The robot has become a commonplace not just of SF, but of general technological culture. From little toy dogs children play with, to the small pieces of software that help you search the web, to the machine that vacuums your floor while you are out running errands, to the highly synchronized, untiring extensible claw-arms of automobile factories, robots, both as real machines, and as characters and ideas, are everywhere.

The first use of the word, “robot,” was in the Czech play, R.U.R.. The word “robot” in the play is derived from a Czech word meaning “servitude,” or “drudgery.” In the play, the robots end up rebelling against their masters. Once again, the role of these non-humans makes us think about how we treat, and how we see, the real humans around us–whether they serve, protect, think, feel, or rebel.

In the best SF stories, rebellion is always a possibility. In good SF, the robot is a fully self-aware and active subject. Although created by humans, these robots are true characters, with intelligence and emotions. They consider their own nature, and their own roles.

Isaac Asimov may be said to be the father of the modern robot in SF. His “Three Laws of Robotics:”

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being
   to come to harm, unless this would violate a higher order law.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders
   would confict with a higher order law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict
   with a higher order law.

neatly illustrate the human anxieties about the dangers of technology, along with its benefits, which are inherent in all the robot stories.

So we love these machines, we hate them, we’re scared of them, we appreciate them.

But what about the machines in your life? Have you ever named a car? Or a computer?  Are there machines that are like servants to you? Even friends?

We’ve talked a little bit about having a “3G brain.”  The cyborg, or “cybernetic organism” is a human who incorporates artificial parts–generally enhancements. Some of you may remember (if you’re old enough) The Six Million Dollar Man and Woman from 1970’s TV (based loosely on Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg). This was a pretty bad TV series (especially when they met up with Bigfoot), but it was evidence of the growing interest in the questions and problems people had with artificial enhancement of human beings. The idea of superstrength or megacomputing power in a human body is appealing, but the question of whether a person so enhanced is still a person is troubling. We may be moving toward a world where people become so connected to, and so dependent on technology, that they lose some of their essential humanity .

I carry a lot of devices with me at all times–some of them fairly primitive tools (a handkerchief, a pocket knife–but those are technology, too, aren’t they?), others more advanced (an iPhone, a laptop).  And I have enhanced or improved my body in some ways with technology.  I wear eyeglasses.  I have fillings in my teeth. Yet I wouldn’t call myself a cyborg.  I’m definitely more of an organism than I am cybernetic.  But I wonder–as I make these connections to technology more permanent and complete, does it affect my status as a human being?  Where does the line get crossed?

And we can look at this from both directions.  If a human enhanced with technology is a cyborg, what is technology enhanced with humanity? Alive, self-aware computers are frequent characters in many SF stories. (“HAL,” in Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and “AI” in Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” are two inimical examples, and “Mike” in Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a benevolent one).  Are these intelligent artifices all that far off? For a fun experiment in not-very-sophisticated artificial intelligence, which may make you want to punch your computer, download and try some of the chat robots, like Alice, and Eliza, and others, that will make your computer hold a real conversation with you…well, sort of.