Word: robotized
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Robot Revolution" [Dec. 8] graphically illustrates a couple of phenomenal achievements-microcomputers and computer imaging-that came out of the space program. Americans who have been grumbling for years that the only thing we got out of the space program was a bunch of rocks should have their calculators repossessed...
...ultimate insult to the blue-collar workers standing in long lines at the unemployment office will be a Civil Service robot electronically reporting, "Your claim...
...TIME'S cover story for the year 1999, written by a robot, informing us that the magazine is planning to experiment once again with human reporters...
Just as there is a romantic tradition that robots are inherently diabolic creatures that will rebel against human control, there is an equally romantic tradition that machines are inherently benign, symbols of progress and perfectability. Isaac Asimov epitomized that view in a famous story titled Robbie, in which a much mistrusted robot baby sitter of that name rescues its ward from a speeding tractor. Asimov then went on to formulate, in Runaround (1942), what he decreed to be, in the world of science fiction at least, the Three Laws of Robotics: "1) A robot may not injure a human being...
...admirable theory, but the whole tradition of the demonic robot assumes that when a metal creature feels immortal longings, no mere law can rein him in. Arthur C. Clarke demonstrated that in 2001. The computer HAL not only operates the space ship and talks in a supercilious tenor but is so exalted by its own superiority ("I am incapable of making an error") that it starts killing the astronauts who interfere with its plans. In a 1976 MGM effort titled Demon Seed, a presumptuous robot goes even further and fulfills the sinful ambition of making Julie Christie pregnant. But then...