Amanda Fuentes
Prof. Rowley
Eng. 114B
2/23/2012
Fine Line Between Human and Robot
When you think of humans becoming like machines what’s the first thing that you think
of? I personally, think of the Sci Fi movies where a power hungry scientist or doctor pushes the
boundaries of basic living by creating something that does not need to be created, robotic life.
Does it make the human race lazy to have such advanced technology but not fully understand the consequences that may or may not come with it? Where should we draw the line on
“technology”? Can there be more to humans becoming like machines than just what we see in
Sci Fi movies? What about a person that had lost their leg due to an unfortunate accident, but had a prosthetic leg put on as a replacement, that would qualify as a human becoming a machine
wouldn’t it?
If you’ve seen the movie The Surrogates with Bruce Willis, then you know how humans
had their own personalized robot created for them and they could control it from the comfort of
their own home. This creation was not even necessary but at the time seemed like a good idea. Yes, it was a huge hit, and yes 90% of the population used a surrogate, but what happens when the other 10% becomes enraged enough to kill just to end the surrogate phenomenon. The longer the robotic loving humans used their surrogates the more dependant they became on them and the more vulnerable these people would become to the people who stood against the surrogate. Imagine having a robot that made you look like a Victoria’s Secret model, would you give it all up just because one surrogate operator was murdered through the use of the surrogate? In this case of humans being like machines it’s a bad thing because it’s obviously addicting and it puts lives in danger.
Maybe you’ve seen the movie I Robot with Will Smith where robots were created to help
the human race, but in the end they learned that they had the upper hand on strength and
scholastics which ended up doing more harm than good. The man responsible had nothing but
good intentions when creating the robots, but he also had no idea that what he was creating
would be so uncontrollable and eventually overpower everything he had set out to do. The main
brain of the operation became too powerful and took control over everything by ordering the
murder of the only person who knew something was wrong and was the only one who knew how to correct the mistake made. In this example of humans becoming like machines we see that having technology that is too advanced for us to comprehend is extremely dangerous. Even if we think we’re benefiting ourselves we could cause the death of innocent people or even the creators. In the end of that movie we discovered that what at one point was a miraculous creation is now a horrible and despicable creation. So even if we feel the need to build robots to do every day jobs that human’s do it’s probably a bad idea since robots cannot be like people and will cause more damage than good.
The movie The Terminator with Arnold Schwarzenegger is almost the same as I Robot
but in movie The Terminator the robots are built to aid us in battle and help protect us. Like I
Robot, this movie has robots that try to take over power but unlike I Robot these robots are
bigger and armed. When building these robots people don’t see the damage they’re causing, even if it’s not meant to cause harm people need to take into consideration that things go wrong or that things don’t always go as planned. For example no one thought ahead and thought about how smart these robots could become after already filling them with ridiculous amounts of knowledge. And strapping them with advanced weapons was probably not the smartest decision either.
Those movies are examples of how humans are becoming like robots or robots
becoming more like people but those are movies, not exactly accurate, reliable information. If we step outside of the Sci Fi world and want to see humans actually becoming like machines we should look at people with prosthetic limbs. Prosthetic is a Greek work meaning
attachment/application and a prosthetic limb is an artificial device extension that replaces a
missing body part. Say a person was in a horrible car accident and had their leg stuck in the door and by the time the fire department got it free there was no way of repairing the damage. The doctors then would need to amputate the dead leg and stitch up the rest. With the help of a
plastic, metal, or fiber glassed designed leg they (in most cases) can live the life like they had
before, and unlike the movies they will not become extremely intelligent or super deadly and
fight us for power.
We are so advanced in technology that now days there are types of prosthetic limbs that
can be attached to a missing arm and have wires connected to your brain and the signals from
your brain actually move the prosthetic arm as you would if your arm was still there. If a person
had a robotic prosthetic limb like this then it would be designed exactly to fit that person’s body
and be connected to that person’s brain. These types of prosthetic limbs are a lot more
complicated and are still in the developmental stages so we don’t really see them that much, but the thought is fascinating. We can let our imaginations wander and guess that since they’re
connected to our brains they could somehow take over a person’s mental state, but that’s highly unlikely.
People that have prosthetic limbs may in fact be part robot and may even look different
but with the proper rehab they can do almost anything they could do before. The movie industry
shows us how humans becoming like machines can be a scary event but doctors show us that
being part robot can be better than being an incomplete human. Yeah with a prosthetic limb a
person becomes part robot but we should not be worried about them trying to take over the world any time soon.
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