Final Exam Essays PDF

Preview

Summary

Final exam essays for Professor Mockler's Sci-fi: East and West class....

Description

Alexa Johnson SLAV 0660 Final Exam Essays 1) I think that “R.U.R” and BladeRunner express similar concerns about the future of technology and how it will be able to be used against humans. Both focus on robots and I think they both say a lot about how humans use and abuse technology as a whole and how that will come back to haunt them at some point. In both cases, humans have created a technology (in this case robots) that is used to make things easier for humans. In the case of “R.U.R” the robots are being used to do different types of human labor because “the best sort of worker is the cheapest worker” (Capek, Introduction). To them, robots are technology that they can use to make things cheaper and more efficient for humans so that humans can live lazy and luxurious lives. In BladeRunner, we only get a brief backstory but robots are created and used for the exploration of other planets which the humans eventually come to inhabit and use for their own benefit. In both cases, the robots have been made to be extremely human-like but they do not have the same status as humans. They are simply considered tools for working. BladeRunner focuses less on a revolt of all the robots and focuses instead on a few who come back to earth to get more for themselves. In “R.U.R”, all of the robots revolt and destroy all humans except for one. I think that both speak to the fears we have about the way society abuses technology. As technology becomes more advanced, it becomes more lifelike and we, as a society, become more dependent on it. We are incredibly dependent on technology yet we think of it as nothing special and we feel we are entitled to it. Although we may not be close to having human-like robots (but who knows for sure), the way we use and abuse technological advances is a definite problem. I don’t think much has changed about the concerns between the two texts although we do see a more futuristic element included in BladeRunner that was not in “R.U.R”. In the film, it is more than just robots

that have evolved in terms of technology and we see the effect that has had on the human population. Humans are portrayed as almost sickly and extremely lonely. This can be seen in the example of J.F. Sebastian. He has a health condition and he is almost always alone, but he is able to genetically create “toys” which he considers his only friends. This may speak to the fear that technology will isolate us from one another. We can see in certain scenes that the earth is still extremely populated. The streets are crowded and there is always traffic and hustle and bustle. However, everyone lives alone and we see huge apartment buildings that are virtually empty except for one or two tenants. There are no real examples of friendship throughout the film. So I think that BladeRunner may express an additional fear that this reliance on technology is impacting the way we interact with one another as humans. Overall, I think that both films are speaking to the fear of how reliant we continue to become on technology and the ways in which this could impact our future society. 3) “The Entire History of You” introduced a lot of complicated ideas about truth and memory with the concept the grain. This device is an implant which basically makes it possible for those who have it to recall, examine, or delete any memory they have ever had. I think this episode really showed us the ways in which memory can be distorted and also how they affect our actions and the choices we make. Liam begins to use his grain to try and figure out if his wife, Ffion, is having an affair/is in love with one of her old friends. He begins to replay certain moments between his wife and Jonas and using the tools that the grain has, he is able to closely examine her actions and emotions. He even goes as far as using lip reading technology to decipher conversations Ffion and Jonas were having when he wasn’t around. The more he begins to dig into this, the more paranoid and irrational he starts to become. The more Liam fixates on the relationship between Jonas and Ffion, the more he goes back and distorts his memories with

her. For example, he does a “re-do” of their first time sleeping together when they are disclosing all of their past partners. He realizes that one of the partners Ffion talks about is Jonas and he finds out that she lied about how long they were together. He says that before that moment, that memory had been one of his favorites but now it was ruined. The grain is supposed to help people to recall memories accurately and at their will, but in Liam’s case it ends up ruining some of his favorite memories. I think this story is really trying to speak to why memories aren’t always 100% clear and why they may be distorted or elicit different feelings in our memory than they did at the time they were occurring. The memories we have of events are not always truthful and that is probably for the best. If we were able to recall and examine our memories whenever we wanted like Liam can with his grain, a lot of things would be exposed and not necessarily for the better. It is possible that our subconscious distorts and changes the way we remember things for a reason and there is probably a purpose for it. Imagine if the way we had remembered a certain event was part of the reason you decided to marry or breakup with someone. If you went back with a device like the grain and found out the way you remembered it wasn’t actually the truth, it could impact your whole life and future. Our memories shape us and influence our decisions and I think that we remember them the way that we do for a reason. “The Entire History of You” makes a case for leaving memories as they are and not messing with or distorting them. If Liam hadn’t had grain technology he would never been able to examine Ffion and Jonas’s relationship the way he was able to and certain truths would have remained a secret. It is debatable whether it is better worse that those particular truths remain a secret, but Liam’s mental health at the end of the episode makes the case that it probably would have been better for them to remain memories in the way which we understand the term.

6) I think robots with human-like traits, like we see in “No One” can give us a lot to think about in terms of what it means to be human. When we see robots that function in almost the exact same ways that human do and that can perform the same tasks that humans do, we may wonder what separates us, as humans, from this type of technology. In the story, No One essentially functions as a human. He is purchased as a nanny who is meant to care for Edward because their current nanny is too unreliable. We see other robots basically controlling the house and doing all of the tasks that a human would do. They wash dishes, cook food, clean, take care of Edward, and more. If robots can do all these tasks which we associate with being human, than what separates humans from adults. One distinction between robots and humans that is made clear in “No One” is humans’ ability to read and understand context. No One takes everything at face value and he thinks of everything practically, which is what he is programmed to do. For example, when No One first begins taking care of Edward he says “I do not understand… why the large humans do not attend to you or why you are so small” (244). He cannot understand the concept of parents and children and he also cannot comprehend why Edward’s parents would not take care of him themselves. To be human is to be able to understand the context and meanings in various situations. If No One were a human nanny, he would never question why he was taking care of Edward. Upon being hired, he would probably just assume that it was because of the parents work schedules or because they could not be bothered to take care of him on their own. As humans, we can read situations on a deeper level than technology which just processes things at the most practical level. Humans can also read and understand emotion which I think is another thing that represents what it means to be human. Emotions are an integral part of our existence. No matter how human-like No One may be in the tasks he can accomplish, he cannot understand, interpret, and feel emotions that way that humans can. When humans analyze a

situation, they take the emotional aspect into account and also factor their own emotions into solutions to any situation. No One analyzes situations based on knowledge of his own programming, which does not include emotion therefore he cannot understand emotion the way humans can. I think this is probably also a big part of the reason the context of situations tend to go over his head, because being able to read emotion is such a large part of being able to understand a situation. If we, as humans, could not read and interpret emotions the way we can, it would probably cause a lot of conflict and misunderstanding in almost every situation we face. I think to be human means to be able to read and understand emotions, deeper context, and things that aren’t always clear if you just look at the surface of a situation. “No One” helps us to see that by giving us a robot who is meant to be human-like who functions as a replacement for a human, but who cannot understand these things at all....