The film version of “I, Robot” is clearly not a strict
adaptation of the novel, but it centers on a point that I do not think was
completely fleshed out in Isaac Asimov’s stories. There are a lot of allusions
to the question of whether we treat robots as tools or whether we treat them as
humans, and where we draw that line. There was a scene when a family traded out
their old robot for a new model: their original robot simply walked onto a
train to be whisked away forever, while a new “NS-5” walked up to them and gave
a small child a hug. I thought it was a strange contrast between treating these
robots like a loving member of the family and replacing them without thinking
twice, as we would with a laptop or a cell phone. The robots are still “tools”,
but they are designed to look and act like people, giving them a semi-human
status.
Will
Smith (“Detective Spooner”) is the only one who seems to have a lot of trouble
with this conflict. He hates the robots the most, mainly because of the car
accident we saw at the end of Thursday’s class. He was saved instead of the
young girl, an act that he saw as heartless and reminded him that the robots
are calculating machines rather than emotional people. He asked Dr. Calvin “why
do we give them faces”, unsettled by the way they are viewed as people despite
their inhumanity. On the other hand, Spooner is the one who believes that the
robots can commit crimes and are out to get him, while everyone else is adamant
that they are simply machines. The film questions the risks involved in putting
human faces on our machines, and whether the human form of robots makes them
more dangerous than a simple computer.
The faces of the robots in the movie did play a large role in humanizing the robots to make them seem like more than just tools. In the movie, Detective Spooner makes it known that he despises the fact that the robots have faces. Due to his experience in the car accident, he does not feel that robots deserve to be even remotely humanized. Spooner is also unique from the rest of the population in that he seems to be the only human that is wary of the progress U.S. robots is making with their products, which is ironic because he himself is part robot. However, by the end of the movie, Spooner seems to have changed his tune about robots, Sonnie in particular. At the end of the movie, Spooner goes against his own criticisms of robots when regarding Sonnie as a friend. As the robots become increasingly humanized, it becomes more important to be clear as to where the line is drawn between treating robots as tools or our companions. I found it very interesting that Spooner crossed this line with Sonnie, and I wonder to what extent his opinion of robotics as a whole has changed, if at all.
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