Expert System In Fiction

Expert system is a frequent theme in sci-fi, whether utopian, stressing the possible benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the risks.

The concept of machines with human-like intelligence go back at least to Samuel Butler’s 1872 unique Erewhon. Since then, lots of science fiction stories have actually provided various effects of developing such intelligence, often including rebellions by robotics. Among the very best understood of these are Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey with its murderous onboard computer system HAL 9000, contrasting with the more benign R2-D2 in George Lucas’s 1977 Star Wars and the eponymous robotic in Pixar’s 2008 WALL-E.

Scientists and engineers have kept in mind the implausibility of lots of science fiction scenarios, but have actually discussed imaginary robotics lots of times in artificial intelligence research study posts, frequently in a utopian context.

Background

The concept of innovative robots with human-like intelligence dates back a minimum of to Samuel Butler’s 1872 unique Erewhon. [1] [2] This drew on an earlier (1863) short article of his, Darwin amongst the Machines, where he raised the concern of the advancement of consciousness among self-replicating makers that might supplant humans as the dominant species. [3] [2] Similar concepts were also gone over by others around the same time as Butler, including George Eliot in a chapter of her last released work Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879 ). [2] The creature in Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein has actually likewise been considered an artificial being, for example by the sci-fi author Brian Aldiss. [4] Beings with a minimum of some appearance of intelligence were imagined, too, in classical antiquity. [5] [6] [7]

Utopian and dystopian visions

Expert system is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. [8] It is a recurrent theme in sci-fi; scholars have actually divided it into utopian, stressing the potential benefits, and dystopian, stressing the dangers. [9] [10] [11]

Utopian

Optimistic visions of the future of synthetic intelligence are possible in sci-fi. [12] Benign AI characters include Robbie the Robot, first seen in Forbidden Planet on 1956; Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994; and Pixar’s WALL-E in 2008. [13] [11] Iain Banks’s Culture series of novels portrays a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoids, aliens, and advanced beings with artificial intelligence living in socialist habitats throughout the Galaxy. [14] [15] Researchers at the University of Cambridge have recognized four significant styles in utopian scenarios including AI: immortality, or indefinite life expectancies; ease, or liberty from the need to work; satisfaction, or enjoyment and home entertainment offered by makers; and dominance, the power to protect oneself or guideline over others. [16]

Alexander Wiegel contrasts the function of AI in 2001: A Space Odyssey and in Duncan Jones’s 2009 movie Moon. Whereas in 1968, Wiegel argues, the public felt “innovation fear” and the AI computer HAL was depicted as a “cold-hearted killer”, by 2009 the general public were far more familiar with AI, and the movie’s GERTY is “the quiet rescuer” who makes it possible for the protagonists to be successful, and who compromises itself for their safety. [17]

Dystopian

The scientist Duncan Lucas composes (in 2002) that human beings are stressed over the innovation they are constructing, and that as makers started to approach intellect and idea, that concern becomes intense. He calls the early 20th century dystopian view of AI in fiction the “animated automaton”, calling as examples the 1931 film Frankenstein, the 1927 Metropolis, and the 1920 play R.U.R. [18] A later 20th century approach he names “heuristic hardware”, providing as circumstances 2001 a Space Odyssey, Do Androids Imagine Electric Sheep?, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I, Robot. [19] Lucas considers likewise the movies that illustrate the effect of the personal computer on science fiction from 1980 onwards with the blurring of the limit between the genuine and the virtual, in what he calls the “cyborg result”. He points out as examples Neuromancer, The Matrix, The Diamond Age, and Terminator. [20]

The movie director Ridley Scott has focused on AI throughout his career, and it plays a fundamental part in his films Prometheus, Blade Runner, and the Alien franchise. [21]

Frankenstein complex

A typical portrayal of AI in science fiction, and among the oldest, is the Frankenstein complex, a term coined by Asimov, where a robotic switches on its developer. [22] For instance, in the 2015 movie Ex Machina, the intelligent entity Ava turns on its developer, along with on its possible rescuer. [23]

AI disobedience

Among the many possible dystopian scenarios involving expert system, robotics may take over control over civilization from human beings, forcing them into submission, hiding, or extinction. [15] In tales of AI rebellion, the worst of all scenarios happens, as the smart entities developed by mankind end up being self-aware, turn down human authority and effort to destroy humanity. Possibly the first book to resolve this style, The Wreck of the World (1889) by “William Grove” (pseudonym of Reginald Colebrooke Reade), happens in 1948 and features sentient devices that revolt against the human race. [24] Another of the earliest is in the 1920 play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, a race of self-replicating robot slaves revolt against their human masters; [25] [26] another early circumstances is in the 1934 film Master of the World, where the War-Robot eliminates its own developer. [27]

Many sci-fi disobedience stories followed, one of the best-known being Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: An Area Odyssey, in which the synthetically smart onboard computer system HAL 9000 lethally breakdowns on an area objective and kills the whole team except the spaceship’s commander, who handles to deactivate it. [28]

In his 1967 Hugo Award-winning short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison provides the possibility that a sentient computer system (called Allied Mastercomputer or “AM” in the story) will be as dissatisfied and disappointed with its boring, endless existence as its human developers would have been. “AM” ends up being angered enough to take it out on the couple of humans left, whom he views as directly accountable for his own boredom, anger and unhappiness. [29]

Alternatively, as in William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, the smart beings might merely not appreciate people. [15]

AI-controlled societies

The motive behind the AI transformation is frequently more than the basic quest for power or a superiority complex. Robots may revolt to end up being the “guardian” of mankind. Alternatively, humanity may intentionally relinquish some control, fearful of its own devastating nature. An early example is Jack Williamson’s 1948 novel The Humanoids, in which a race of humanoid robots, in the name of their Prime Directive – “to serve and follow and protect men from damage” – essentially presume control of every element of human life. No people might participate in any habits that might endanger them, and every human action is inspected carefully. Humans who resist the Prime Directive are eliminated and lobotomized, so they may enjoy under the brand-new mechanoids’ guideline. [30] Though still under human authority, Isaac Asimov’s Zeroth Law of the Three Laws of Robotics similarly indicated a humane guidance by robotics. [31]

In the 21st century, science fiction has checked out government by algorithm, in which the power of AI might be indirect and decentralised. [32]

Human dominance

In other situations, humankind has the ability to keep control over the Earth, whether by banning AI, by creating robots to be submissive (as in Asimov’s works), or by having human beings combine with robots. The sci-fi author Frank Herbert checked out the concept of a time when mankind might ban synthetic intelligence (and in some interpretations, even all forms of calculating technology including incorporated circuits) entirely. His Dune series points out a disobedience called the Butlerian Jihad, in which humanity beats the wise makers and imposes a death penalty for recreating them, quoting from the imaginary Orange Catholic Bible, “Thou shalt not make a machine in the similarity of a human mind.” In the Dune books released after his death (Hunters of Dune, Sandworms of Dune), a renegade AI overmind returns to eradicate humanity as vengeance for the Butlerian Jihad. [33]

In some stories, mankind stays in authority over robots. Often the robotics are set particularly to stay in service to society, as in Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. [31] In the Alien films, not just is the control system of the Nostromo spaceship rather smart (the team call it “Mother”), but there are also androids in the society, which are called “synthetics” or “synthetic persons”, that are such perfect replicas of people that they are not victimized. [21] [34] TARS and CASE from Interstellar similarly show simulated human emotions and humour while continuing to acknowledge their expendability. [35]

Simulated reality

Simulated reality has become a common style in science fiction, as seen in the 1999 film The Matrix, which illustrates a world where artificially intelligent robots oppress humankind within a simulation which is set in the modern world. [36]

Reception

Implausibility

Engineers and scientists have taken an interest in the method AI is presented in fiction. In movies like the 2014 Ex Machina or 2015 Chappie, a single isolated genius becomes the first to effectively construct an artificial general intelligence; scientists in the real life consider this to be not likely. In Chappie, Transcendence, and Tron, human minds are capable of being published into artificial or virtual bodies; usually no affordable explanation is used regarding how this challenging task can be attained. In the I, Robot and Bicentennial Man movies, robotics that are programmed to serve people spontaneously produce new objectives on their own, without a plausible description of how this occurred. [37] Analysing Ian McDonald’s 2004 River of Gods, Krzysztof Solarewicz determines the manner ins which it depicts AIs, consisting of “independence and unexpectedness, political awkwardness, openness to the alien and the occidental worth of authenticity.” [38] Another essential perspective to take is that fiction’s “non-rational aspects in the discourse (the emotive, the mythic, or perhaps the quasi-theological) are more than just distortions or diversions from what may otherwise be a sober and rational public debate about the future of A.I.” Fiction can discourage readers about future advances, causing pessimism that we see today surrounding the subject of AI. [39]

Types of reference

The robotics researcher Omar Mubin and associates have actually evaluated the engineering mentions of the top 21 fictional robotics, based on those in the Carnegie Mellon University hall of fame, and the IMDb list. WALL-E had 20 points out, followed by HAL 9000 with 15, [a] Star Wars’s R2-D2 with 13, and Data with 12; the Terminator (T-800) got just 2. Of the overall of 121 engineering mentions, 60 were utopian, 40 neutral, and 21 dystopian. HAL 9000 and Skynet got both utopian and dystopian points out; for example, HAL 9000 is seen as dystopian in one paper “because its designers stopped working to prioritize its goals properly”, [42] but as utopian in another where a real system’s “conversational chat bot user interface [does not have] a HAL 9000 level of intelligence and there is ambiguity in how the computer system translates what the human is attempting to communicate”. [43] Utopian mentions, often of WALL-E, were connected with the objective of enhancing interaction to readers, and to a lower extent with inspiration to authors. WALL-E was discussed regularly than any other robotic for emotions (followed by HAL 9000), voice speech (followed by HAL 9000 and R2-D2), for physical gestures, and for personality. Skynet was the robot frequently discussed for intelligence, followed by HAL 9000 and Data. [40] Mubin and colleagues believed that researchers and engineers prevented dystopian mentions of robots, possibly out of “a hesitation driven by trepidation or just a lack of awareness”. [44]

Portrayals of AI developers

Scholars have noted that fictional developers of AI are extremely male: in the 142 most prominent movies including AI from 1920 to 2020, only 9 of 116 AI developers represented (8%) were female. [45] Such developers are portrayed as lone geniuses (eg, Tony Stark in the Iron Man Marvel Cinematic Universe films), related to the military (eg, Colossus: The Forbin Project) and big corporations (eg, I, Robot), or making human-like AI to change a lost enjoyed one or work as the perfect enthusiast (e.g., The Stepford Wives). [45]

Biology in fiction
Darwin amongst the Machines
Machine guideline
Simulated awareness (sci-fi).
List of synthetic intelligence movies.

Notes

^ Mubin and coworkers kept in mind that the orthography of robot names caused them troubles; hence HAL 9000 was likewise composed HAL, HAL9000, and HAL-9000, and similarly for other robotics, so they thought their search was most likely incomplete. [41] References

^ “Darwin among the Machines”, reprinted in the Notebooks of Samuel Butler at Project Gutenberg.
^ a b c Taylor, Tim; Dorin, Alan (2020 ). Rise of the Self-Replicators: Early Visions of Machines, AI and Robots That Can Reproduce and Evolve. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-030-48234-3. ISBN 978-3-030-48233-6. S2CID 220855726. “Rise of the Self-Replicators”. Tim Taylor.

^ “Darwin amongst the Machines”. Journalism, Christchurch, New Zealand. 13 June 1863.
^ Aldiss, Brian Wilson (1995 ). The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy. Syracuse University Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-8156-0370-2.
^ McCorduck, Pamela (2004 ). Machines Who Think (second ed.). Routledge. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1-56881-205-2.
^ Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta (25 July 2018). “Ancient imagine smart makers: 3,000 years of robots”. Nature. 559 (7715 ): 473-475. Bibcode:2018 Natur.559..473 C. doi:10.1038/ d41586-018-05773-y.
^ Mayor, Adrienne (2018 ). Gods and robotics: myths, machines, and ancient dreams of innovation. Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-18351-0. OCLC 1060968156. cite book: CS1 maint: area missing publisher (link).
^ Poole, David; Mackworth, Alan; Goebel, Randy (1998 ). Computational Intelligence: A Sensible Approach. Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-19-510270-3.
^ Booker, M. Keith (1994 ). “Chapter 1: Utopia, Dystopia, and Social Critique”. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 17, 19. ISBN 978-0-313-29092-3.
^ Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Dillon, Sarah (2020 ). “Introduction: Imagining AI“. In Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Dillon, Sarah (eds.). AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking Of Intelligent Machines. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 10-11. ISBN 978-0-1988-4666-6.
^ a b Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:2.
^ Tegmark, Max (2017 ). Life 3.0: being human in the age of artificial intelligence. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-1-101-94659-6. OCLC 973137375.
^ Goode 2018, p. 188.
^ Banks, Iain M. “A Couple Of Notes on the Culture”. Archived from the original on 22 March 2012. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
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^ Wiegel 2012.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 22-47.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 48-85.
^ Lucas 2002, pp. 109-152.
^ a b Barkman, Adam (2013 ). Barkman, Ashley; Kang, Nancy (eds.). The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott. Lexington Books. pp. 121-142. ISBN 978-0739178720.
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^ Seth, Anil (24 January 2015). “Consciousness Awakening”. New Scientist.
^ “Grove, William”. SF Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
^ Goode 2018, p. 187.
^ Tim Madigan (July-August 2012). “RUR or RU Ain’t A Person?”. Philosophy Now. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
^ “Der Herr der Welt (Master of the World)”. The New York City Times. 16 December 1935. p. 23.
^ Overbye, Dennis (10 May 2018). “‘ 2001: A Space Odyssey’ Is Still the ‘Ultimate Trip’ – The rerelease of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece encourages us to show once again on where we’re originating from and where we’re going”. The New York City Times.
^ Francavilla, Joseph (1994 ). “The Concept of the Divided Self in Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and “Shatterday””. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 6 (2/3 (22/23)): 107-125. JSTOR 43308212.
^ “The Humanoids (based on ‘With Folded Hands’)”. Kirkus Reviews. 15 November 1995. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ a b Asimov, Isaac (1950 ). “Runaround”. I, Robot (The Isaac Asimov Collection ed.). Doubleday. p. 40. ISBN 0-385-42304-7. This is an exact transcription of the laws. They likewise appear in the front of the book, and in both locations, there is no “to” in the 2nd law.
^ Walton, Jo Lindsay (1 February 2024). “Machine Learning in Contemporary Sci-fi”. SFRA Review. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
^ Lorenzo, DiTommaso (November 1992). “History and Historical Effect in Frank Herbert’s Dune”. Sci-fi Studies. 19 (3 ): 311-325. JSTOR 4240179.
^ Livingstone, Josephine (23 May 2017). “How the Androids Took Over the Alien Franchise”. The New Republic. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ Murphy, Shaunna (11 December 2014). “Could TARS From ‘Interstellar’ Actually Exist? We Asked Science”. MTV News. Archived from the initial on 16 November 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
^ Allen, Jamie (28 November 2012). “The Matrix and Postmodernism”. Prezi.com. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
^ Shultz, David (17 July 2015). “Which movies get artificial intelligence right?”. Science|AAAS. doi:10.1126/ science.aac8859. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
^ Solarewicz 2015.
^ Goode 2018.
^ a b Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:15.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:20.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:8.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:10.
^ Mubin et al. 2019, p. 5:19.
^ a b Cave, Stephen; Dihal, Kanta; Drage, Eleanor; McInerney, Kerry (13 February 2023). “Who makes AI? Gender and portrayals of AI scientists in popular movie, 1920-2020″. Public Understanding of Science. 32 (6 ): 745-760. doi:10.1177/ 09636625231153985. PMC 10413781. PMID 36779283. S2CID 256826634.
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Lucas, Duncan (2002 ). Body, Mind, Soul-The’ Cyborg Effect’: Artificial Intelligence in Sci-fi (thesis). McMaster University (PhD thesis). hdl:11375/ 11154.
Mubin, Omar; Wadibhasme, Kewal; Jordan, Philipp; Obaid, Mohammad (2019 ). “Assessing the Presence of Science Fiction Robots in Computing Literature”. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. 8 (1 ). Article 5. doi:10.1145/ 3303706. S2CID 75135568.
Solarewicz, Krzysztof (2015 ). “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made of: AI in Contemporary Sci-fi”. Beyond Artificial Intelligence. Topics in Intelligent Engineering and Informatics. Vol. 9. Springer International Publishing. pp. 111-120. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-319-09668-1_8. ISBN 978-3-319-09667-4.
Wiegel, Alexander (2012 ). “AI in Science-fiction: a comparison of Moon (2009) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 )”. Aventinus.
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External links

AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh, My!: Keynote Address by Robert J. Sawyer 2002
AI and Cinema – Does synthetic madness rule?