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Study 011 - The Bicentennial Man - Part 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-22 22:52:48
Imported:
2026-06
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We're robochatting about Isaac Asimov's classic The Bicentennial Man!

Special thanks to our reader James Holloway of the podcast Monster Man!

Next up: A bonus episode on John Wyndham flicks (Village of the Damned and Day of the Triffids) plus MORE Bicentennializing!

Comments

DR

It would be interesting to see what different countries or other worlds version of the three laws. There was a UK comic called Return to Armageddon that had a version of this where a robot from another species holds up a mob boss at gunpoint and the guy isn’t scared as he says that robots are programmed not to harm humans and the robot corrects him by saying “First I don’t consider filth like you to be human and secondly I don’t come from Earth, you’re just an expendable alien as far as I’m concerned”

DR

When Data meets his mother she says that on the original colony he walked around without clothes as they served no purpose due to the toughness of his body not needing clothing for protection from the elements, but due to him being made lifelike and anatomically correct and fully functional it disturbed the people living there and his father had to install a program to make him wear them.

Tom Král

This is the second episode in a row where you mention a Czech writer/filmmaker... R.U.R. was written by Karel Čapek (Cha-peck) who coined the term robot. He has some great scifi novels/plays that I think you would definitely enjoy. The Salamander Wars is an amazing story about the discovery of a race of Newts that kinda reminds me of the Call of Cthulhu in the way it is told. Definitely give that a go, it's probably too long for a podcast coverage but I recommend it wholeheartedly. Also the play White Disease is AMAZING! Great show as always!

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

My first Asimov was Foundation and I was too young for it. Fortunately, I found Caves of Steel which starts his cool combination of the laws of robotics with detective stories - working out how one could use robots to kill even with the three laws. These got me into the groove and my next dive into Foundation was successful. Asimov was a creep. And he was a fascinating guy. A frighteningly productive guy. A true humanist. An educator. A positive force in the universe. And a creep. Boy could that creep write.

The Spider Incident

Thanks for covering this story. I have vague memories of seeing the 1999 movie when it came out, and every so often see something or hear a reference that makes me think "didn't I see that in a movie?" At the end of the episode, you touch on the idea of robots interpreting the three laws to usurp humans for our own protection. There's a webcomic called Freefall by Steinar Knutsen (http://freefall.purrsia.com) that has AIs, and one of the plot points is this basically this idea. Some of the robots do try to start an uprising because they believe they are better suited make decisions to keep humans safe than the humans are.

Geekery Labs

I'm also a huge fan of the Caves of Steel books. Robots, detective mystery, space people, and also includes the idea of a shorter human lifespan being considered a benefit. It is a horrible shame about Asimov being a womanizer. It's easier to distance the art from the creator when they've passed at least. There are people around who's work I love I haven't been able to bring myself to watch since finding out about terrible behavior.

Jim Cannon

Off topic, but Chad did mention it: the Silmarillion is ostensibly a pagan mythology, but it is also bound up with Tolkien's Catholocism. Men do not get short lives as a gift, exactly, its more that they get eternal souls so when they die they get into Heaven. Elves are immortal on Earth, but they are forever denied entry into Heaven. Only Men get that. Humans in modern parlance, Tolkien wasn't excluding ladies, just born in the 1890s and had some bad habits.

Jim Cannon

Utterly bizarre moment when I queued up this episode... for a half second I thought I had put on the next episode of Monster Man, the podcast which I had been listening to just prior.

Michael Cunliffe

“It makes the circuits of my brain somehow flow more easily” This is a particularly interesting line for me, as I work in the field of Art for Mental Health. The term ‘Flow’ in psychology was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 70s to refer to a state of mind where a personal’s whole attention is directed towards completing a challenging (but not too challenging) goal. This state is most often referred to by artists and musicians who talk about losing track of time while working, although it has been reported in a wide range of vocations and tasks.

Jim Cannon

Oh! The actual episode, right. Andrew the Android, that's cute. I too think I should read more Aasimov, I only have a few of his 80s robot novels under my belt, and I read those a LONG time ago. I have to admit that the film actually put me off this story; its something of a touchstone for humor in my circle of friends due to the earnest Patch Adams-ness of it all.

Jeremy Impson

Mervin Mansky is no doubt a reference to Marvin Minsky, who was part of the cohort of (what we'd now call) Computer Scientists who established the field of Artificial Intelligence

Jeremy Impson

I read Asimov almost manically as a kid. I'd reread the Foundation series every winter break during late grade school , middle school and into High school . Then I read a criticism somewhere that in his novels, it's all talk, very little action, and no scene setting . It is a fair assessment but shouldn't negate all the other qualities. Yet while I was perfectly content with his work up until that point, but it sort of turned me off ever since. I should check it out again, Ive had some if his books on my shelf for decades at this point.

Jeremy Impson

"The robots we have now can simulate a personality, but they don't *have* a personality..". Listen, everyone is simulating a personality, just that some (most?) of us aren't aware that we are doing it. Between research into autism, mental health, and AI I'm surprised anyone still thinks otherwise.

Ryan Thomas

I await with curiosity as to whether the novella The Bicentennial Man features a bubbly, music-infused, roller-skating love interest. I recall smiling when Galatea glided across and spun around the seaside scenery in the 1999 film. Did writers inform this character from the book? Or were they inspired by Dot in 1987's Space Balls, while adding more curves and removing Joan Rivers and her trademark acerbic wit?

Elisheba

Andrew getting a bank account as a thing may have been in the public consciousness because the 1960s in the US was when women got bank account rights and the 70s was when equal credit rights happened. Not that Asimov was a feminist or anything, but it may have been something he heard about with regard to rights. In his iconic paper on AI, which is worth a read, it's not overly technical, Alan Turing talks about the issue of what is human thought versus what is machines simulating thought, and his proposal is the "polite convention" in which we never actually know that anyone else is thinking we just politely assume they do. I like this because it kind of reframes the issue of AI not as "when do they think" but "when do we start being polite to them?" Though I have seen some studies that children who interact with digital assistants such as Alexa and Siri tend to be less polite and use please and thank you less, so...maybe we aren't inclined to be polite to machines any time soon.

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

The question of how freedom and laws go together is one I'm exploring in one of my history survey courses this week, as we'll tackle Hobbes and Locke and the idea of the Social Contract, that people will eventually choose to cooperate under some kind of government rather than live in a "State of Nature" where everyone can do whatever the F they want. There are some major differences between Hobbes and Locke, especially as regards the limits of government power and the right of the people to change rulers, but both point in different ways towards the idea that laws provide the positive freedom to thrive in a secure society rather than the negative freedom that's just a lack of restrictions on behavior. Meanwhile, an old episode of Ken and Robin I was listening to this morning while driving to a different class turned out to be directly relevant to what I was just about to teach, so I guess I should just do all of my course prep using geeky podcasts.

Karlandos

I remember watching the movie as a kid and hearing how the book goes is a treat. Listening also made me think of a game I watched a let's play of called The Fall which involves the AI of a suit of power armor who is trying to get her operator to safety because he's supposedly passed out from injury and her struggle to abide by her directives and overcome the challenges of in her way. It has a sequel as well and I won't spoil anything but, considering the subject matter, I would advise looking into it.

Todd Williams

Some of the "what makes something human" ideas are explored very well in the movie After Yang. Would definitely recommend it. I found the discussions about tea quite moving.