Why are we afraid of robots?
Why are we scared of Artificial Intelligence?
Even though robots and AI are products of human imagination & intelligence, the human creative imagination loves to tell stories where in we are warned against Robots / AIs. Why? Why our stories about robots and AI scare us? Is there some deep truths in these narratives? or are they useless apprehensions?
If we look at the stories told to us, we find that we were always warned or scared or told to be afraid of some monsters. The fear of wolves was always narrated to the sheep. The form of wolf keeps on changing. The wolves of the Aesop's fables turns into human-monsters in mythology. The great epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata scared us against crossing the 'Laxman-Rekha' or else be ready to face the Ravanas. The Kansas, the Duryodhanas, the Dushashanas - are remembered time and again so that we remain perpetually scared. In the industrial era, the machines run on electricity were monsters. In the digital era, robots run on artificial intelligence are here to scare us.
Why?
Is it so that the fear of monster strengthen and alerted against impending danger and so we survive today? Is there any direct correlation between fear and survival instinct? Does survival instinct strengthen with fear mechanics?
If so, we should keep on telling stories to be scared of, the stories of monsters. Let the form of monster keep on changing with the advancement in science and technology. Let us move away from the monster of the hell and face the monster of the laboratory. Let us tell the stories to scare us to find a way out.
After all, there is nothing more human than the will to survive.
Let us see these sci-fi short films on AI - Robots to scare ourselves.
1. Ghost Machine: The first one is about babysitter robot who becomes so obsessed of the child that murders the murder. Director: Kim GokCountry & year: South-Korea, 2016
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