About writing. And reading. And being published. Or not published. On working on being published. Tangents into the pop culture world to come. Especially about movies. And comic books. And movies from comic books.
This year, 2014, is my third "A to Z," which would make 2012 my first one. There are a lot of you around these days that weren't around back then, so I thought -- Okay, actually, my wife thought. She said to me, "Since everyone seems to really like your theme this year (which, again, was her idea),you should do a post highlighting your previous A to Z themes." Which, um, were also her ideas. Yeah, she throws ideas at me all the time; some of them stick. -- I would drop an extra (Sunday) post in case any of you are interested in seeing what I've done before. So start at the beginning, right?
Well, not that beginning... that's too far back. Just the beginning of my participation in "A to Z," which was this:
See, there's a link there, so you can go read the intro post if you want to. And here's a list of the topics I covered of things that started out as fiction, started out in some author's mind, made its way onto some paper, worked its way into some reader's mind where it poked and nudged until that person made that thing, that thing that was just made up by someone, into something that is real, something that works, and, often, something that has changed the world. There're all linked, so, if you see one you think you want to know about, you can just go directly to that one without having to wade through all 26. But, you know, if you want to wade through, or swim in, all 26, feel free to do that, too. Oh, and don't be shy about commenting on any of the old posts if you feel so lead. It's not like commenting expires or anything.
NOTE: I did eventually read Snow Crash, prompted by how often it came up while doing research for this series, and I would never recommend it to anyone. You can read my review here.
On the surface, Her is a love story. Under the surface, it's also a love story, but it's not just a love story. Not a love story in the way that we think of love stories. There's no boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back in this. It's more of an exploration about relationships than anything else, but it does it in a fascinating and unique way.
Theodore Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a letter writer. That's his job. He writes letters for people to other people for a company called (something like) Hand-written Letters. This letter writing that he does is, in many ways, a metaphor for the entire movie as the letters are personal letters, sometimes love letters, that he's hired to write (and, in some cases, has been writing for the same people for years and years and knows them extremely well), but he dictates the letters to his computer and they are printed out to look as if they are written by hand.
It's unclear within the context of the movie whether the people receiving the letters know they are written by a third party, but I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't know this since the whole letter writing thing is a "thing." Basically, Theodore facilitates other people's relationships by filling these letters with, what I'll call, manufactured emotions, but he can't maintain his own relationships, which is something we find out at the very beginning of the movie, so no spoiler there. He's in the middle of a divorce with his wife and is distant from his friends.
Now, there will be spoiler issues in the rest of this.
With all of that in mind, it is no surprise that Theodore easily finds himself slipping into a relationship with his new Operating System, the first OS with artificial intelligence. As his wife accuses him later, he can't do relationships with people that are right there in front of him. It's probably why he's so good at the letter writing. And he is good at the letter writing, one of the best, at least. It's no surprise that he finds himself attracted to this physically distant intelligence.
But it does open the door to exploring the idea of "what is a relationship?" What is required for a relationship to be legitimate? Is his love real? Is Samantha's (the OS)? Does she need a body in order to manifest the relationship? And it's not just him, because we get pieces of information in the movie that other people in society are dealing with the same struggles. Or the opposite struggles, as we learn that at least one user has a real hate relationship with his OS.
The movie doesn't really try to answer these questions, which is good. It just shows us that the questions are there and should be considered. Although there are a few concrete answers, one of which is that, at least sometimes, we do need the physical presence of another person. Especially in dealing with loss.
Joaquin Phoenix was great as Theodore. It's a very subdued performance, because Theodore is a very subdued individual. I think performances like this get overlooked because they're not outrageous, but Phoenix is much more believable in his role than, say, DiCaprio as Belfort, which is not to take away from DiCaprio's performance, but I think it's easy to look at a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street and think, "Wow, he was amazing" but forget about roles like Theodore Twombly which rely on conveying emotion rather than exaggerated action. Phoenix was superb at conveying the emotion of Twombly.
Even more amazing, though, was Scarlett Johansson. Everything she did was conveyed through voice only, and it was incredible. I don't think I've really given her a lot of credit in the past for her acting ability, which is not to say that I didn't think she was good; I just didn't think she was, well, better. It's too easy with her to think, "Oh, she got this part because of her looks," and not really credit her for the actual acting. But she's not physically in this movie, and what she did with her voice shows that she is better. She didn't even have the help of animators to convey her emotion; she just had to bring it audibly, and she did. It is actually upsetting to me that she has been dismissed from the Oscar nominations because she wasn't physically in the movie. That's just wrong.
Her is a great movie. It's a thoughtful movie. There are no explosions or car chases or alien invasions. It's sci-fi that could happen. And, yes, it was interesting... but in a good way.
Well, unfortunately, you need to be born in the Q Continuum. Sorry. It's just not gonna work out for you.
Oh, wait!
You meant this Q
Well, that requires that you join the British Secret Service. Maybe. And being able to make nifty spy gadgets.
Oh, no, wait! That's not right, either...
How To Be... a Quantum Mechanic
Okay, so there's really no such thing as a "quantum mechanic." Yet.
However, with quantum communication on the horizon (possibly closer than you think), and quantum computers in development (the first one has already been built), and the possibility of all of this leading to artificial intelligence and robots and warp drive (also in development and has been done on a small scale), I can't think of a better name for the guy that has to come around and fix your tech when it breaks down. I imagine, at first, at least, that this will take a lot more schooling than a trade school.
My advice? Take as much quantum physics as you can. The next generation of technology is coming. It can't hurt to be prepared.
Finally, we arrive to it: robots. So many of these fiction to reality posts have touched on robots or things robotic that I considered just skipping robots entirely, but, for some, that might be tantamount to ending a book just short of the climax and never finishing it. At any rate, robots have been, in many ways, what's driving this series of posts, so it wouldn't be exactly fair to leave them out, and I don't want any self-aware robots coming and asking me why I'd disrespect them in such a way. This post is also going to expand on my artificial intelligence post, so you might want to go back and read that one before going on with this one if you haven't already read it.
In many ways, the quest to develop or invent an "artificial man" has been as ongoing as the quest for flight throughout human history. These ideas extend back into myth and legend, and, as with flight, even Leonardo da Vinci had a design for a mechanical man. Maybe he even tried to build it. Instead of wading through all of that stuff, though, I'm going to jump ahead to our more modern view of what a robot is... except that we don't have a definitive view of what a robot is.
To facilitate the conversation, I'm going to define a robot as an electro-mechanical machine that has the semblance of intelligent behavior. These electro-mechanical machines can range from autonomous to remote controlled. This definition leaves out clockwork machines (which many people would like to say are the first examples of robots, but, then, that would, technically, make a clock a robot, and I'm not willing to go there).
Having said that, I will, however, go with Tik-Tok from Ozma of Oz as the first example of a modern robot in literature. Even though he was a clockwork, he was self aware and self motivating, making him a clockwork robot, not just a clockwork that looked like a man. It would be 15 years after the introduction of Tik-Tok before the word robot would be coined.
Tik-Tok
Speaking of, the term robot was first introduced in 1920 in a play, Rossum's Universal Robots, by Karel Capek. The word, basically, means drudgery, as that is the kind of work the robots in the play did. It doesn't end well for humanity.
As the 20th century progressed, robots became more and more common in fiction:
And, perhaps, the most famous robots ever (okay, not perhaps; we all know they are):
However, of all the fictional appearances of robots, it is probably Isaac Asimov's robot short stories and novels that have been the most significant, not least of all for his Three Laws of Robotics.
Surprisingly enough (at least to me), the first electronic robots were built in 1948 and 1949, Elmer and Elsie. The first truly modern robot was invented in 1954, the Unimate, by George Devol. He sold it to General Motors in 1960, and its installation began the modern robotics industry.
And this is where things get complicated. Complicated because the quest has always been to build an artificial human, not a mechanical arm, which is what the Unimate was. And for the last 50 years, that's what we've been trying to do. We've been trying to build the specific form of a robot that we call an android, which is what Asimov writes about, even if that's not what he calls them. But it is what we call R2-D2 and C-3PO -- droids. And here is where we are today:
This is TOPIO 3.0, an android designed to play ping pong. He uses an advanced AI (artificial intelligence) that allows him to learn and improve his skill while playing. Basically, he adapts to the person he's playing against, learns how that person plays and adopts a strategy to beat the opponent. You can learn more about TOPIO here; although, I don't see a record of his wins and losses listed.
This is an Actroid, the most sophisticated android currently "alive." The newest model is named Sara
You can watch her explain how she works.
So... we're not quite to self aware, self motivating robots and androids, but we are stepping in that direction. In fact, robots are one of the biggest driving forces in AI research. Science fiction author Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky) believes we are heading toward a "technological singularity" (a term he coined) in which we will technologically develop a greater-than-human intelligence. Because we cannot comprehend the kinds of changes that will occur after such an intelligence is created, he calls this an "intellectual event horizon." With all the research and development in quantum computing and quantum nodes, I have a hard time thinking he's wrong. [My friend Rusty (who drew this picture of me) has been going on about Vinge for some time, now, and, so far, I haven't read anything by him. Not because I haven't wanted to, but because I'm way behind on my reading and haven't wanted to try to work anything new into the stack until I cut it down some; however, after reading this stuff, I'm going to have to work Vinge in.] It's not that Vinge is the only person to have written about these themes; we see them in science fiction a lot, usually with a very negative spin on it (the Terminator franchise, the Matrix trilogy), but he is the first to state his view so concisely, and this idea permeates much of his work. It will certainly be interesting to see how the future progresses in regards to artificial intelligence and robots!
The Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
"Artificial Intelligence," as a term, was not invented until 1956, but, as a concept, it goes back much further. As a term, it means the science and engineering of making intelligent machines; as a concept, it means man, through science, creating intelligence where there was none.
Generally speaking, when we think of artificial intelligence, which I will just call AI, we think of computers. Past that, we think of robots. Computers, games in particular, have gotten sophisticated enough that the term AI is already being applied to them even if it's not precisely correct. The thing is is that computers are capable of learning. Adapting. The only real issue is that we're not quite sure, yet, how to determine at what point something becomes capable of thought. Independent thought. Pondering. And how does something become self-aware, which is a component we seem to believe is necessary for intelligence.
At any rate, the idea that computers will achieve the ability to think and become self-aware has been a huge focus of science fiction since before computers were actually a thing. Let's just pretend that that part where humans are trying to build machines that have legitimate intelligence isn't really happening. Or has happened?
Anyway...
Although, Isaac Asimov was not the first person to write about robots, he was the first person to write about them extensively, and his robot stories and novels laid the foundation for all future robot literature. His work is so fundamental, in fact, that people sometimes refer to his Three Laws of Robotics as if they were an actual, real thing, not something from a short story.
I remember the first time I heard of the three laws. It was an episode of Buck Rogers. I was 10 or so. The robot Twiki had had some sort of problem and was being re-booted. He quoted the laws, and the doctor/scientist guy got all excited and commented in awe about how they were hearing (for what sounded like the first time ever) Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
All of that to say, that Asimov has been instrumental in our cultural understanding of what artificial intelligence is even though he was first writing his robots stories at least 70 years before artificial intelligence would exist. His ability to see the possibilities of what could be were extraordinary.
Why has Asimov become such a central figure in the foundation of literature involving artificial intelligence? Well, I think I have an explanation for this. Robots, machine men, were commonly being used as the symbol for how technology and the pursuit of knowledge would destroy mankind. Yes, this is in the 1930s. But, then, if you look at what was going on in Germany and what would happen in World War II, this is somewhat understandable. Basically, robots were only used as an example of the Frankenstein complex: the creation rising up and destroying the creator. Asimov wanted to change this. He felt it was a tired cliche and supported the view that knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge is bad or wrong. First and foremost a scientist, Asimov believed in the pursuit of knowledge, so he sought to make robots into something more realistic in his writing, not just a symbol of technology leading to our downfall. Not that that is not still a common symbol and fear, but he broadened our horizons on the subject and set the foundation for modern artificial intelligence in fiction.
Just as an aside, the character Tik-Tok from Ozma of Oz is probably the first significant use of a robot with its own intelligence in fiction. The term "robot" hadn't even been invented yet. There are a couple of other earlier mechanical men in fiction, but those works have mostly faded with time, while Baum's Oz books are still read and enjoyed today. That makes Tik-Tok the first (significant) artificially intelligent machine in literature.
But speaking of the Frankenstein complex...
I'm going to make a leap here and say that Frankenstein is really the first source of artificial intelligence in literature and fiction. There are often earlier sources cited, but they involve the use of magic, and I want to confine this to intelligence created through scientific means. Of course, the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein was a human machine, but the intelligence created, the mind created, was new and unique. Shelley's novel may be the first example of technology, of man's creation, rising up against him. As mentioned, it is the name that has come to be applied to those types of stories.
I'm not going to say that we, as a race, are striving toward the creation of artificial intelligence because of fiction, but fiction writers certainly saw it coming long before science did. Because our cultural awareness is so influenced by what has gone before, I would find it difficult to believe that whatever is coming in the realms of artificial intelligence will not have fantasy and science fiction at its roots. It will not surprise me at all to find one day that Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have, indeed, become reality.
