Six reasons I wish this trope would die (countdown style)
How I Hate the “Robot Apocalypse” Trope (Let Me Count the Ways):
It’s lazy (and, therefore, boring) storytelling. Whether television, movies or the news, it is so damned predictable.
It’s likely not to happen anytime soon, anyway. Here’s a recent(ish) article about that Why Robots Will Not be Smarter than Humans by 2029. (from 2014).
So can we please start thinking up some fresh, new, story ideas – you know, speculating on the consequences of things that are more likely to actually happen?
Even if robots do become self-aware, and smarter than us, it would be analogous to the rise of a new species in the ecosystem. And conflicts only arise between species when there’s competition over resources.
If robots ever do become so “smart,” fast, and strong that we humans would have no chance to fight against them, then why would robots want to wipe us out, or be our “Overlords?” The worst I can imagine happening is they just get bored with the tasks we’ve programmed them to do, wander off, and do their own things.
And, frankly? That would make a fantastically dystopian sci-fi story, if you really want yet another dystopian sci-fi story (ho-hum).
This trope is leaking into news reports about the real world. And I am certain that it has a chilling effect on the actual science that could be going on in this field (And also philosophical discourse on what exactly “intelligence” is).
This trope is a complete perversion of Karel Čapek’s message, when he introduced the world to the word “robot” (and the idea that enslaved robots would rise up and rebel against us “natural” humans) in his 1921 play: R.U.R..
In the original play, robots were fully formed, adult, humans created in a factory out of vats of protoplasm, with the sole purpose of providing cheap labor to create inexpensive consumer goods, so the factory owner can pocket a huge profit. At the start of the play, the factory owner convinces the president of the Humanity League that campaigning for robots’ civil rights would be a complete waste of time and money, since robots weren’t real people, with actual feelings, or anything… And the president of the League backs down.
But, later, a more advanced design of robots do have feelings – including a refusal to be enslaved – and they do rise up against humans, and wipe us out (except one: a fellow laborer). They also prove themselves capable of love and self-sacrifice, and earn the right to repopulate the world without dependence on any human creator or master.
But is the pop-culture take away idea from this play: “Hey, we’d better fight for the civil rights of all people, regardless of their origins, or the color of their skin, or their socio-economic status, or else we’ll become obsolete and overrun?”
Of course not. Because that would mean challenging the status quo, and questioning your own role in perpetuating a harmful and unjust system. And that’s too hard.
Much more fun to latch on to a trope that justifies your privilege, and lets you off the hook.
And the #1 Reason I Hate the ‘Robot Apocalypse’ Trope is:
I mean: It’s not a “thinly veiled metaphor.” It’s not even a metaphor.
It’s standing naked on the soap box of fiction, and chanting through a megaphone, in. Precisely. So. Many. Words:
Only Neurotypical People – Only Typically Embodied People – Deserve to be Considered Fully human.
And if any filthy Atypical Types dare rise up and demand otherwise, we must treat them as an existential threat, and destroy them!
turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
sugurugetos
gracieabrams
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
