Word: automatonism
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...amusement, it is a scale model of reality, moving ever closer to reality. But it is still based on the fascination inherent in an imitation and occasionally imaginative recreation of nature rather than a substitute for it. The imitation of nature ranges from the exquisite blink in an automaton pirate's eye, with lifelike eyelashes and wrinkles on his skin, or the marvel of transparent ghosts dancing around a huge hall, to the vulgar ride through darkest Africa, with your guide shooting at rhinos, hippos, and elephants. One can agree with John Ciardi's estimation of the place is seeing...
...scientific experiment designed to rehabilitate him in two weeks. He submits to the Ludovico Technique, a behavioristic barrage of electric impulses and motion-picture film that cripples him with nausea at the mere thought of sex or violence. Thoroughly zapped, Alex is transformed into a kind of automaton, a clockwork orange, with no free will of his own. "As decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning!" gushes the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp), who hopes to use Alex and the Ludovico Technique for political gain...
Michael Schiffer's Enobarbus was monotone but fitfully engaging. His death scene redeemed his absurd flippant, balmy, detachment at the opening. He read every line the same (piano) but it was an agreeable reading. Timothy Clark as Caesar gave disquieting signs of yet another misconceived, automaton, bloodless ruler, but gradually infused this crucial role (for it is a drama of East and West, both imperfectly noble) with the life and subtlety it demands. Clark gave dramatic center to each of his scenes, and so offered the finest performance of the evening...
...murder conviction of an enlisted man who had shot a Korean to death while guarding an airfield. The guard claimed that he had been ordered to fire on anyone who did not heed his order to halt, and his lawyer said that this made him, in effect, an automaton without criminal intent. The review board rejected the argument...
Computers can do just about everything but leap tall buildings at a single bound, and someday they will be able to do that too. One long-range goal of the technicians in the Artificial Intelligence Lab is to build an "intelligent automaton" that could substitute for men on a Mars expedition. Carrying enough fuel to get to Mars and back seems impossible, so robots will have to go, explore, report back to earth and stay there (safely out of harm's way?). And since there would be a four-minute or worse radio time lag between here and there, communication...