I, Robot

According to this week’s topic, art is not only influencing math and science, but also robotics. Robotics ultimately evolved from the development of the printing press and its ability to multiply, develop, and reproduce words. This thinking continued to evolve into what we consider assembly lines, which is reproduction on a larger scale. Each worker works on one piece of the finished product in order to develop the same product many times over. One step further and we arrive at what we call robotics. The article by Walter Benjamin reviews this type of mechanical reproduction as something that is negative and takes away from the authenticity of art as a whole. I disagree with Benjamin as I think this is a very narrow minded view. Without the printing press, for example, people would still be illiterate and therefore could not create the stories, poems, and novels that we call art. Without the assembly lines, there would be no advertisements that artistically portray these products. Robotics and its reproducibility are just as important to art and to art’s future.

In Dennis Hong’s speech on Ted Talks, he refers to the seven species of robot that he has been working on. In a robot he calls CLIMBeR, the robot scales walls and learns where best to put its foot in order to keep moving upward; this kind of robot has rescue implications. Another one is called DARwIn 2a, which has artificial intelligence and learns how to kick a soccer ball in a goal. These robots are adaptable and have implications that will only help humans in the future. David Hanson takes this even further by trying to develop emotion in robots. Character robots, he thinks, inspire hope for the future by creating empathetic robots that exhibit artificial intelligence; this is critical to preventing the prevalent assumption that robots are violent and to be feared.

This fear stems from movies such as I, Robot. I, Robot predicts the evolution of robots with a humanistic intelligence as they attempt to take over the world. As we advance robots to ultimately help humans, the fear of what they could do is not fully lost.

Works Cited:

"ArtBots Gent, the Robot Talent Show 2011." ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Print.

I, Robot. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Will Smith. Twentieth Century Fox, 2004.

"My Seven Species of Robot." Dennis Hong:. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

"Robots That "show Emotion"" David Hanson:. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.