The Robots Are Winning!

[Voyageur]

Came across an article a few days ago, and although I've not seen or read from some of these films/books, with the exception of Blade Runner, Frankenstein (such as reference (1818) by Mary Shelley), and 2001: A Space Odyssey discussed in the article, the author creates some variable discussion, some of which focus on Homers Odyssey and Iliad of which he quotes. Of these latter two, which he starts off the article with, I'm not so sure he has this fixed correctly (assuming Homer is speaking in a veiled way), yet the article builds from there until at one point he is talking about Hephaestus’s automatic tripods as alluded to by Aristotle (and people know about him):

In a striking passage in Book 1 of Aristotle’s Politics, composed in the fourth century BC, the philosopher sets about analyzing the nature of household economy as a prelude to his discussion of the “best kinds of regimes” for entire states, and this line of thought puts him in mind of Hephaestus’s automatic tripods. What, he wonders, would happen if every tool could perform its own work when ordered to do so or in anticipation of the need, like the statues of Daedalus in the story or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, the poet says, “went down automatically to the gathering of the gods”; if in the same manner shuttles wove and picks played kitharas [stringed instruments] by themselves, master-craftsmen would have no need of assistants and masters no need of slaves.

This passage segues into a lengthy and rather uneasy justification of a need for slavery, on the grounds that some people are “naturally” servile.

The full article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jun/04/robots-are-winning/ by Daniel Mendelsohn

So I was reading this thread concerning, in essence, the automatai (from Homer) of this robotic swordsman video. Because I had read this article above previously, the robot swordsman made me feel ill, insofar as it seems technology, and our facination for it, keeps tying to mimic humans, to usurp our humanness perhaps; like molding more clay shapes and looking upon them as perfection. In the article, this comes up quite a bit, not only from the humans point of view, yet from the robots sense of themselves, like in Blade Runner when, for a while, the robots did not know of their own condition.

In Book 18 of the Iliad, Achilles’ mother, the nymph Thetis, wants to order a new suit of armor for her son, and so she pays a visit to the Olympian atelier of the blacksmith-god Hephaestus, whom she finds hard at work on a series of automata:
…He was crafting twenty tripods
to stand along the walls of his well-built manse,
affixing golden wheels to the bottom of each one
so they might wheel down on their own [automatoi] to the gods’ assembly
and then return to his house anon: an amazing sight to see.

[...]

Just as the Industrial Revolution inspired Frankenstein and its epigones, so has the computer age given rise to a rich new genre of science fiction. The machines that are inspiring this latest wave of science-fiction narratives are much more like Hephaestus’s golden maidens than were the machines that Mary Shelley was familiar with. Computers, after all, are capable of simulating mental as well as physical activities. (Not least, as anyone with an iPhone knows, speech.) It is for this reason that the anxiety about the boundaries between people and machines has taken on new urgency today, when we constantly rely on and interact with machines—indeed, interact with each other by means of machines and their programs: computers, smartphones, social media platforms, social and dating apps.

[...]

As I watched that scene, I couldn’t help thinking that in the entertainments of the pre-smartphone era, it was the machines, like Rachael in Blade Runner and David in A.I., who yearned fervently to be “unique,” to be more than mechanical playthings, more than merely interchangeable objects. You have to wonder what Her says about the present moment—when so many of us are, indeed, “in love” with our devices, unable to put down our iPhones during dinner, glued to screens of all sizes, endlessly distracted by electronic pings and buzzers—that in the latest incarnation of the robot myth, it’s the people who seem blandly interchangeable and the machines who have all the personality.

Anyway, you might be interested or not in reading the linked article. My personal feeling is that it is not the creation of technology in itself (engineering is cool), it's the corruptible nature of those who would use it all to control and to replace.

 

[whitecoast]

Thanks for sharing this Voyageur! It was fascinating to hear about the Greek gods having their own technology.

In the article, this comes up quite a bit, not only from the humans point of view, yet from the robots sense of themselves, like in Blade Runner when, for a while, the robots did not know of their own condition.

I find this especially ironic, given most humans do not see their own condition either. ;)

It seems like some kind of cosmic milestone to have humans directly converting dead matter into living intelligence. Even if we are not quite there yet in terms of its sophistication. There seems to also be the question of, how much of our 3D technology will become obsolete by 4D? I remember the Sumerian legends about humans being basically biological AI created to serve certain creators...

Certainly a juicy topic.