Technophobia and Robot Agency in Asimov’s I, Robot

«pl.it / rassegna italiana di argomenti polacchi», 2016

Far from being enthusiastic “modernolatry” of Italian futurism, Polish futurism demonstrates an attitude of ambivalence toward modernity. This is particularly evident in the Polish approach to that very synecdoche of modernity which is the machine. In his essay of 1923, the leader of the group, Bruno Jasieński, compares the fetishistic cult of the machine, which characterizes the Italian approach, with the utilitarian one of the Russians, exemplified by a quote from Majakovskij. To these two propositions, as a sort of Hegelian synthesis, he adds a Polish one consisting in the conception of the machine as a prosthesis, a continuation of the human body. Thereby he introduces an idea later known as “cyborg”. The category of cyborg is also useful to understand the work of another today almost forgotten Polish writer of the Twenties, Jerzy Sosnkowski. He was the author of a short novel, A Car, You and Me (Love of Machines), in which a whole chapter concerns the chief character’s dystopian nightmare wherein machines take control over the world. The third section of the essay deals with the idea of man a machine – an old, 18th century conception, which became actual anew in the 20th century and whose traces we can find among others in a well-known poem by Tytus Czyżewski. Thirty years before N. Wiener, Polish modernists seem to have sensed the social, political and anthropological implications of the mechanization of work.

TIEES 2023 Trends and Innovations in E-business, Education, and Security Eleventh Intemational Scientific Web-conference of Scientists and PhD students or candidates, 2024

This paper explores the origins and diverse irnplications of the terms "artificial intelligence" and "robot," highlighting their evolution and the rnisconceptions surrounding their use. The term "artificial intelligence" was officially coined by John McCarthy in 1956, although the concept had been explored earlier by Alan Turing and others in the field. This term encornpasses a broad spectrurn of technologies and applications, often rnisrepresented in the rnedia as a singular entity, leading to widespread rnisunderstanding. Sirnilarly, the term "robot" was popularised by Karel Capek and initially described hurnan-shaped rnachines, evolving in its application frorn its Slavic root rneaning "labour" to signify various autornated devices. The paper also delves into Isaac Asirnov's significant contribution to the discourse through his literary works, rnainly focusing on his portrayal of robots with "positronic brains" and the ethical and philosophical dilernrnas they present. Asirnov's fictional laws of robotics are discussed about real-world applications and regulatory challenges in artificial intelligence and robotics. The study underscores the disparity between Asirnov's idealistic visions and the pragrnatic issues of integrating AI systerns into society, advocating for a nuanced understanding and responsible developrnent of AI technologies.

Ambiances, 2019

This article addresses the House of Soviets, the most prominent building in the centre of Kaliningrad, Russia. Using Juhani Pallasmaa’s theory of “sixth sense”, the building is seen through notions of atmospheres and diffusion, rather than the focused attention implied by its formalist construction. Local people have nicknamed the building the “monster” or “robot”, for its giant size and forbidding appearance. However, its status as an urban ruin implies spatial and temporal meanings that have “humanized” the building. The article focuses on the experience of urban exploration in the House of Soviets for one afternoon in the spring of 2013 with two Kaliningrad residents. This paper avers that the changing form of the House of Soviets in its state of decay promotes its appreciation as a work of art as it falls apart. Decrepitude and pillage, vandalism and littering are reclaiming the space as it promotes sensory imagination and engagement with “the terror of time”. The article includes photographs taken while exploring the building. Cette publication porte sur la Maison des Soviets, le bâtiment le plus réputé au centre de Kaliningrad, en Russie. Par le biais de la théorie du sixième sens de Juhani Pallasma, cette construction est perçue à l’aide des concepts d’ambiances et de diffusion, plutôt que selon une attention portée sur sa construction formaliste. La population locale a surnommé ce bâtiment le « monstre » ou le « robot », de par sa taille géante et son apparence hostile. Toutefois, son statut de ruine urbaine implique des significations spatiales et temporelles qui l’ont « humanisé ». Cet article se concentre sur l’expérience d’exploration urbaine réalisée dans la Maison des Soviets lors d’un après-midi, en 2013, accompagné de deux habitants de Kaliningrad. Cette publication cherche à affirmer que la forme changeant de la Maison des Soviets, dans son état de délabrement, valorise sa reconnaissance en tant qu’œuvre d’art alors qu’elle s’effondre. La décrépitude et les pillages, le vandalisme et le dépôt d’ordures réhabilitent cet espace tout en mettant en avant l’imagination sensorielle et l’engagement envers la « terreur de l’époque ». Cet article inclut des photos prises lors de l’exploration du bâtiment.

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2021

The article shows how language means were used by famous American science fiction writer Isaac Asimov to humanize the image of robot in his "I, Robot" story collection and, consequently, what was the purpose of that humanization. It is supposed that the image of robot in Asimov's stories is halfmetaphorical; it combines the traits of machines as well as human beings in order to reveal and investigate two approaches to realitymachinery and humane.

Alternate Routes, 2020

Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research

A hallmark of modernist thought is the belief in science and technology as a socially revolutionary force. Consequently, new technologies have often been sequenced by pictures of another world to be. The birth of electronic data processing (EDP) was no exception. Provoking both hopes and anxieties, EDP and its subsequent process of automation has, ever since the launch of the first electronic data processing machines in the early 1950’s, been a cornerstone for countless extravagant visions of the future, such as the thought of an ever so impending “Robot Revolution”. This article builds from the basic assumption that visions of the future draw on notions of what at a given time is considered socially and politically desirable, unwanted or at all possible. It thus argues that the robot revolution could be studied as a form of reified anticipation through which possible social trajectories are made symbolically comprehensible. Focusing on the automation debate of the Swedish 1950’s, I...

Cultural Critique, 2012

In this essay, I will explore the complex ways Isaac Asimov's fiction both engages with and disavows race. Looking mainly at his robot stories -- especially those collected in I, Robot (1950) and the most popular of the Dr. Susan Calvin stories -- I will show how Asimov's robots engage with the legacy of slavery as well as with contemporary racial issues. On the one hand, Asimov's robot stories and novels explicitly draw on tropes of black servitude, such as the way robots are routinely addressed as "boy" and older models call humans "master," or the parallels between the logic of slave codes, Jim Crow laws, and the Three Laws of Robotics. On the other hand, Asimov was a committed social liberal, skeptical of Golden Age editor John W. Campbell's tendency to, as Asimov put it, "take for granted, somehow, the stereotype of the Nordic white as the true representative of Man the Explorer, Man the Darer, Man the Victor." His stories often questioned the logic of all prejudice, and he even wrote a non-fiction book, Races and People, popularizing the work of his friend William C. Boyd, which the cover claims will convince the reader "that there is no such thing as a 'superior race.'" On yet a third hand (this is science fiction, after all), Asimov resisted the notion that his works were allegories for race. His characters, while not the Aryan engineers favored by more conservative Golden Age authors, were nonetheless privileged users of technology, working out the proper ethics for using their power, and grappling with their unfortunate prejudices; they were, in other words, characters who shared a science fictionalized version the white liberal perspective. Ultimately, this chapter will explicate the racial context into which Asimov's stories were written, offer examples of how to unpack the racial politics of the Robot stories, and situate Asimov's engagement with race in a larger discussion of the racial politics of science fiction and technoculture.

Yönetim ve Ekonomi, 2022