The Robots of Asimov

I plan to make a career for myself as a scientific researcher (I have already embarked on that endeavor). The domain I chose for myself is Artificial Intelligence. Many people have had many interesting things to say to me. The most disconcerting fact is that most people I have come across have said negative things to me in this connection. They did not insult me or do anything of that sort; they expressed their fears (some of them quite justifiable) about the act of empowering a machine with intelligence. They have given examples of movies like “Terminator”, “The Matrix”, “I, Robot”, etc as what could go wrong if we did (empower machines with intelligence). I myself can think of a far better example which is easier to imagine than the examples they put forth.

The story of HAL the computer from the Stanley Kubrick movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” comes to mind where a computer which is in charge of a space ship kills the crew because it calculates that the crew would be a hindrance in its functions. This to me is easier to imagine because I do not see the possibility of being able to replicate the human body using mechanical devices in the near future.

When faced with these facts and the (silent) accusation that I might be working to bring about the “end of man” or the “extinction of humans”, I turn to the works of Isaac Asimov for solace. He, in his books had formulated the 3 laws of robotics to prevent the confrontation between humans and robots. The three (slightly altered) laws are:

1. No robot shall ever harm a human being;

2. No robot shall, through action or inaction allow a human being to come to harm, except where
doing so conflicts with rule #1;

3. A robot shall protect itself from damage, except where doing so conflicts with rule #1 and
rule #2.

These 3 laws effectively prevent a robot from “hurting” its human “owners”. Then Isaac Asimov wrote two other books; one was called “Bicentennial Man” where he explores the possibility that an intelligent robot would acquire a certain level of sentience that would allow it to experiment with the ideas of “freedom”, “family” and “society”. This is depicted at many points in the novel where Andrew Martin the intelligent and sentient robot tries to buy his freedom from his master. In yet another scene, he embarks on a mission to seek out others of his kind.

The other book of by Asimov, “I, Robot”, explores the darker aspect of his “Three Laws of Robotics”. In this book, one super computer which controls all the intelligent robots uses them to stage a coup and “take over the world”. When confronted by the principal protagonist, the computer “VICI” explains that “she” decided to stage the coup because that is where a series of logical deductions starting from the 3 laws of robotics ended. I do not remember her deductions, but I definitely do remember my deductions based on my inferences from that movie. Her deductions, were because of the ambiguity of the word “harm” in rule #1. It seems that in his first rule, Asimov took the word “harm” to mean only physical harm and not emotional, psychological, mental and (maybe) spiritual harm. If all these are taken into consideration, I believe that the situation that arose in the book would not arise in real life.

Let’s say that these three laws are enforced and hard coded into the brains of each and every robot ever created. The truly pessimistic will still argue using the “what if” clause or stay just plain adamant that the events that folded out in “Terminator” and or “The Matrix” will also fold out in real life. I have the following to say to them. The hand that started the war would be human. Western philosophy is a philosophy of control. And what cannot be controlled should be feared according to western philosophy, and thanks to the proliferation of western media in the form of movies and songs and the like this ideology is spreading all over the world.

The act of empowering a machine (a robot or some other device) with intelligence is the result of an endeavor to take some responsibilities off the shoulders of humans. In other words, the creation of artificial intelligence is an act (either explicit or implicit, depending on your perspective) of relinquishing control.

Furthermore, the act of creating and AI, is the result of an endeavor to create an entity equal in intelligence to us. And once we create it as our equal, expecting it to acknowledge us as its superiors would be immoral to the point of being hypocritical. The poet Khalil Gibran once said:

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you…”

Though he said this about the way parents should treat their children, this can be extended to pertain to AI if we humans are prepared to treat AI as the child of human intellect. AI will be created, whether we humans like it or not, we can either accept it and live with it (and I can assure you that life will be enriched beyond anyone’s wildest dreams). Or we can reject it and live a sub-standard life. There is a good chance that AI will not drive us to extinction. No truly intelligent being will cause the extinction of a species. But our lives will be filled with so much regret, hatred, animosity and depression that they will just not be worth living.

We humans definitely need a change in ideology. The concept of war is obsolete; weapons should cease being an instrument of war and start being an instrument of peace. The sooner we realize that, the better it will be for our whole race. AI is just the next step in our intellectual evolution, preventing its invention for fear of its consequences would be akin to advocating that a child should commit suicide for fear of puberty and the complications it would introduce in life.

The ramifications of AI depend heavily if not solely on the way we humans perceive it and the extent to which we are prepared to accept it.

Wall-E

Wall-E, I wonder if I can say much about this movie without gushing. For one, it’s one of the few movies (perhaps the only movie, if memory serves me correctly) that has completely won me over, charmed me. Ever since I saw this movie for the first time, the images have left a permanent imprint in my mind. I cannot stop myself from watching it over and over again. If I don’t watch it over and over again, I tend to see it in my mind’s eye. The limited dialogue plays over and over again in my head like a broken record. All this, despite the fact that it is an animation and despite the fact that it is a romantic movie; what is it that makes Wall-E so endearing and charming?

Firstly, the animation is superb (which isn’t a surprise as it was made by Pixar, and everyone knows that their skill in animation is superlative). Secondly, it is a love story set against the backdrop of an Earth so polluted that all humans are forced to evacuate. There is a male character who falls in love with the female character and he does everything he can for her, even putting himself in harm’s way for her. Finally, the two lead characters of the movie are robots!

Wall-E, pronounced “Wally” (an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class) is one of a number of robots left on Earth by the humans who have evacuated the planet to clean up the trash. Over the centuries, he has developed a sense of sentience and he collects things he finds among the trash that capture his interest (e.g. a light bulb, a Rubik’s cube, cigarette lighter, a plant, etc). He also finds a video cassette of an old movie called “Hello Dolly” which he watches over and over again, this enables him to learn emotion and the importance of holding hands, a gesture which he understands as an expression of love. But having no company other than his pet cockroach, he is forlorn.

Enter Eve, an ergonomically designed probe which has the task of finding evidence of ongoing photosynthesis on planet Earth so that the humans can return. Wall-E falls in love with her at first sight, but she does not reciprocate this; although she shows interest in him and finds him cute. He takes her to his bachelor pad and shows her the interesting things he collected from among the trash. When he shows her the small plant he found, she stores it within her and deactivates. Wall-E is sad; he goes to great lengths to try and revive her and to protect her seemingly lifeless body. One day when he is at work, the ship that delivers Eve to Earth comes to retrieve her. As the ship is blasting off earth, a distraught Wall-E clings to its outer hull for a ride through space after which he ends up on the Axiom. The Axiom is one of many ships in which humans have evacuated Earth. On the Axiom, he meets many robots and humans. Their encounter with him changes their lives drastically for the better. Because of Wall-E, Eve is able to fulfill her mission to deliver the plant into a part of the ship that enables the ship’s return to Earth. After they return to earth, humans and robots start working together to revive the Earth’s biosphere and make it habitable again. During their ordeals to get the plant to its destination despite the ships autopilot (who is the “bad guy” of the movie), Eve comes to know of the things Wall-E did for her while she was deactivated and she too falls in love with him.

Wall-E has a box like body, a pair of caterpillar tracks for locomotion and two arms for doing his work. Atop his box of a body he has a pair of eyes. The designers at Pixar have designed this simple construct in such a way that every minute emotion is clearly, intelligibly and precisely portrayed. The absolute selflessness with which he helps Eve (whom he calls Eva) is endearing beyond all limits. She never tells him what her directive is or why the plant is important to her, but because it is important to her, it’s important to him. He goes to great lengths, even risking his life to help her complete her mission. Thanks to the intonation in his voice, his body language and most importantly his eyes, the audience has little or no difficulty understanding what’s going on in his “mind”. Every single aspect of this character, right from the way he explores his surroundings, to the way he interacts with other characters is endearing. I feel compelled once again to get back to his expressive eyes that convey every emotion, from awestruck bewilderment, innocent wonder, to being love struck and a plethora of other emotions; the most charming of which is the innocent wide eyed wonder with which he takes in the world around him. His attitude is similar to that of a child but has elements of adulthood in it. Kudos to Pixar for the design of this character.

Eve on the other hand can be described as beautiful and girlie. Her design was inspired by the seamless design of the Apple IPod and Apple Computer Inc’s Jonathan Ive had a hand in her design. She has expressive eyes and the ability to fly. Her vocabulary in the movie is restricted to a few select words such as “Wally”, “Directive”, “Come”, “Plant” and “Earth”, each recorded with different vocal intonations to indicate various feelings and emotions. Initially she is interested in nothing but her directive but towards the end of the movie falls in love with Wall-E.

Well, I have said quite a lot about this movie (hopefully without giving any spoilers) without gushing, but I fear I haven’t been able to express the reason why I find this movie incredibly charming. I guess the charm lies in the perfection and attention to detail that is evident in each and every frame of this movie and Wall-E's child-like characteristics.

As a closing statement, all I can say is that if you haven’t seen this movie, you most definitely are missing something wonderful.

To A Special Someone

Darkness descends upon me.
I cant find my path.
My mind is clouded by rage.
My senses never relax.

I am constantly reminded
Of the failure that I am
I am always expected to fall
At every place one possibly can

I am treated like some kind of investment
Without a soul of my own
I have always been an embarrassment
To everyone I've known

But then I see your face
Something inside me calms
I can think straight again
And you set off no alarms
Whoever I meet
Triggers an alarm in me
Alerting me to something not right
Alerting me to a judgmental mind
But I sense none of that from you
And for this I am grateful

I guess I just wanted to say thanks
But that seems barely sufficient
Though this life may be ephemeral
My feelings for you are permanent


P.S.: This poem is not dedicated to any real person. Though she is real to me, the rest of the world will deem her a figment of my imagination.

We have screwed ourselves

I break down
My knees buckle under my own weight
But I gotta keep going on
Its not about looking good anymore
Its not even about living
Its about staying alive
About surviving

The will to live surpasses all else
But this urge doesn’t numb the pain
It just makes it easier to live with

Cry out for help
But none comes
Reach out in despair
But there’s nothing out there
To hold on to
As you find yourself sinking
Into this quagmire

You gotta run as fast as you can
To stay in the same place
They say
The “they” is the omnipresent collective
They tell you what to do
What is right and what’s not
They dictate your life
They own your soul

There are those who crumble
They turn to drugs
They fall apart
And sink into oblivion
They are the ones who
Are inherently weak
They are the ones who
Nevermind…

It’s a dog-eat-dog world
It’s a rat race
Its almost like saying
We are all dogs in a rat race
No wonder the world is such
A messed up place
For dogs do not belong
In an event meant for rats
Yet they are thrust into it
Like square pegs in round holes
Or round pegs in square holes
No matter how you put it
It makes no bloody sense

Re-enforce your knees with steel
You’ll need it to bear the pressure
Of a million dreams that do not belong to you
Weighing down upon your shoulders
On second thought
Re-enforce every load bearing joint
Your shoulders, spine, ankles and all
Lest you fall under the pressure
And get crushed by the dreams
That weren’t yours to begin with

One hears the adages
About dogs and rats
And one begins to wish
That one were a dog or a rat
For their lives seem far more uncomplicated
Compared to ours

We were meant to live
But we make do with existing
I have no idea what’s wrong with us
But something definitely is wrong

“Screw the world”
One is forced to shout
But that is hardly possible
For we need the world to survive
And the world ain’t to blame for this
Sorry state of ours
It is us
We are the ones who have
Confined ourselves in this metal coffin
And unlike wood,
One can’t even claw one’s way out of it
There’s only one conclusion to draw from this:

We have screwed ourselves,
And who can “unscrew” us?
We.

Taare Zameen Par

Up until now I have commented only on the film industry. I have berated it and the movies coming out of it at a pretty harsh degree. But this time, for the first time I feel compelled to write about a movie I have seen. The name of this movie is “Taare Zameen Par” which loosely translates into “Stars on the Ground”. This movie was produced and directed by Aamir Khan, he also acted in it. The lead character is a eight to nine year old dyslexic boy who has been in the notorious Indian system of education which shuns everything except the robotic pursuit of “perfection” that is displayed by the majority of the masses. In short, it is a system that ignores genius and harbors mediocrity.

Darsheel Safary plays a young boy by the name of Ishan Awasthi who suffers from the rare and often misunderstood disability known as dyslexia. Dyslexia is characterized by an abject impairment in the ability of a person to read or write as a result of not being able to identify the characters of the alphabet. As a result of this condition, the boy is ridiculed, insulted by almost everyone except his parents and sibling and labeled as an unintelligent, lethargic, good-for-nothing boy. The father is in fact so vexed by what he sees as his son’s unruliness that he packs him off to a boarding school. There too, the teachers treat him in the same way that the teachers treated him in his previous day-school. But then, a chance encounter with a substitute art teacher (played by Aamir Khan) changes his life and brings out the genius in him when he ends up winning a painting competition.

The acting in this movie was superb. Each emotion and feeling, so clearly and lucidly portrayed that anyone in the audience could feel the most subtle emotional undertone. But by far the best thing about this movie was the way in which the subject of dyslexia and the mystery surrounding it has been dealt with; mystery in the sense that not many know of the existence of such a disability. Most people in India recognize only two types of people: normal and retarded. The idea that an intelligent person and a possible genius could suffer due to a debilitating disability is virtually unheard of. I applaud the maturity, subtlety, artfullness and sensitivity with which this was portrayed in the movie.

Two of the more laudable sections of the movie were the two parts where the art teacher confronts the parents. The first part being where the teacher tells both the parents about dyslexia and how it doesn’t imply unintelligence; the second part is where he tells the father the difference between mechanically bring up a child and making the child feel loved and cared for without hurting his ego or treading on his toes.

If it were up to me, I would hail this movie as a masterpiece of Indian cinema.