the robots can save for us, especially those dangerous works. However, I always think this idea of robots threatening. Like the homeless robots, even with the current state of technology, they can blend in so easily. What can they do when human are building them better. So I think the society of robots must be treated carefully.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 26, 2017 at 10:58 PM

    Hello Alexis,


    Like you when i think of industrialization i think of factories and mass production. However, I also think of the negative affects that industrialization brought. For example, pollution and the idea that it takes away agency to the worker that is doing the task at hand. The idea that robots will one day will over run is is quite scary, reminds me of the terminator. Like Eric Liu Yifan I agree that the way we create and use robots now needs to be in a very careful matter.

    ReplyDelete

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