Popular robots

On television and in the movies there have been a number of robots which have become widely known to a large audience.

We name but a few here, such as the robot in the in the 1960's series "Lost in space", Commander "Data" in the "Star Trek: New generation" series, and R2D2 and C3PO in the Hollywood productions of "Star Wars".

Robots and androids on television and in films
"Danger, Will Robinson!" B9 - The robot from the popular 1960's television series "Lost in space" (c) CBS.	Lt. Data of Star Trek fame. The android that wants to be human. (c) StarTrek.com
C3PO - a protocol droid for interaction between humans and droids. (c) StarWars.com Droid Archive	R2D2 - an astromech droid. (c) StarWars.com Droid Archive
The Daleks, robot villains in the immensely popular Dr. Who television series. (c) BBC.	Yul Brynner as the robot gone berserk in the film "Westworld" (c) TCM
"Sonny", the NS5 series robot with feelings from the movie "I, Robot" of the book by Isaac Asimov. (c) Fox.

The early robot popularity reached a peak in the 1950's and early 1960's American movies with robots landing from outer space to invade the Earth or to do the opposite - make friendly contact. Other robots accompanied humans to Mars and other planets in series and films.

Comic strips featured robots as good-natured and extremely handy companions to have on your side when fighting evil as well as evil robots built by mad scientists bent on destroying cities or the world.

Science fiction writers, most notably Isaac Asimov, made robots a specialty, incorporating them into many of his stories, even accrediting them with the future destiny of mankind as a whole in his "Foundation" series. Isaac Asimov also wrote the three laws of robotics which are to prevent humanoid robots from turning on their masters.

As such the robot has "enjoyed" a reasonably high profile to the general audience with few people in the West not being familiar with this man-made machine.

The fact that we are now entering an age where these robots are becoming a reality makes many of us question the direction robot technology should take.

Whether in books, the movies or in television series, robots have either been portrayed as beneficial to humans or enemies of. As such they are obviously built in the image of their creators, showing much of the same characteristics. Cause to worry? Perhaps.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21