[Adam Y.]

I saw a show on scifi that particularly disturbed me about robotics. The show's basic permise was that a doomsday scenario was created for almost every single robot in exisistance. Da Vinci was warped into a torture device, robots that work together was warped into small spies, nanobots and the grey goop scenario, and a giant teleoperated soilder with rocket launchers on it's back. The show did bring up a good point that was the very first thing brought up in the kickoff. Robots are usually the bad guys that take over mankind. It's ironic though because the robot comes from a play where the "robots" take over mankind. Science fiction about robots mainly involves the doomsday scenario despite the works of Asimov and a lot of the Japanese science fiction. So why do you think robotics gets such a bad rap? I have a explanation that I would like to share.

The first one is that this fear is a direct result of the atomic age and was actually cited as allusion to the grey goop scenario. Atomic energy was vastly overhyped during this time period. During this time period people were dying from their daily dose of radium which was thought to be a medicine. This lead to a pessimism of nuclear technology which can still be seen today. Does Homer Simpson ring a bell?

The Japanese also don't seem to have the same trend that I have seen with Americans. They generally tend to embrace robotics and their science fiction shows that. Astroboy tends to show a more friendly view of robots. Could it be a cause from their gerneral isolation from us and the pessimism of technology.