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I, Robot Hits the Theaters
I, Robot: A Movie Review that's 3 Laws (and Spoiler) Safe!
A movie review by Rob Carr
Thanks to Eide's Entertainment I got to see I, Robot tonight. As someone who grew up with Isaac Asimov's robot stories, I've come to expect a mystery based on the implications of the 3 Laws of Robotics (or the lack of one or part of one of those laws), the "Frankenstein Complex," and Dr. Susan Calvin. I was afraid that the movie might miss out on this, especially since it's not a direct adaptation of the book, but "inspired" by the Good Doctor Asimov.
The movie met my expectations and more. Will Smith, whom we all know as an overconfident smart@$$ character from such movies as "Independence Day" and the two "Men in Black" movies, played a somewhat less confident and far less wisecracking character. It was a welcome change to see him less confident. Yeah, some of the stunts were a little absurd (am I the only one thinking of Gemini 8 at one point in the movie?) but that's to be expected from this type of movie. Bridget Moynahan was far too young to be the Susan Calvin I remember, but that's also to be expected in this type of movie. James Cromwell (whom you'll all remember from Star Trek: First Contact and Enterprise's "Broken Bow" episode as Dr. Zefram Cochrane) gave a flat performance - but that's actually a complement. I doubt anyone will recognize Wash from "Firefly" as an important robot in the story.
It's customary to comment on how well the CGI was done. I liked it, but then again, I'm not hypercritical on something like that. I did wonder a little bit about center of balance as some of the robots walked, but mostly I didn't think about it at all, which to me is the goal of CGI. I did wonder about children's fingers getting caught in some of the open gaps on the robot's bodies. Real world models would have a bit more covering, one would think. But that's being picky.
I have no memory of the soundtrack music. That in and of itself might say something. I'm a musician, but it just didn't register.
I figured out some clues, missed some others, and was surprised several times in the movie. There were a lot of clues - this isn't one of those mysteries where the answer is pulled out of the writer's a...out of thin air.
I'm not a complete continuity freak, so I can't tell if the movie violated any of Asimov's universe, but from what I can remember, it fits pretty well (if you ignore Dr. Calvin's age) and might even explain a few things.
Given that even some of the geeks in the audience were surprised to find out that there was a book of stories just like the movie, I think the movie will hopefully bring Asimov's stories to a new generation.
I liked "I, Robot. It's worth seeing, especially if you 've already seen Spider-Man 2 at least once. It's a pretty good (though not great) movie.
Having read Slashdot for a while, I know that there are folks out there who will despise this movie because it's not exactly like the book. Others will hate the movie or worship it, and loads of people are going to savage this review. You know what? That's fine with me. I had fun with this movie, had a nice date with my wife, and it didn't cost anything. I even had fun typing up this review. You're allowed to be different and to agree or disagree with me. Heck, that's a big chunk of what makes the world fun. Interestingly, it's even a small point in the movie. I'd say more, but that would be telling."
Asimov wrote about a hundred stories exploring different ways in which these three laws could lead to interesting/dangerous situations. I think Asimov was doing all he could to make it clear that these three laws were not perfect.
Why don't you people read some of the other stuff Asimov wrote? The End of Eternity is a perfect example of a non-robot work of his that was engaging, entertaining, and thought provoking. Does it ever get a mention? No! Because 99.9% of people think of Asimov as "The robot guy."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
We cannot even make software now which is safe from low level, machine representable things like buffer overruns.
The "Three Laws Safe" idea is crap. We are talking about software systems, which are buggy, incomplete, and able to do things the creators never imagined. What makes us think we can all the sudden implement three very high order rules in a manner which is completely foolproof?
Please bid on this Karmann Ghia! Please pleas
I'm sure it will be a fun watch (I'm seeing it this afternoon) but sometimes it would be nice to watch a film that was as stimulating as the book (LoTR was one) and not just 2 hours of fun.
But I'm pretty sure I'm going to be called elitist
I was making a point about the beating this type of work takes when it gets to Hollywood. You think Heinlein wouldn't hurl seeing Strship Troopers? The lack of respect stretches from the original work to the end consumers intelligence. I am frequently mystified as to why movie studios feel these stories (ST as a prime example) are not mass market ready as they are.
Doubtfull. Nowhere in the preview did I see the word "Asimov." Sure, it might have been in the tiny text that the show and the end of the preview for 1.5 seconds, but I doubt that's going to get anybody into the bookstores that didn't already know of Asimov. You'd think that they'd title it "Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot'" as a selling point.
You mean the estate that commissioned sequels to the Foundation series? The estate that slaps "Isaac Asimov's..." on various book series that might have some vague something-or-other to do with robots or something?
Gee, I wonder.
(Hint: BASIC string variable symbol.)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It is not about programming the rules, Asimov's short stories are about studying the consequences of these ethical rules. Ethical rules are commonly studied based con case studies, real of fictional. If you think the idea is about implementing the rules, you are totally missing the point.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Why yes, I am a dork. How did you guess?
Asimov invented the "three laws" specifically to deal with the absurd number of "robots going out of control" books, pointing out that human beings wouldn't be stupid enough to create a unit they can't control, and would want to put something in them, say, a set of laws built into their circuitry that cannot be overridden.
Asimov's "I, Robot" was not about robots going out of control, it was about the limitations robots would have given they'd have to apply these laws to every decision they make. It was, in short, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what this movie, assuming trailers reflect it correctly, is about.
If anyone is able to re-animate Asimov's corpse, they better frickin' program the three laws of robotics into him. Because otherwise the Good Doctor will be Will Smith's worst enemy...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The first law's still paramount, of course. Having the robot crash and freeze up was considered a less severe bug than having it move unexpectedly, or in an unexpected way. Such an unpredictable motion had a much greater chance of hurting someone than a simple freeze.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (latter amended to include a necessary Zeroth Law) existed to create the classic locked room murder mystery (i.e. the dead body is alone in a locked room that could have only been locked from the inside -- so how was he murdered?).
After creating his supposedly nothing-can-go-wrong infallible set of rules, he proceeded to show their flaws in virtually every story he wrote about robots afterwards. As long as people believed that his Three Laws guaranteed safe robots, his writing career was assured.
(Well almost assured. Even he couldn't save himself from what I Robot has become, given that it's based on his book - which goes to show that truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense!)
So we ended up with a fascinatingly entertaining set of stories many of us have enjoyed, a couple attempts at movies of them (don't forget The Bicentennial Man), and Dr. Asimov's legacy as a Science Fiction Grand Master is secure for at least our lifetimes.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The problem with this reasoning, however, is that it assumes that because the law itself is simply stated, that the definitions of the words it contains are equally simple. That reasoning does not follow logically from the premise. The definition of "harm", for example, is vast... and to restrain human beings from performing in their daily capacity what would otherwise be normal and proper behaviour would arguably be causing _actual_ harm to the people that the robot was caring for. Therefore, the robot must make a decision, based on the overall level of harm that is done in connecction with the probability that the harm would actually happen. Thus, an action that actually induces negative psychological damage (not theoretically, but actually probable damage) would be less preferable to one that may or may not cause real physical damage, especially if the latter would be necessary for performing in their ordinary daily capacity, since denying a human being their freedom and rights of self-determination is inarguably psychologically damaging. The weights of the damages caused must be factored in with the ability for the human beings involved to recover from those damages, and the robot would have to make a choice that would result in the smallest overall level of harm being caused to humans in general, with harm to the general welfare of humanity being weighted in slightly favour to that of any particular human being, so that, for example, a robot could inform the police of a robbery, even though doing that would likely mean that the thief would go through suffering as part of the excercise of justice (that is, his freedoms are revoked, he goes to jail, possibly gets subjected to harsh treatment, etc). This doesn't make it too fuzzy, however... the robot would allow human beings to come to harm only to the extent that it was essential for the human society to continue to function normally simply because to stop society from functioning normally would actually cause much greater long-term harm.
There are similar rationales for the other two laws. Asimov was no dummy.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'