Week 3: Robotics + Art

Week 3: Intro to Robotics + Art

After reading and watching this week’s lecture, there are some important points that I wanted to talk about. First, it’s important to discuss the future of robotics and how humans should design these. We are now at a point where robotics and technology have taken over our everyday life. Rodney Brooks was right when he mentioned in his TED Talk that "...robots will [eventually] work their way into our lives." This talk happened in 2003, and we have now moved a long way. Robots started as simple toys and dolls like the "automata" dolls in Japan, but are now performing household chores, saving people from natural disasters, solving algorithms, etc. Although 150 years ago robots were created for different purposes, today they are capable of doing great things. 

Rodney Brooks TED Talk

Japanese Automata Dolls 

Going along with this point, it is very important to take into consideration what Professor Kusahara said in her lecture. She emphasized the difference in design of Japanese and American robots. In Western films and TV shows, robots are featured as something evil and scary, they portray a notion of robots taking over the world and defeating the human race. On the other hand, in the Japanese culture, engineers use art to design their robots because they are fascinated with humanoids. They try to make robots look as humane as possible, claiming that people shouldn’t be scared of these machines. Since these robots are used “…to take care of elder, help rescue people in disasters, etc, the robot has to look like a friendly face.” A Japanese example of this is "Astroboy," which was the robot used to support and give hope to the Japanese people after war. 

Japanese robots with a "friendly face" used to take care of the elder

When thinking about this important point about the humane characteristics of a robot, I immediately thought of the movie Ex_Machina, directed by Alex Garland. This movie is the perfect example of Alan Turing’s idea of computer science and artificial intelligence. In the movie, the main character, Caleb, interacts with several artificially intelligent robots and he gets to “judge” whether they are capable of humane thought and consciousness. These robots have already passed the “Turing test” and are extremely developed, having robotic bodies but human-like faces. At the end of the movie, one of the robots, Ava, tricks Caleb into thinking that she is in love with him, but she is really just manipulating him. She escapes the house and leaves Caleb trapped, showing her ability to use true intelligence and act like a genuine human. I believe this movie is a reflection of what robots should look like from now on, they should be designed to be artificially intelligent and to physically look as humane as possible (friendly face!!). 

Movie Ex_Machina by Alex Garland

Works Cited: 

Brooks, Rodney. “Robots Will Invade Our Lives” Ted Talk. Ted Talk, February 2003. Accessed 22 April 2017. www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_on_robots#t-703340

"Girls on Film: Ex-Machina." Review. Blog post. TYCI. Wordpress, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

Lipson, Hod. “Building “Self-Aware” Robots” Ted Talk. Ted Talk, March 2007. Accessed 22 April 2017. www.ted.com/talks/hod_lipson_builds_self_aware_robots

Muoio, Danielle. "Japan is running out of people to take care of the elderly, so it's making robots instead." Business Insider. Business Insider, 20 Nov. 2015. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

Steven Sentosa. "Karakuri – Japanese Mechanized Automata Doll/Puppet." My Internet Corner. Wordpress, 16 June 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.