Avatar. The Avengers. Iron Man 3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The Dark Knight Rises.
These are five of the top ten all-time highest grossing movies. Their (arguable) inclusion in the Science Fiction canon begs a question of the genre: is it just the spectacle that we shell out to witness, or is there some more primitive itch that these kinds of events scratch?
This blog is dedicated to figuring out how it is that Science Fiction addresses the problem of defining "human."
During Frankenstein and when we first started scifi class I really believed that a fundamental factor of what makes someone human is their desire for community. As I read Liar! I still believed this, but in a different sense. We like to see ourselves reflected in others. The function of community is to fulfill a selfish need. All in all people are very interested in themselves. We like when people like us and we like when we receive positive feedback from others. We seek approval and validation. We want to feel wanted. This is why our friends often have similar interests to us and our partners have similar values.
There is the argument that "opposites attract" and that could be true because people balance each other out and no one is completely like another, but generally similarity is really what draws people together. We looked at studies in social psychology that posed this question and more often than not the results were that it is natural to seek out people that are similar to us more than people who are our opposites.
It feels good to have someone laugh at your jokes or want to watch the same movies as you. In fact, with the friends or family that we are the closest to, we often feel as though they can read our minds and finish our sentences for us, similar to Herbie in the story. The scientists are distracted from the problem of his capability to read minds because they want to believe what he's saying is true. They like him and can almost see him as a helpful friend because he's telling them what they want to hear or expect to hear. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing something in public and you and your friend look at each other and know that the other one is thinking the same thing. Herbie does this for the scientists in this story. It's hard to decline something that is so internally emotionally satisfying. It's hard to break the strong bond between two individuals that this creates.
That could explain why Dr. Calvin is the one to discover that Herbie is doing this. She is the most robotic and unfeeling of all of them so of course she would be the one to decipher that Herbie is still ultimately a robot. On the spectrum of human to robot she is more robotic so it would make sense that she was the one to see Herbie for what he really was. He wasn't a companion, but simply a machine programmed to do what it is supposed to.
Liar! tackles my favorite aspect of Asimov’s stories: navigating the complexities of the seemingly simple and straightforward three laws. Here, defining “harm” becomes a problem.
Harm to a robot seems straightforward enough; the only real concern is physical harm, because if they’re physically hurt, they may not be able to work. Humans make this definition more complex, because mental harm gets thrown into the mix. Feelings and egos can be hurt. What a great wrench to throw in, making robots all the more interesting and complex! Gone are the days when you could take a robot’s word at face value, now one must consider the robots motivations in what it is telling you!
The three laws are not as rigidly defined as we may initially think, Based on definitions and emphases, they can be stretched, twisted and re-interpreted in unanticipated ways; a very human-like trait, but still fundamentally playing by the technical rules.
After reading the Liar story, I leave thinking that while it is sci fi, i just am not sure it is so much that we could talk about and dig deep into in the classroom. I enjoyed reading it, I think it was fun and something easy on the mind, compared to a novel like Frankenstein. I like these kinds of stories because instead of showing the sides of robots when they are first made, and all of the bad parts to them that they contribute tot society, it shows them as just like in the middle of society, as a working part of everyday life. I think that the books that show constant problems with robots are a dime a dozen, and almost repeat each other. It was nice to read something that just took the thought of robots a little lighter than normal.
As far as sci-fi paradoxes go I found the one presented in Liar! to be pretty engaging. At first blush the three laws of robotics appear incorruptible, but they never took into account the different kinds of pain humans can feel, and they definitely never took into account how a robot who can read minds would deal with them. I had the suspicion that Herbie was the "Liar" right after he informed Bogert that, not only had Lanning already resigned as director, but that he also named Bogert his successor, this just following Herbie telling Calvin that Ashe was in love with her as she was with him. It seemed to me that Herbie was just telling them what they wanted to her since he already knew their thoughts. I thought it was interesting that Liar!, much like Robbie did, kind of flips the script on the typical robot narrative. In both of Asimov's stories the humans could be perceived as the villains, and the robots the innocent victims. Robbie was only abiding by the three laws that humans embedded in his circuitry after all. It reminds me of Frankenstein a bit, in the sense that the robots, much like the monster, never asked to be created, but after they were brought into a world they never had a choice in being a part of, their creators turn on them. And if I had any doubts about humans being the villains of this story, they were wiped out after Calvin cruelly destroys Herbie and then whispers "liar" to his metallic corpse. That type of misplaced vengeance is something only a human could think of.
I liked reading this just as much as I did reading “Robbie.” Asimov’s short stories are really entertaining to me and after reading these past two I would definitely read more. Just like in “Robbie,” the robot Herbie did not do any harm to society and that’s why I think I liked reading it. I don’t like reading about robots taking over the world or stuff like that because it’s just depressing and I like to not be depressed. They both showed that they could help society I one way or another. I also liked how it brought up The First Law of Robotics where a robot isn't allowed to hurt a human being. Herbie was far to advanced for a human brain and he knew he would hurt them mentally if he didn't tell everyone what they wanted to hear, so he lied to them. I honestly did not see that coming, but now after reading it and going back to the title I feel like I should have known what was going to happen.
I really enjoyed this story and Asimov’s view of Robots in general. This story in particular really played well into the human question, and showed that even a machine can express humanistic emotions. Though this is mostly conveyed in the style in which Asimov writes this piece, the way Herbie reacts and responds to others would definitely be called human, or at the very least fully adept at human interaction. I also enjoy how Asimov plays on this own laws of Robotics here, as he uses them as a plot device which drives the story’s resolution. Though this case would only be applicable to the situation as such, (novum=mindreading robot) where a robot were to comprehend fully its own actions and the impacts of such actions. If this were the case, then a robot would simply act as a chunk of useless metal, as every action has some additive impact in the world around us. In a sense, a non-time altering Butterfly effect in life. If a robot contained such knowledge of the world/surroundings, then by the first law of robotics it would in a sense cease to function and become silent as Herbie had at the end of the story. Besides the difficulty of it even functioning, Herbie, in my opinion, was likened to that of a child. In this story, simplistically it is a young child and the adults around them going through their own problems. When the adults ask the child as a second opinion they then hear exactly what they want to hear. Completely taking what the child has to say as fact due to their innocence. When confronted later on about lying the child does not know what to do to make them happy and breaks down in the corner of the room. Besides the extremes of the crazy robo-psychiatrist, this in a nutshell poses a great analogy to Asimov’s tale. Perhaps there is a strong child-adult motive Asimov is trying to address between this story and the previous.
There are two things about the story that I really enjoy. The first is in the last page and half, and deals with paradoxes. Paradoxes are something there isn’t an answer to, and Herbie couldn’t answer Dr. Calvin’s question without upsetting Bogert and Lanning. Some paradoxes that are less case-specific and more fun are things like “This sentence is false”. That’s trippy as anything because if the sentence is false it is true? But it’s false? In being true it is false, or maybe the other way around? Now I’m incredibly confused, not as much as Herbie, but confused. That brings me to the second thing I love about this particular story. Herbie is not immediately baffled by the human mind. He knows he is very different, that is brain is positronic, not organic, and that he really doesn’t understand people. But he thinks of them as something to learn about and observe and to protect. This robot has an understanding of mental health (sort of) and tries to keep the people he interacts with from being sad. This blows my freaking mind. Obviously keeping everyone protected from hurt feelings all the time is incredibly unhealthy, and it’s not good in the long run at all, but he was trying. I think that if I was Herbie, I would have gone nuts immediately. People are so complex, and honestly, a little scary. Herbie’s take on the First Law does try to protect them in all ways he knows of, so Herbie’s doing better than the people that go out of their way to emotionally harm people for fun.
Dr. Calvin called him insane, and a Liar. Two things that really only are contributed to humans, I suppose any animal can be deemed insane as well, but let's ignore that so I can keep it at 2. Giving robots the ability to lie and understand emotions is huugee and realy cool. It makes them just like people. And he has interests in fiction too?? I was like whaaat. but what I wish I knew a little more was how robots were usually dealt with. Do they have conversations with them normally? Do they create personal bonds with them? I must know! I want a world like that. It's like adding a race with all of their own stereotypes. But I can own them?! I'll have a robot that just is my buddy and acts as my personal assistant and note taker. I'll name him Deus Ex, but call him Dex for short. "Hey Dex, write this down". God, I'm getting all excited.
This short story I again found really enjoyable. In fact, I was so into the reading and not paying attention that I never even suspected that Herbie had been lying. One would think I would have thought of the most obvious give away – the title – but I was too involved with the story to remember that. I like these simple short stories, as they are just a kind of fun way to pass the time. I found it really interesting that this whole first law of robotics thing (something I was previously completely unaware of, but makes sense) affected Herbie in his relationships and every decision. I thought that the idea of him having an internal struggle of what to do as not to hurt the person he was speaking with actually made him more human, despite the reason why being entirely because he is a robot (the laws). On an aside from the robot aspect, I also liked that these extraordinarily intelligent scientist ended up asking Herbie about simple, self-interest topics rather than more elaborate scientific works. They asked for more answers to typical human desires – does this person have feelings for me as well, will I be promoted as work. I imagine if such scientists had their hands on such an intelligent being that they would have asked for unknown answers to all kinds of complex scientific questions. Instead, even the reason for telepathy is not asked of him until the end. I really liked the twist though – of him being incapable of answering that question though he had known all along, to the point where it became destructive. This is something I also thought made him more human, as sometimes we are in such extreme toss ups as well that our minds can't decide and we choose neither.
Nothing like a good paradox to rattle a story and the characters in it. Herbie can read minds, and that in and of itself is fascinating, much less for a robot to manage this before any organic mind is truly recorded as being able to do the same. It does seem strange to me that a robot can read a mind-- I just think about how we as humans can't make sense of something like binary when it comes to computers. On top of that, there's the whole field of psychology, which attempts to understand the human mind, which we -still- do not get. Even Susan, the psychologist, is perhaps unsurprisingly the target of the worst lie told in the story... but in the story, Herbie can make sense of the human mind and read its thoughts. I do feel like the plot in this story is pushing the envelope a bit much, and that distracted me from most other details I might've noticed while reading.
However, getting beyond that, we see the reason for the title of the story when we discover, starting around page 103 or so in my version, that Herbie has indeed lied out of necessity. Rule one states he cannot harm a human, and thus, to prevent any harm, is forced to lie in certain situations. Then Herbie goes into "does not compute" mode where the robot's head normally explodes in the fiction I'm used to reading, and voila, he's been stuck by the paradox.
The problem I have with all this is like I said- first, he -is- a mind reader. But, apparently only one mind at a time. Second, he's a robot, which, like another human or any other creature on this planet that we know of, cannot fully understand a human mind. Otherwise, perhaps he could have merely been misleading or giving equivocated answers rather than straight up lying to protect people. Thirdly, as a computerized mind, he apparently couldn't calculate the variables of the situation he was in. I'm reminded of when I play Fritz, the world's most well know chess computer program. So many calculations show up on screen, and it can show you the next 10-20 move progression based off of any number of moves to be played in the next turn. If Fritz can do that (obviously the program wasn't around in the '30s,) then it surprises me that Herbie cannot.
I realize this is likely unfair- Asimov had no other computers to base his ideas off of at the time of writing, but still, it seemed his robot in this story was all too easily overwhelmed by Rule One and some good ol' cognitive dissonance.
Honestly I’m not quite sure how I felt about this story. I hated the ending for one; it made me despise Dr.Calvin for treating Herbie in that way when it was legitimately impossible for him to have handled her situation in any other way. Her anger towards him was misplaced and unjust, and obviously I was not a fan of the way she handled it. Aside for feeling sympathetic towards Herbie, I found the overall idea of a lying robot to be very intriguing. It seems that with each story introduced thus far in the course concerning robotics, these machines are described each time as increasingly intelligent and with a greater capacity to understand thought and emotion, thus providing them with rational reasoning skills. It’s a terrifying concept to consider since being lied to is something that everyone fears even in the slightest, and the fact that this story provides a robot that does just that is rather distressing.
During Frankenstein and when we first started scifi class I really believed that a fundamental factor of what makes someone human is their desire for community. As I read Liar! I still believed this, but in a different sense. We like to see ourselves reflected in others. The function of community is to fulfill a selfish need. All in all people are very interested in themselves. We like when people like us and we like when we receive positive feedback from others. We seek approval and validation. We want to feel wanted. This is why our friends often have similar interests to us and our partners have similar values.
ReplyDeleteThere is the argument that "opposites attract" and that could be true because people balance each other out and no one is completely like another, but generally similarity is really what draws people together. We looked at studies in social psychology that posed this question and more often than not the results were that it is natural to seek out people that are similar to us more than people who are our opposites.
It feels good to have someone laugh at your jokes or want to watch the same movies as you. In fact, with the friends or family that we are the closest to, we often feel as though they can read our minds and finish our sentences for us, similar to Herbie in the story. The scientists are distracted from the problem of his capability to read minds because they want to believe what he's saying is true. They like him and can almost see him as a helpful friend because he's telling them what they want to hear or expect to hear. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing something in public and you and your friend look at each other and know that the other one is thinking the same thing. Herbie does this for the scientists in this story. It's hard to decline something that is so internally emotionally satisfying. It's hard to break the strong bond between two individuals that this creates.
That could explain why Dr. Calvin is the one to discover that Herbie is doing this. She is the most robotic and unfeeling of all of them so of course she would be the one to decipher that Herbie is still ultimately a robot. On the spectrum of human to robot she is more robotic so it would make sense that she was the one to see Herbie for what he really was. He wasn't a companion, but simply a machine programmed to do what it is supposed to.
Liar! tackles my favorite aspect of Asimov’s stories: navigating the complexities of the seemingly simple and straightforward three laws. Here, defining “harm” becomes a problem.
ReplyDeleteHarm to a robot seems straightforward enough; the only real concern is physical harm, because if they’re physically hurt, they may not be able to work. Humans make this definition more complex, because mental harm gets thrown into the mix. Feelings and egos can be hurt. What a great wrench to throw in, making robots all the more interesting and complex! Gone are the days when you could take a robot’s word at face value, now one must consider the robots motivations in what it is telling you!
The three laws are not as rigidly defined as we may initially think, Based on definitions and emphases, they can be stretched, twisted and re-interpreted in unanticipated ways; a very human-like trait, but still fundamentally playing by the technical rules.
From Mike:
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the Liar story, I leave thinking that while it is sci fi, i just am not sure it is so much that we could talk about and dig deep into in the classroom. I enjoyed reading it, I think it was fun and something easy on the mind, compared to a novel like Frankenstein. I like these kinds of stories because instead of showing the sides of robots when they are first made, and all of the bad parts to them that they contribute tot society, it shows them as just like in the middle of society, as a working part of everyday life. I think that the books that show constant problems with robots are a dime a dozen, and almost repeat each other. It was nice to read something that just took the thought of robots a little lighter than normal.
As far as sci-fi paradoxes go I found the one presented in Liar! to be pretty engaging. At first blush the three laws of robotics appear incorruptible, but they never took into account the different kinds of pain humans can feel, and they definitely never took into account how a robot who can read minds would deal with them. I had the suspicion that Herbie was the "Liar" right after he informed Bogert that, not only had Lanning already resigned as director, but that he also named Bogert his successor, this just following Herbie telling Calvin that Ashe was in love with her as she was with him. It seemed to me that Herbie was just telling them what they wanted to her since he already knew their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that Liar!, much like Robbie did, kind of flips the script on the typical robot narrative. In both of Asimov's stories the humans could be perceived as the villains, and the robots the innocent victims. Robbie was only abiding by the three laws that humans embedded in his circuitry after all. It reminds me of Frankenstein a bit, in the sense that the robots, much like the monster, never asked to be created, but after they were brought into a world they never had a choice in being a part of, their creators turn on them. And if I had any doubts about humans being the villains of this story, they were wiped out after Calvin cruelly destroys Herbie and then whispers "liar" to his metallic corpse. That type of misplaced vengeance is something only a human could think of.
I liked reading this just as much as I did reading “Robbie.” Asimov’s short stories are really entertaining to me and after reading these past two I would definitely read more. Just like in “Robbie,” the robot Herbie did not do any harm to society and that’s why I think I liked reading it. I don’t like reading about robots taking over the world or stuff like that because it’s just depressing and I like to not be depressed. They both showed that they could help society I one way or another. I also liked how it brought up The First Law of Robotics where a robot isn't allowed to hurt a human being. Herbie was far to advanced for a human brain and he knew he would hurt them mentally if he didn't tell everyone what they wanted to hear, so he lied to them. I honestly did not see that coming, but now after reading it and going back to the title I feel like I should have known what was going to happen.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this story and Asimov’s view of Robots in general. This story in particular really played well into the human question, and showed that even a machine can express humanistic emotions. Though this is mostly conveyed in the style in which Asimov writes this piece, the way Herbie reacts and responds to others would definitely be called human, or at the very least fully adept at human interaction. I also enjoy how Asimov plays on this own laws of Robotics here, as he uses them as a plot device which drives the story’s resolution. Though this case would only be applicable to the situation as such, (novum=mindreading robot) where a robot were to comprehend fully its own actions and the impacts of such actions. If this were the case, then a robot would simply act as a chunk of useless metal, as every action has some additive impact in the world around us. In a sense, a non-time altering Butterfly effect in life. If a robot contained such knowledge of the world/surroundings, then by the first law of robotics it would in a sense cease to function and become silent as Herbie had at the end of the story. Besides the difficulty of it even functioning, Herbie, in my opinion, was likened to that of a child. In this story, simplistically it is a young child and the adults around them going through their own problems. When the adults ask the child as a second opinion they then hear exactly what they want to hear. Completely taking what the child has to say as fact due to their innocence. When confronted later on about lying the child does not know what to do to make them happy and breaks down in the corner of the room. Besides the extremes of the crazy robo-psychiatrist, this in a nutshell poses a great analogy to Asimov’s tale. Perhaps there is a strong child-adult motive Asimov is trying to address between this story and the previous.
ReplyDeleteFrom Em:
ReplyDeleteThere are two things about the story that I really enjoy. The first is in the last page and half, and deals with paradoxes. Paradoxes are something there isn’t an answer to, and Herbie couldn’t answer Dr. Calvin’s question without upsetting Bogert and Lanning. Some paradoxes that are less case-specific and more fun are things like “This sentence is false”. That’s trippy as anything because if the sentence is false it is true? But it’s false? In being true it is false, or maybe the other way around? Now I’m incredibly confused, not as much as Herbie, but confused.
That brings me to the second thing I love about this particular story. Herbie is not immediately baffled by the human mind. He knows he is very different, that is brain is positronic, not organic, and that he really doesn’t understand people. But he thinks of them as something to learn about and observe and to protect. This robot has an understanding of mental health (sort of) and tries to keep the people he interacts with from being sad. This blows my freaking mind. Obviously keeping everyone protected from hurt feelings all the time is incredibly unhealthy, and it’s not good in the long run at all, but he was trying. I think that if I was Herbie, I would have gone nuts immediately. People are so complex, and honestly, a little scary. Herbie’s take on the First Law does try to protect them in all ways he knows of, so Herbie’s doing better than the people that go out of their way to emotionally harm people for fun.
Dr. Calvin called him insane, and a Liar. Two things that really only are contributed to humans, I suppose any animal can be deemed insane as well, but let's ignore that so I can keep it at 2. Giving robots the ability to lie and understand emotions is huugee and realy cool. It makes them just like people. And he has interests in fiction too?? I was like whaaat. but what I wish I knew a little more was how robots were usually dealt with. Do they have conversations with them normally? Do they create personal bonds with them? I must know! I want a world like that. It's like adding a race with all of their own stereotypes. But I can own them?! I'll have a robot that just is my buddy and acts as my personal assistant and note taker. I'll name him Deus Ex, but call him Dex for short. "Hey Dex, write this down". God, I'm getting all excited.
ReplyDeleteThis short story I again found really enjoyable. In fact, I was so into the reading and not paying attention that I never even suspected that Herbie had been lying. One would think I would have thought of the most obvious give away – the title – but I was too involved with the story to remember that. I like these simple short stories, as they are just a kind of fun way to pass the time. I found it really interesting that this whole first law of robotics thing (something I was previously completely unaware of, but makes sense) affected Herbie in his relationships and every decision. I thought that the idea of him having an internal struggle of what to do as not to hurt the person he was speaking with actually made him more human, despite the reason why being entirely because he is a robot (the laws). On an aside from the robot aspect, I also liked that these extraordinarily intelligent scientist ended up asking Herbie about simple, self-interest topics rather than more elaborate scientific works. They asked for more answers to typical human desires – does this person have feelings for me as well, will I be promoted as work. I imagine if such scientists had their hands on such an intelligent being that they would have asked for unknown answers to all kinds of complex scientific questions. Instead, even the reason for telepathy is not asked of him until the end. I really liked the twist though – of him being incapable of answering that question though he had known all along, to the point where it became destructive. This is something I also thought made him more human, as sometimes we are in such extreme toss ups as well that our minds can't decide and we choose neither.
ReplyDeleteNothing like a good paradox to rattle a story and the characters in it. Herbie can read minds, and that in and of itself is fascinating, much less for a robot to manage this before any organic mind is truly recorded as being able to do the same. It does seem strange to me that a robot can read a mind-- I just think about how we as humans can't make sense of something like binary when it comes to computers. On top of that, there's the whole field of psychology, which attempts to understand the human mind, which we -still- do not get. Even Susan, the psychologist, is perhaps unsurprisingly the target of the worst lie told in the story... but in the story, Herbie can make sense of the human mind and read its thoughts. I do feel like the plot in this story is pushing the envelope a bit much, and that distracted me from most other details I might've noticed while reading.
ReplyDeleteHowever, getting beyond that, we see the reason for the title of the story when we discover, starting around page 103 or so in my version, that Herbie has indeed lied out of necessity. Rule one states he cannot harm a human, and thus, to prevent any harm, is forced to lie in certain situations. Then Herbie goes into "does not compute" mode where the robot's head normally explodes in the fiction I'm used to reading, and voila, he's been stuck by the paradox.
The problem I have with all this is like I said- first, he -is- a mind reader. But, apparently only one mind at a time. Second, he's a robot, which, like another human or any other creature on this planet that we know of, cannot fully understand a human mind. Otherwise, perhaps he could have merely been misleading or giving equivocated answers rather than straight up lying to protect people. Thirdly, as a computerized mind, he apparently couldn't calculate the variables of the situation he was in. I'm reminded of when I play Fritz, the world's most well know chess computer program. So many calculations show up on screen, and it can show you the next 10-20 move progression based off of any number of moves to be played in the next turn. If Fritz can do that (obviously the program wasn't around in the '30s,) then it surprises me that Herbie cannot.
I realize this is likely unfair- Asimov had no other computers to base his ideas off of at the time of writing, but still, it seemed his robot in this story was all too easily overwhelmed by Rule One and some good ol' cognitive dissonance.
Honestly I’m not quite sure how I felt about this story. I hated the ending for one; it made me despise Dr.Calvin for treating Herbie in that way when it was legitimately impossible for him to have handled her situation in any other way. Her anger towards him was misplaced and unjust, and obviously I was not a fan of the way she handled it. Aside for feeling sympathetic towards Herbie, I found the overall idea of a lying robot to be very intriguing. It seems that with each story introduced thus far in the course concerning robotics, these machines are described each time as increasingly intelligent and with a greater capacity to understand thought and emotion, thus providing them with rational reasoning skills. It’s a terrifying concept to consider since being lied to is something that everyone fears even in the slightest, and the fact that this story provides a robot that does just that is rather distressing.
ReplyDelete