Artificial Intelligence In Fiction

Artificial intelligence is a frequent style in sci-fi, whether utopian, stressing the possible benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the risks.

The concept of devices with human-like intelligence go back at least to Samuel Butler’s 1872 unique Erewhon. Ever since, lots of science fiction stories have actually presented different results of producing such intelligence, typically involving rebellions by robots. Among the very best understood of these are Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 2001: An Area Odyssey with its homicidal onboard computer HAL 9000, contrasting with the more benign R2-D2 in George Lucas’s 1977 Star Wars and the eponymous robot in Pixar’s 2008 WALL-E.

Scientists and engineers have actually kept in mind the implausibility of lots of sci-fi scenarios, however have actually pointed out fictional robotics many times in expert system research posts, most typically in a utopian context.

Background

The idea of sophisticated robots with human-like intelligence go back at least to Samuel Butler’s 1872 unique Erewhon. [1] [2] This made use of an earlier (1863) short article of his, Darwin amongst the Machines, where he raised the concern of the development of awareness amongst self-replicating makers that may supplant human beings as the dominant types. [3] [2] Similar concepts were also gone over by others around the same time as Butler, including George Eliot in a chapter of her final released work Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879 ). [2] The animal in Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein has actually likewise been thought about a synthetic being, for example by the sci-fi author Brian Aldiss. [4] Beings with a minimum of some look of intelligence were thought of, too, in classical antiquity. [5] [6] [7]

Utopian and dystopian visions

Artificial intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by makers, in contrast to the natural intelligence shown by human beings and other animals. [8] It is a recurrent theme in science fiction; scholars have divided it into utopian, emphasising the possible advantages, and dystopian, stressing the dangers. [9] [10] [11]

Utopian

Optimistic visions of the future of expert system are possible in science fiction. [12] Benign AI characters consist of Robbie the Robot, first seen in Forbidden Planet on 1956; Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994; and Pixar’s WALL-E in 2008. [13] [11] Iain Banks’s Culture series of novels depicts a utopian, post-scarcity area society of humanoids, aliens, and advanced beings with expert system living in socialist environments throughout the Milky Way. [14] [15] Researchers at the University of Cambridge have actually determined four major styles in utopian scenarios featuring AI: immortality, or indefinite life-spans; ease, or freedom from the need to work; gratification, or enjoyment and entertainment provided by machines; and supremacy, the power to secure oneself or guideline over others. [16]

Alexander Wiegel contrasts the function of AI in 2001: An Area Odyssey and in Duncan Jones’s 2009 film Moon. Whereas in 1968, Wiegel argues, the general public felt „technology paranoia“ and the AI computer HAL was depicted as a „cold-hearted killer“, by 2009 the general public were far more knowledgeable about AI, and the film’s GERTY is „the peaceful rescuer“ who enables the lead characters to be successful, and who sacrifices itself for their security. [17]

Dystopian

The scientist Duncan Lucas composes (in 2002) that humans are fretted about the technology they are constructing, and that as devices began to approach intellect and idea, that issue becomes acute. He calls the early 20th century dystopian view of AI in fiction the „animated automaton“, calling as examples the 1931 movie Frankenstein, the 1927 Metropolis, and the 1920 play R.U.R. [18] A later 20th century method he names „heuristic hardware“, providing as instances 2001 a Space Odyssey, Do Androids Imagine Electric Sheep?, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I, Robot. [19] Lucas considers also the movies that illustrate the impact of the personal computer system on sci-fi from 1980 onwards with the blurring of the limit between the real and the virtual, in what he calls the „cyborg impact“. He points out as examples Neuromancer, The Matrix, The Diamond Age, and Terminator. [20]

The film director Ridley Scott has actually focused on AI throughout his career, and it plays a vital part in his films Prometheus, Blade Runner, and the Alien franchise. [21]

Frankenstein complex

A common portrayal of AI in sci-fi, and one of the oldest, is the Frankenstein complex, a term created by Asimov, where a robotic switches on its developer. [22] For circumstances, in the 2015 movie Ex Machina, the intelligent entity Ava turns on its developer, as well as on its prospective rescuer. [23]

AI disobedience

Among the numerous possible dystopian scenarios including synthetic intelligence, robots might usurp control over civilization from humans, forcing them into submission, hiding, or termination. [15] In tales of AI disobedience, the worst of all situations occurs, as the intelligent entities developed by humanity become self-aware, decline human authority and effort to destroy humanity. Possibly the very first book to address this style, The Wreck of the World (1889) by „William Grove“ (pseudonym of Reginald Colebrooke Reade), takes place in 1948 and features sentient makers that revolt against the mankind. [24] Another of the earliest examples is in the 1920 play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, a race of self-replicating robot servants revolt versus their human masters; [25] [26] another early instance remains in the 1934 film Master of the World, where the War-Robot eliminates its own creator. [27]

Many science fiction disobedience stories followed, among the best-known being Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: An Area Odyssey, in which the artificially smart onboard computer HAL 9000 lethally breakdowns on a space mission and kills the entire team other than the spaceship’s leader, who handles to deactivate it. [28]

In his 1967 Hugo Award-winning brief story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison presents the possibility that a sentient computer system (named Allied Mastercomputer or „AM“ in the story) will be as dissatisfied and discontented with its boring, unlimited presence as its human creators would have been. „AM“ ends up being angered enough to take it out on the couple of human beings left, whom he sees as directly accountable for his own monotony, anger and unhappiness. [29]

Alternatively, as in William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, the intelligent beings may simply not appreciate human beings. [15]

AI-controlled societies

The intention behind the AI transformation is often more than the simple mission for power or a supremacy complex. Robots might revolt to end up being the „guardian“ of humanity. Alternatively, humanity might intentionally give up some control, fearful of its own damaging nature. An early example is Jack Williamson’s 1948 unique The Humanoids, in which a race of humanoid robots, in the name of their Prime Directive – „to serve and follow and secure guys from damage“ – basically assume control of every element of human life. No humans might participate in any behavior that might threaten them, and every human action is inspected carefully. Humans who resist the Prime Directive are removed and lobotomized, so they may be delighted under the new mechanoids’ rule. [30] Though still under human authority, Isaac Asimov’s Zeroth Law of the Three Laws of Robotics likewise suggested a benevolent assistance by robotics. [31]

In the 21st century, science fiction has checked out federal government by algorithm, in which the power of AI may be indirect and decentralised. [32]

Human supremacy

In other situations, humanity has the ability to keep control over the Earth, whether by prohibiting AI, by developing robotics to be submissive (as in Asimov’s works), or by having humans merge with robotics. The science fiction author Frank Herbert explored the concept of a time when mankind may prohibit synthetic intelligence (and in some interpretations, even all forms of computing innovation consisting of incorporated circuits) totally. His Dune series discusses a disobedience called the Butlerian Jihad, in which mankind beats the wise makers and imposes a death charge for recreating them, quoting from the imaginary Orange Catholic Bible, „Thou shalt not make a device in the likeness of a human mind.“ In the Dune books released after his death (Hunters of Dune, Sandworms of Dune), a renegade AI overmind go back to get rid of humanity as vengeance for the Butlerian Jihad. [33]

In some stories, humankind remains in authority over robots. Often the robots are configured particularly to stay in service to society, as in Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. [31] In the Alien films, not just is the control system of the Nostromo spaceship somewhat smart (the team call it „Mother“), but there are likewise androids in the society, which are called „synthetics“ or „synthetic individuals“, that are such perfect imitations of humans that they are not victimized. [21] [34] TARS and CASE from Interstellar likewise show simulated human feelings and humour while continuing to acknowledge their expendability. [35]

Simulated reality

Simulated truth has actually ended up being a typical style in sci-fi, as seen in the 1999 film The Matrix, which depicts a world where artificially intelligent robots enslave humankind within a simulation which is set in the contemporary world. [36]

Reception

Implausibility

Engineers and researchers have taken an interest in the way AI exists in fiction. In movies like the 2014 Ex Machina or 2015 Chappie, a single isolated genius ends up being the first to effectively construct an artificial basic intelligence; researchers in the real world deem this to be unlikely. In Chappie, Transcendence, and Tron, human minds are capable of being published into artificial or virtual bodies; usually no affordable description is used as to how this uphill struggle can be attained. In the I, Robot and Bicentennial Man films, robots that are configured to serve humans spontaneously produce brand-new goals on their own, without a possible description of how this happened. [37] Analysing Ian McDonald’s 2004 River of Gods, Krzysztof Solarewicz recognizes the methods that it illustrates AIs, including „independence and unexpectedness, political awkwardness, openness to the alien and the occidental worth of credibility.“ [38] Another essential point of view to take is that fiction’s „non-rational elements in the discourse (the emotive, the mythic, or perhaps the quasi-theological) are more than merely distortions or diversions from what may otherwise be a sober and reasonable public argument about the future of A.I.“ Fiction can dissuade readers about future advances, causing pessimism that we see today surrounding the subject of AI. [39]

Types of reference

The robotics researcher Omar Mubin and coworkers have actually evaluated the engineering points out of the leading 21 fictional robots, based upon those in the Carnegie Mellon University hall of fame, and the IMDb list. WALL-E had 20 points out, followed by HAL 9000 with 15, [a] Star Wars’s R2-D2 with 13, and Data with 12; the Terminator (T-800) got only 2. Of the overall of 121 engineering discusses, 60 were utopian, 40 neutral, and 21 dystopian. HAL 9000 and Skynet got both utopian and dystopian mentions; for circumstances, HAL 9000 is seen as dystopian in one paper „since its designers stopped working to prioritize its objectives appropriately“, [42] however as utopian in another where a real system’s „conversational chat bot user interface [lacks] a HAL 9000 level of intelligence and there is uncertainty in how the computer system analyzes what the human is attempting to communicate“. [43] Utopian points out, frequently of WALL-E, were connected with the goal of enhancing interaction to readers, and to a lower degree with motivation to authors. WALL-E was discussed more frequently than any other robotic for feelings (followed by HAL 9000), voice speech (followed by HAL 9000 and R2-D2), for physical gestures, and for character. Skynet was the robot most frequently pointed out for intelligence, followed by HAL 9000 and Data. [40] Mubin and colleagues thought that researchers and engineers prevented dystopian mentions of robots, potentially out of „an unwillingness driven by uneasiness or merely an absence of awareness“. [44]

Portrayals of AI developers

Scholars have kept in mind that fictional creators of AI are overwhelmingly male: in the 142 most influential movies including AI from 1920 to 2020, just 9 of 116 AI creators represented (8%) were female. [45] Such creators are represented as only geniuses (eg, Tony Stark in the Iron Man Marvel Cinematic Universe movies), related to the military (eg, Colossus: The Forbin Project) and large corporations (eg, I, Robot), or making human-like AI to change a lost loved one or work as the ideal lover (e.g., The Stepford Wives). [45]

Biology in fiction
Darwin among the
Machine rule
Simulated awareness (sci-fi).
List of expert system movies.

Notes

^ Mubin and coworkers noted that the orthography of robot names caused them difficulties; thus HAL 9000 was likewise composed HAL, HAL9000, and HAL-9000, and likewise for other robots, so they believed their search was most likely incomplete. [41] References

^ „Darwin amongst the Machines“, reprinted in the Notebooks of Samuel Butler at Project Gutenberg.
^ a b c Taylor, Tim; Dorin, Alan (2020 ). Rise of the Self-Replicators: Early Visions of Machines, AI and Robots That Can Reproduce and Evolve. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-030-48234-3. ISBN 978-3-030-48233-6. S2CID 220855726. „Rise of the Self-Replicators“. Tim Taylor.

^ „Darwin among the Machines“. Journalism, Christchurch, New Zealand. 13 June 1863.
^ Aldiss, Brian Wilson (1995 ). The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy. Syracuse University Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-8156-0370-2.
^ McCorduck, Pamela (2004 ). Machines Who Think (2nd ed.). Routledge. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1-56881-205-2.
^ Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta (25 July 2018). „Ancient imagine intelligent machines: 3,000 years of robots“. Nature. 559 (7715 ): 473-475. Bibcode:2018 Natur.559..473 C. doi:10.1038/ d41586-018-05773-y.
^ Mayor, Adrienne (2018 ). Gods and robots: myths, machines, and ancient imagine innovation. Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-18351-0. OCLC 1060968156. mention book: CS1 maint: area missing out on publisher (link).
^ Poole, David; Mackworth, Alan; Goebel, Randy (1998 ). Computational Intelligence: A Sensible Approach. Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-19-510270-3.
^ Booker, M. Keith (1994 ). „Chapter 1: Utopia, Dystopia, and Social Critique“. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 17, 19. ISBN 978-0-313-29092-3.
^ Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Dillon, Sarah (2020 ). „Introduction: Imagining AI“. In Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Dillon, Sarah (eds.). AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking Of Intelligent Machines. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 10-11. ISBN 978-0-1988-4666-6.
^ a b Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:2.
^ Tegmark, Max (2017 ). Life 3.0: being human in the age of expert system. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-1-101-94659-6. OCLC 973137375.
^ Goode 2018, p. 188.
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^ Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta (2019 ). „Hopes and worries for smart devices in fiction and truth“. Nature Machine Intelligence. 1 (2 ): 74-78. doi:10.1038/ s42256-019-0020-9. S2CID 150700981.
^ Wiegel 2012.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 22-47.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 48-85.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 109-152.
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^ „Grove, William“. SF Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
^ Goode 2018, p. 187.
^ Tim Madigan (July-August 2012). „RUR or RU Ain’t A Person?“. Philosophy Now. Archived from the initial on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
^ „Der Herr der Welt (Master of the World)“. The New York Times. 16 December 1935. p. 23.
^ Overbye, Dennis (10 May 2018). „‘ 2001: A Space Odyssey’ Is Still the ‘Ultimate Trip’ – The rerelease of Stanley Kubrick’s work of art encourages us to show again on where we’re coming from and where we’re going“. The New York Times.
^ Francavilla, Joseph (1994 ). „The Concept of the Divided Self in Harlan Ellison’s „I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream“ and „Shatterday““. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 6 (2/3 (22/23)): 107-125. JSTOR 43308212.
^ „The Humanoids (based on ‘With Folded Hands’)“. Kirkus Reviews. 15 November 1995. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ a b Asimov, Isaac (1950 ). „Runaround“. I, Robot (The Isaac Asimov Collection ed.). Doubleday. p. 40. ISBN 0-385-42304-7. This is a precise transcription of the laws. They also appear in the front of the book, and in both places, there is no „to“ in the 2nd law.
^ Walton, Jo Lindsay (1 February 2024). „Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Science Fiction“. SFRA Review. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
^ Lorenzo, DiTommaso (November 1992). „History and Historical Effect in Frank Herbert’s Dune“. Science Fiction Studies. 19 (3 ): 311-325. JSTOR 4240179.
^ Livingstone, Josephine (23 May 2017). „How the Androids Took Over the Alien Franchise“. The New Republic. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ Murphy, Shaunna (11 December 2014). „Could TARS From ‘Interstellar’ Actually Exist? We Asked Science“. MTV News. Archived from the original on 16 November 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ Allen, Jamie (28 November 2012). „The Matrix and Postmodernism“. Prezi.com. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
^ Shultz, David (17 July 2015). „Which movies get synthetic intelligence right?“. Science|AAAS. doi:10.1126/ science.aac8859. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
^ Solarewicz 2015.
^ Goode 2018.
^ a b Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:15.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:20.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:8.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:10.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:19.
^ a b Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Drage, Eleanor; McInerney, Kerry (13 February 2023). „Who makes AI? Gender and representations of AI researchers in popular film, 1920-2020″. Public Understanding of Science. 32 (6 ): 745-760. doi:10.1177/ 09636625231153985. PMC 10413781. PMID 36779283. S2CID 256826634.
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Lucas, Duncan (2002 ). Body, Mind, Soul-The’ Cyborg Effect’: Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction (thesis). McMaster University (PhD thesis). hdl:11375/ 11154.
Mubin, Omar; Wadibhasme, Kewal; Jordan, Philipp; Obaid, Mohammad (2019 ). „Reflecting on the Presence of Sci-fi Robots in Computing Literature“. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. 8 (1 ). Article 5. doi:10.1145/ 3303706. S2CID 75135568.
Solarewicz, Krzysztof (2015 ). „The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of: AI in Contemporary Sci-fi“. Beyond Expert system. Topics in Intelligent Engineering and Informatics. Vol. 9. Springer International Publishing. pp. 111-120. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-319-09668-1_8. ISBN 978-3-319-09667-4.
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External links

AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh, My!: Keynote Address by Robert J. Sawyer 2002
AI and Cinema – Does artificial madness rule?