NT2.2

I think we are less threatened by robots than the people of Earth, in Asimov’s Caves of Steel. Within this novel the technological knowledge of robots is a reality that the people of 2006 have not yet witnessed. At this point in time people are more concerned with losing jobs to outsourcing or immigrants than to robotic humanoids. I do believe, however, that these concerns are a foil to those that Asimov is describing in Caves of Steel. He wants readers to not see robots just as they are, mechanical beings created to perform tasks, but as whatever relates to our lives. They take the form of whatever threatens us, but I think Asimov wants the reader to leave the novel with a feeling of hope. There is hope for us. We do not need to feel threatened but, rather we should embrace these things that are new to us, which causes us to feel threatened. This example can be seen in the change in Baley. He goes from an anti-robot activist, in the beginning of the novel, to someone that is trying to talk a Medievalist into embracing the robots.

One point I think that is important is that just because something has attributes of a human that doesn’t mean it is human. The only real way that a machine can be human is in the physical sense. No matter how perfect the robot looks it is still a machine. A robot can never be fully embraced as having all the characteristics of a human. This is because, for it to be possible to create a robot, it must be built on a rigid code structure. Baley brings up this point when he is talking to Clousarr. He says, “A robot’s brain must be finite or it can’t be built. It must be calculated to the final decimal place so that it has an end. Jehoshaphat, what are you afraid of? A robot can look like Daneel, he can look like a god, and be no more human than a lump of wood is. Can’t you see that?”(221) The only reason robots really seem to be brought up as a problem is because of their resemblance to human beings. If they looked like what they were designed to do then there wouldn’t be a problem. A robot specially designed to do printing jobs wouldn’t cause as big of a fuss if it just looked like a printer. Dr. Gerrigel brings up this point when Baley is asking him why robots must be humanoid. “You mean, why shouldn’t they be built functionally, like any other machine? The decision was made on the basis of economics… the human form is the most successful generalized form in all nature…Besides that, our entire technology is based on the human form…It is easier to have robots imitate the human shape than to redesign radically the very philosophy of our tools.’ (171-172)” So it comes to mind that if everyone would just look at robots for what they are, machines meant to help make human life easier by doing menial tasks, then there would not be as many problems with people feeling inferior to robots and wanting to do away with them.