«Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition,Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle.By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes fromTwilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novelNever Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’sPhysicsandDe Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse- the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human.This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.» [Quatrième de couverture]
Format: Monographie
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Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film and Popular Culture: Reinventing Yesterday’s Slave with Tomorrow’s Robot
«Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture: Reinventing Yesterday’s Slave with Tomorrow’s Robot is an interdisciplinary study that seeks to investigate and speculate about the relationship between technology and human nature through popular culture. Imagining Slaves and Robots in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture seeks to gain a better understanding of how slaves are created and justified in the imaginations of a supposedly civilized nation. It is a timely and creative analysis of the ways in which we domesticate technology and the manner in which the history of slavery continues to be utilized in contemporary society.» [Abstract]
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Robot Zombies: Transhumanism and the Robot Revolution
«How advanced is the technology that exists today, what are we using it for, and can machines turn on their human creators? What is transcendence and why will we all be familiar with it? Technology is growing exponentially and the moment when it merges with the human mind, called “The Singularity,” is visible in our imminent future. Can humans, limited by slow biological evolution, compete with synthetic intelligence? Science and technology are pushing forward, transforming life as we know it–perhaps even giving humans a shot of immortality. Who will benefit from this? Where did the idea of robots originate and why are humans fearful of decision-making robots that may be able to create goals and objectives, and work toward achieving them? This book examines the history and future of robotics, artificial intelligence, zombies and a Transhumanist utopia/dystopia integrating man with machine. How did it all begin, and what’s in store for humans today, in the near future, and in the distant future? Haze and Eguino explore the fascinating role of artificial intelligence from a practical human perspective and discover that the mind-altering process necessary to accept and integrate with the inevitable is already underway, molding human consciousness.» [Quatrième de couverture]
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Robots
«Robots are entering the mainstream. Technologies have advanced to the point of mass commercialization—Roomba, for example—and adoption by governments—most notably, their use of drones. Meanwhile, these devices are being received by a public whose main sources of information about robots are the fantasies of popular culture. We know a lot about C-3PO and Robocop but not much about Atlas, Motoman, Kiva, or Beam—real-life robots that are reinventing warfare, the industrial workplace, and collaboration. In this book, technology analyst John Jordan offers an accessible and engaging introduction to robots and robotics, covering state-of-the-art applications, economic implications, and cultural context. […] Jordan chronicles the prehistory of robots and the treatment of robots in science fiction, movies, and television—from the outsized influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (in which Asimov coined the term “robotics”). He offers a guided tour of robotics today, describing the components of robots, the complicating factors that make robotics so challenging, and such applications as driverless cars, unmanned warfare, and robots on the assembly line. […] Roboticists draw on such technical fields as power management, materials science, and artificial intelligence. Jordan points out, however, that robotics design decisions also embody such nontechnical elements as value judgments, professional aspirations, and ethical assumptions, and raise questions that involve law, belief, economics, education, public safety, and human identity. Robots will be neither our slaves nor our overlords; instead, they are rapidly becoming our close companions, working in partnership with us—whether in a factory, on a highway, or as a prosthetic device. Given these profound changes to human work and life, Jordan argues that robotics is too important to be left solely to roboticists.» [Quatrième de couverture]
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Robot Ecology and the Science Fiction Film
«This book offers the first specific application in film studies of what is generally known as ecology theory, shifting attention from history to the (in this case media) environment. It takes the robot as its subject because it has attained a status that resonates not only with some of the key concerns of contemporary culture over the last century, but also with the very nature of film.» [Quatrième de couverture]
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Robots et intelligence artificielle
Quelques ouvrages récents inscrivent l’intelligence artificielle dans le sillon de l’histoire du robot et de la créature artificielle.
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The American robot : a cultural history
«As Dustin Abnet shows, the robot-whether automaton, Mechanical Turk, cyborg, or iPhone, whether humanized machine or mechanized human being-has long been a fraught embodiment of human fears. Abnet investigates, moreover, how the discourse of the robot has reinforced social and economic inequalities as well as fantasies of social control. “Robots” as a trope are not necessarily mechanical but are rather embodiments of quasi humanity, exhibiting a mix of human and nonhuman characteristics. Such figures are troubling to dominant discourses, which cannot easily assimilate them or identify salient boundaries. The robot lurks beneath the fears that fracture society.» [Quatrième de couverture]
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Generation Robot: A Century of Science Fiction, Fact, and Speculation
«Generation Robot covers a century of science fiction, fact, and speculation—from the 1950 publication of Isaac Asimov’s seminal robot masterpiece, I, Robot, to the 2050 Singularity when artificial and human intelligence are predicted to merge. Beginning with a childhood informed by pop-culture robots in movies, in comic books, and on TV in the 1960s, to adulthood where the possibilities of self-driving cars and virtual reality are daily conversation, Terri Favro offers a unique perspective on how our relationship with robotics and futuristic technologies has shifted over time. Peppered with pop-culture fun-facts about Superman’s kryptonite, the human-machine relationships in the cult TV show Firefly, and the sexual and moral implications of the film Ex Machina, Generation Robot explores how the techno-triumphs and resulting anxieties of reality bleed into the fantasies of our collective culture.» [Quatrième de couverture]
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Les automates. Figures artificielles d’hommes et d’animaux. Histoire et technique.
Cet ouvrage couvre l’histoire, les descriptions et les mécanismes de nombreux appareils mécaniques, tels que les statues mobiles, les boîtes à musique, les jouets mécaniques et les horloges de fantaisie.