Abstract
Ideas of artificial men or thinking machines have pervaded legend and literature from the earliest times (1). It is perhaps only in the last twenty years or so, however, that technologies such as industrial robots and artificial intelligence have been developed which appear to have the potential to realize these ideas (2). The expression of such ideas and reactions to them have been diverse, embracing both the brightest Utopian and darkest dystopian themes, and discussions are found in many different contexts, ranging from myth to critiques of current technology.
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Notes and References
See H. M. Geduld and R. Gottesman (eds.), Robots, Robots, Robots, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1978
J. Reichardt (ed.), Robots: Fact, Fiction and Prediction, London: Thames and Hudson, 1978
and J. Cohen, Human Robots in Myth and Science, London: Allen and Unwin, 1966.
Industrial robots and artificial intelligence have provided the most advanced examples of developments towards practical robotic constructs, although other areas of cybernetics and even genetic engineering are certainly of relevance as well. For a discussion of the potential of these other areas see: I. Aleksander, The Human Machine: A View of Intelligent Machines, St. Sapherin, Switz.: Georgi Publ., 1978
F. George, Man the Machine, London: Paladin, 1979
and D. Rorvick, As Man Becomes Machine, London: Abacus, 1975.
See the surveys referred to in Note 1, and also P. S. Warrick, The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980.
Warrick, ibid.
These themes are readily apparent in the surveys already noted as well as in many other reviews, such as ‘the cybernetic society’, Ch. 6 of J. Griffiths, Three Tomorrows: American, British and Soviet Science Fiction, London: Macmillan, 1980.
C. Bloch, ‘The Making of the Golem’, in Geduld and Gottesman, op. cit., 1978 (Note 1), pp. 41–43.
M. W. Shelley, Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus, London: Dent, 1963 (originally 1818), p. 51.
Ibid., Ch. 17.
S. Butler, Erewhon, London: Dent, 1963 (originally 1872), p. 141. For Butler’s discussion of machines see Chapters XXIII, XXIV, and XXV of Erewhon and also an earlier piece, first published as a letter in 1863: S. Butler, ‘Darwin Among the Machines’, in Geduld and Gottesman, op. cit., 1978 (Note 1), pp. 137–140.
For ‘non-fiction’ accounts suggesting that man will bring into being a superior race of machine beings, see P. Davies, Stardoom, Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1979, pp. 164–168
R. Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
See for example, I. Asimov, ‘The Last Question’, in his Opus, London: Granada, 1982, pp. 73–87. In this story computers become more and more advanced, as the entropy in the universe increases to a maximum. At this point the computer figures out how to restore everything and says “let there be light”, and there was light.
Shelley, op. cit., 1963 (Note 7), Chapter 11–15.
K. Čapek, R. U. R. (Rojsum’s Universal Robots), a play in three acts and an epilogue, in the Brothers Čapek, R. U. R. and the Insect Play, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961 (originally 1923).
J. Williamson, The Humanoid Touch, London: Sphere Books, 1982.
J. Williamson, The Humanoids, London: Sphere Books, 1977 (originally 1948).
See Asimov’s comments in the introduction to his collection of short stories, The Rest of the Robots, London: Granada, 1968.
I. Asimov, The Naked Sun, London: Granada, 1960.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955, (originally 1932), p. 17.
Y. Zamyatin, We, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972 (originally 1920).
I. Levin, The Stepford Wives, in Omnibus edition, Nightmares, London: Michael Joseph, 1981 (originally 1972).
Ibid., p. 199.
John Cohen discusses these roots — op. cit., 1966 (Note 1); and also in The Lineaments of Mind (in Historical Perspective), Oxford: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1980. In particular he notes that the Greek ‘Automaton’ is paradoxical in that it is used to connote both determinism and also acting of one’s own will: “In the conception of a robot we seem to touch the limits of man regarded as fully determined by forces outside him, and also the limits of man as a creature of chance. We seem obliged to see him as autonomous or self-determining, as self-programming, as a computer scientist might say. This being so, man, we could provisionally conclude, is an object of study by others, but he is also a subject of study by himself of himself.” Ibid., pp. 27–28.
P. K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, London: Granada, 1972.
I. Asimov, ‘The Bicentennial Man’ in his collection of stories The Bicentennial Man, London: Granada, 1978, pp. 164–207.
See for example, I. Asimov, ‘Evidence’ in I, Robot, London: Granada, 1968, p. 169: “… the three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world’s ethical systems. Of course every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self preservation. That’s Rule Three to a robot. Also every ‘good’ human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority; to listen to his doctor, to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to a custom — even when they interfere with his comfort or his safety. That’s Rule Two to a robot. Also, every ‘good’ human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his like to save another. That’s Rule One to a robot.”
I. Asimov, ‘That Thou Art Mindful of Him’, in Asimov, op. cit., 1978 (Note 23), pp. 79–105.
Ibid., p. 104.
Pierre Boule is better known for his books Monkey Planet (1966), the basis for the film The Planet of the Apes, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, (1954), also made into a film.
P. Boule, ‘The Perfect Robot’ in Geduld and Gottesman, op. cit., 1978 (Note 1), pp. 225–231.
S. Lem, The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age, London: Seeker and Warburg, 1975. Lem’s championing of robots versus men is even clearer in another collection by Lem: Mortal Engines: Electronic Escapades in the lands of tomorrow, New York: Avon Books, 1977.
Consider also: “He began thinking about the innocence of machines, about how man had made them an accomplice of his mad adventures. About how the myth of the golem — the machine that rebelled against its creator — was a He, a fiction invented by the guilty for the sake of self-exoneration.” S. Lem, Tales of Pirx the Pilot, London: Seeker and Warburg, 1980, p. 206.
For example, see C. Shannon and J. McCarthy (eds.), ‘Automata Studies’, Annals of Mathematics Studies No. 34, Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956.
Lem, op. cit., 1975, Note 29, pp. 253–254.
Ibid., p. 286.
C. Woesler de Panafieu, ‘Automates: A Masculine Utopia’, draft paper presented to Meeting on Science and Utopia, ZIF, Bielefeld, Germany, Dec. 1982.
For example, I. Asimov, ‘Feminine Intuition’ in Asimov, op. cit., 1978 (Note 23), pp. 15–40.
For example, L. Brackett, ‘The Dancing Girl of Ganymede’ (originally 1949), in A. H. Norton (ed.), The Award Science Fiction Reader, New York: Award Books, 1966, pp. 106–138
E. E. Kellett, ‘The Lady Automaton’, (originally 1901) in A. K. Russell (ed.), Science Fiction by the Rivals of H. G. Wells, Secaucus, N.J.: Castle Books, 1979, pp. 349–363.
L. del Ray, ‘Helen O’Loy’ (originally 1938) in Geduld and Gottesman, op. cit., 1978 (Note 1), pp. 216–222.
Ibid., p. 221.
This association is made explicit in several stories about robotic automobiles with feminine personalities. See R. Zelazny, ‘Devil Car’, in B. W. Aldiss and H. Harrison (eds.), Decade the 1960s, London: Pan Books, 1979, pp. 166–180
and I. Asimov, ‘Sally’, in The Complete Robot, London: Granada, 1982, pp. 7–24.
In particular, see B. Easlea, Fathering the Unthinkable: Masculinity, Scientists and the Nuclear Arms Race, London: Pluto Press, 1983. Easlea’s use of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a basis for this analysis of the masculine nature of science, points up the symbolic importance of robots or man like constructs.
“The instrumentalisation of rationality, its separation from morality” was identified by M. Winter as one of the conditions leading to a negative Utopia in ‘The Explosion of the Circle’, draft paper presented to Meeting on Science and Utopia, ZIF, Bielefeld, Germany Dec. 1982, p. 18.
E. F. Keller, ‘Visions of Science Through a Feminist Lens’, draft paper presented to Meeting on Science and Utopia, ZIF, Bielefeld, Germany, Dec. 1982, p. 20.
Warrick, op. cit., 1980 (Note 3), p. 237.
Although admittedly perhaps not completely seriously: I. J. Good, ‘The Social Implications of Artificial Intelligence’, in The Scientist Speculates: An Anthology of Partly-Baked Ideas, London: Heinemann, 1962.
C. Sagan, ‘In Praise of Robots’, in Geduld and Gottesman, op. cit., 1978 (Note 1), p. 167.
There are few adequate overviews of the area though textbooks are now becoming common, for example A. Bundy et al., Artificial Intelligence: An Introductory Course, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972.
For a discussion of the dynamics of development in the area in the U.K., see J. Fleck, ‘Development and Establishment in Artificial Intelligence’, in N. Elias et al. (eds.), Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies, Sociology of the Sciences, Vol. VI, 1982, pp. 169–217.
See G. W. Ernst and A. Newell, GPS: A Case Study in Generality and Problem Solving, New York: Academic Press, 1969.
This approach is embodied in the Expert Systems Methodology. See D. Michie (ed.), Expert Systems in the Microelectronic Age, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979
and D. Michie (ed.), Introductory Readings in Expert Systems, London: Gorden and Breach, 1982.
H. P. Nii and N. Aiello, “AGE (Attempt to GEneralise): A Knowledge Based Program for Building Knowledge Based Programs”, Proceedings of the 6th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence 79, Tokyo, 1979.
A. P. Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954
J. R. Bright, Automation and Management, Boston: Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1958
and R. M. Bell, Changing Technology and Manpower Requirements in the Engineering Industry, Brighton: Sussex University Press, 1972.
R. Zermeno-Gonzalez, The Development and Diffusion of Industrial Robots, unpub. Ph.D. diss. University of Aston in Birmingham, 1980, Vol. I, p. 48.
Ibid.
Also see J. F. Engelberger, Robotics in Practice, London: Kogan Page, 1980.
J. F. Engelberger, ‘A Robot Factory Worker’, New Scientist 29 (3 Feb. 1966), p. 270. There has been a continuing debate on the issue of more specialized systems with minimal robotic elements rather than stand-alone general purpose devices.
See J. F. Engelberger, ‘Stand-Alone VS. Distributed Robotics’, in G. G. Dodd and L. Rossol (eds.), Computer Vision and Sensor-Based Robots, New York: Plenum Press, 1979, pp. 263–270.
Interview (by R. Zermeno-Gonzalez): R. F. Cakebread, Unimation Ltd., Telford, 29 Nov. 1978.
British Robot Association, ‘Robot Facts, December 1982’, BRA, Kempston Bedford, 1983.
See J. Fleck, ‘The Introduction of Robots — Managerial and Organisational Problems’, Proceedings of the PEMEC 83 Conference, Birmingham, June 1983, pp. 1A-4-1–1A-4-9.
For example the Horizon program, ‘Better Mind the Computer’, London: BBC TV, 21 March 1983.
Asimov himself suspects that he may well be remembered in the future for these contributions, rather than anything else — see ‘The Time Travellers: Isaac Asimov is Interviewed by Christopher Evans’, in G. Hay (ed.), Pulsar 1, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978, p. 81.
Warrick, op. cit., 1980 (Note 3), p. XV.
For example, Unimation, the worlds leading robot manufacturer only made its first profit in 1975, and more recently on account of the recession and further investment exigencies went back into the red for the last quarter of 1982 and the first quarter of 1983. For an account of the factors facilitating and inhibiting the adoption of robots, see J. Fleck, ‘The Adoption of Robots’, Proceedings of the 13th International Symposium on Industrial Robots, Vol. I, Chicago, April 1983, pp. 1-41–1-51.
See the listing of manufacturers in the BRA Members Handbook 1982/1983, Bedford: British Robot Association, 1982.
J. Fleck, ‘Development and Establishment in Artificial Intelligence’, in N. Elias et al. (eds.), Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies, Sociology of the Sciences, Vol. VI, 1982, pp. 169–217
Empirical studies find little evidence of labor resistance (see Fleck, op. cit., 1983, Note 59) and this is borne out by the testimony of the robot manufacturers, notably J. F. Engelberger of Unimation who in his numerous addresses nearly always makes the point that problems of resistance derive from management rather than labor (he made this point in his keynote address to Automan 83, Birmingham, May 1983, for example). In fact, the enthusiastic reception given to the exciting new technology appears to prevail at the level of the workforce as well.
In fact robots have been used as indicators of national technological progress. See ‘Study of the Adoption of Automation and Control Technology in the UK, Germany and Sweden’, London: Systec Consultants Ltd., 1980.
This is surprisingly common. In 19% of cases of a study of adoption in the U.K., the decision to invest in robots was taken before a particular application had been found, and before therefore the economics could be appraised. J. Fleck, ‘Robotics in Manufacturing Organisations’, in G. Winch (ed.), Case Studies of Technological Change, London: Rossendale, 1983.
See A. M. Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’, Mind 59 (1950) 433–460.
N. S. Sutherland, ‘Machines like Men’, Science Journal 4 (10), (1968) 44–49.
I. J. Good, ‘Speculations Concerning the Fust Ultra intelligent Machine’, in F. L. Alt and M. Rubinoff (eds.), Advances in Computers, Vol. 6, New York: Academic Press, 1965, pp. 31–88.
E. Fredkin in BBC Horizon programme, op. cit., 1983 (Note 62).
For example: “The employment of Unimates frees the human worker of drudgery, so that he can learn new skills and apply his latent talents to better ability in areas where a robot would be inadequate”, in ‘Industrial Robots: A Major Breakthrough in Automation’, Telford, U.K.: Unimation Glossy Brochure, late 1970s, p. 2. It is worth noting here that cost justification of robotic installation is almost always worked out on the basis of pay back on labor savings alone.
See Fleck op. cit., 1983 (Note 65).
For example: “But don’t they take away jobs? Robots raise productivity and create wealth — which helps employment. Ignoring them has the reverse effect and, in the long term, can put jobs at risk. Remember that Japan has more robots than anyone, and less unemployment. There is little evidence so far that the introduction of robots has led to redundancies. The jobs that robots do are those that are boringly repetitive and are often in unpleasant — if not dangerous — conditions. They are jobs that are traditionally difficult to fill and in which turnover is high, and in some cases the first demand for the robot has actually come from the workers themselves. Employment is likely to be more secure in firms that employ robots, than in those that don’t”. in ‘A Human Guide to Robots’, London: Department of Industry and Central Office of Information, 1982, pp. 3–4.
Stanley Kubrik consulted many experts as well as Minsky: H. L. Dreyfus, What Computers Can’t Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence, New York: Harper Colophon, 1979, p. 80.
W. O. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community, New York: Basic Books, 1965, pp. 211–220.
J. Mayhew gave a particularly passionate plea for due concern to the time constraints in what is a very difficult problem, in a presentation on Vision and Image-Processing at Tutorial Meeting on Methods of Artificial Intelligence for Industrial Robotics, IEE, London, Oct. 1982.
H. L. Dreyfus, op. cit., 1979 (Note 78).
A. Newell and H. A. Simon, ‘Computer Simulation of Human Thinking’, the Rand Corporation, P-2276, April 20, 1961, p. 9.
Quoted by Dreyfus op. cit., 1979 (Note 78), p. 155.
Dreyfus, ibid., pp. 155–156.
M. L. Minsky, ‘A Framework for Representing Knowledge’, in P. Winston (ed.), The Psychology of Computer Vision, New York: McGraw Hill, 1975, pp. 211–277.
For a later account of Polanyi’s position see M. Polanyi, ‘The Logic of Tacit Inference’, Philosophy 41 (1966) 1–18. Andrew Hodges comments on the meetings in Manchester between Polanyi and Turing in his biography of Turing: Alan Turing: The Enigma, London: Hutchinson, 1983.
H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, London: Sphere Books (Abacus), 1972, p. 119.
J. Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason, San Francisco: Freeman, 1976.
Such models have been developed, notably by K. M. Colby, using a similar system to Weizenbaum’s ELIZA: K. M. Colby, S. Weber, and F. D. Hilf, ‘Artificial Paranoia’, Artificial Intelligence 2 (1971) 1–26.
Winter, op. cit., 1982 (Note 40).
For example D. Michie, ‘Problems of the Human Window’, talk given to ‘AISB Summer School on Expert Systems’, Edinburgh University, July 1979. Michie’s views are distributed throughout his many articles and their concise expression is found in his oral lectures.
SACON, Structural Analysis CONsultant interfaced with a complex software package used in the design of aircraft wings. Reported by E. A. Feigenbaum at ‘AISB Summer School in Expert Systems’, Edingburgh University, July 1979.
See Michie, op. cit., 1979 (Note 50)
and M. A. Bramer, ‘A Survey and Critical Review of Expert Systems Research’, in R. D. Parslow (ed.), Information Technology for the 80s, London: Heyden and Sons, 1981, pp. 481–576.
The Alvey Report (‘A Program for Advanced Information Technology’, HMSO, 1982) identified Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems (IKBSs) as one of four key areas, and proposed some £26m. over five years to develop it. Patrick Jenkin, the Secretary of State for Industry, in his statement to the House of Commons on the Government’s intentions to substantially accept Alvey’s recommendations commented: “... This is the first time in our history that we shall be embarking on a collaborative research project on anything like this scale. Industry, academic researchers and Government will be coming together to achieve major advances in technology which none could achieve on their own.” See J. Alvey, ‘UK Response to the “fifth generation”’, Electronics and Power, May 1983, 387–389.
E. W. Dijkstra, ‘Programming: From Craft to Scientific Discipline’, Proceedings of the International Computing Symposium, 1977, Liege, Belgium, April, 1977, pp. 23–30.
M. A. Boden, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978
See also M. A. Boden, Minds and Mechanisms: Philosophical, Psychological and Computational Models, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981.
The resolution of these conflicts was also the hope of Norbert Wiener in Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961 (originally 1948).
Boden, op. cit., 1978 (Note 96), p. 473.
A burgeoning literature is witness to the excitement raised by the artificial intelligence approach. See D. C. Dennet, Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978
R. L. Gregory, Mind in Science: A History of Explanations in Psychology and Physics, London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1981
D. R. Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1979
M. de Mey, The Cognitive Paradigm: Cognitive Science, a Newly Explored Approach to the Study of Cognition Applied in an Analysis of Science and Scientific Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1982
G. L. Simons, Are Computers Alive, Brighton: Harvester Press, 1983
D. Sleeman and J. S. Brown (eds.), Intelligent Tutoring Systems, New York: Academic Press, 1982
A. Sloman, The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy of Science and Models of Mind, Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1978. Hofstadter has also introduced artificial intelligence ideas, including an outline of the LISP programming language, in his Scientific American column ‘Metamagical Themas’ (an anagram of ‘Mathematical Games’, the title of the column when produced by Martin Gardner), Scientific American, Vol. 244 (Jan. 1981) — Vol. 249 (July 1983).
See Fleck, op. cit., 1982 (Note 45).
Winter, op. cit., 1982 (Note 40), p. 10.
J. C. Davis, ‘Science and Utopia: The History of a Dilemma’, this volume, p. 21.
Cf. F. Capra, The Tao of Physics, London: Fontana, 1976.
Davis, op. cit., this volume, p. 21.
O. Wilde, ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, London: Collins, 1966 (originally 1895), p. 1089. This quote follows a passage describing the positive Utopian view of machinery as slaves for man.
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Fleck, J. (1984). Artificial Intelligence and Industrial Robots: An Automatic end for Utopian Thought?. In: Mendelsohn, E., Nowotny, H. (eds) Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science Between Utopia and Dystopia. Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6340-5_10
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