Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam. -Fred Pohl

Science fiction is an incubator for imaginative minds to create visions that help us to glimpse not only the future, but also something about ourselves in the present. Fueled by the extrapolation of "what is" into "what can be", science fiction transports us beyond the horizon of our current technologies enabling us to observe the possible incarnations of scientific progress and to experience and appreciate the many ways this may impact upon us. For example, George Orwell's classic work, 1984, introduced the notion of an omnipresent "Big Brother" and served as a focal point for discussion about our attitudes, perceptions, hopes and fears about technology, society, and how they intertwine.

For those interested in AI, science fiction offers a window to the future, a mirror for the present, and even interesting career opportunities.

Good Places to Start

They make mistakes -- they're only inhuman. By Peter Howell. Toronto Star (June 20, 2004). "The artificial women of mythical Stepford would be right at home with the artificial men of I, Robot, another movie out this summer about a brave new world of people living with sentient machines. ... The Stepford Wives and I, Robot are cautionary tales of the perils of allowing humans to be stripped of their humanity, which happens when you replace emotional people with thinking but unfeeling machines. The concept of the perfect mechanical being has long both fascinated and repelled us. ... Call it fear of robots, and it's one of the most enduring of all sci-fi psychoses. Czech playwright Karel Capek first used the term 'robot,' in his 1921 work R.U.R. about mechanical humans who rebel against their masters. The popular play was an inspiration for George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. But long before Capek and Orwell, the concept of the non-human humanoid was on the mind of artists. The Greek poet Homer wrote in The Iliad, more than 2,500 years ago, about the creation of the female figure Pandora, a name meaning 'all gifted.' She is crafted out of clay at the instruction of the god Zeus, and appears to be a gift beyond compare. ... Movies have become our most popular way of dramatizing our fear of robots, and have long been so.... Yet still we have faith in machines, because we desire the world of peace, order and leisure they offer us."

One pill makes you smarter. By Loey Lockerby. Kansas City Star (May 2, 2003). "Fantasy stories (including science fiction, fantasy-adventure and horror) usually rely on metaphor to make their points, allowing them to come at their subjects in more indirect ways. ... For instance, 'X-Men' isn't just about hyper-evolved mutants fighting for acceptance. It isn't even about the specter of another Holocaust. It's about any minority group, in any society, that has ever faced hostility and discrimination. ... More recently the issue of artificial intelligence has taken on resonance, leading to scenarios like those in the 'Terminator' and 'Matrix' franchises, which continue their sagas this summer. In both series, highly sophisticated computer programs become sentient and enslave or destroy humans, even finding ways to masquerade as their prey. Not only do our machines try to kill us, they take our identities as well. These are unlikely scenarios, but anyone who has ever had a computer beat them at chess can relate to the concern that the things we create might overpower us someday. It's a concept that goes back at least as far as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which also doubled as a post-Enlightenment philosophical treatise."

Past is the future for Hollywood's robots. By Mark Ward. BBC News. "If you believed everything you saw in the movies, you could be forgiven for thinking that artificial intelligence (AI) research had not moved on since the late 1950s. In almost all the Hollywood movies that feature AI or explore its implications, the unspoken assumption is that all researchers in the field are out to create surrogate humans or computerised brains that threaten our existence with their utterly impersonal view of events. This is true even of Spielberg's film AI which, despite being set in the future, takes a decidedly old-fashioned view of artificial intelligence. It is perhaps no surprise that it does, given that its screenplay is based on a short story published in 1969. But many other Hollywood movies persist in pushing this view of AI. If truth be told, AI scientists have moved on from trying to instil human intelligence into a robotic or computerised guise."

Standing On Principal. By Alan Taylor. Sunday Herald (January 18, 2004). "Back in the mid-1970s, Timothy O’Shea had a vision of the future which he has lived to see come to pass. In those far off days he was based at the University of Edinburgh, of which he is presently Principal, in the department of artificial intelligence. 'People just thought we were crazy,' he says. He is not exaggerating. The way he and his colleagues were portrayed in the media you might have thought Dr Who had been given an academic chair with Batman and Robin as research students. 'And now,' says O’Shea, resisting the urge to indulge in smugness, 'a lot of the stuff we thought of as being crazy then is there in your mobile phone'. ... O’Shea, however, was initially inspired by science fiction, which he read voraciously as a boy. 'One of the interesting things about good science fiction writers ­ the really good ones, like HG Wells and Arthur C Clarke ­ is that they are actually quite good at predicting the future. And not just in computing. Quite a lot of technological inventions were predicted by those sort of writers. In terms of the capabilities that we get in modern computers, they could see some of that. What I find so interesting is that we start with these ideas which we take to be fantastic and then people just get used to them.'"

Fall 2004 AI in the news column in AI Magazine: How science fiction inspired several AI scientists.

Hollywood vs. Reality, part of Discovery Channel Canada's AI mini-site (2001). Articles, videos, and more!

Welsh uni to turn science fiction into fact. By David Williamson. The Western Mail / available from i c Wales (August 2, 2004). "Students at a Welsh university are to begin preparing for a world shared with intelligent robots. A new degree in robotics will teach students how to apply science fiction in science. The release of the big-screen adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot has fuelled speculation about whether robots designed as servants could attempt to become our masters. Dr Mike Reddy at the University of Glamorgan is determined to take these questions from the realm of science fiction and explore them in the new BSc Science (Robotics) degree. ... The science fiction of the 20th century, he argues, not only created the concept of the robot but demonstrated the complexity of the threats, opportunities and moral dilemmas their arrival would spark. ... The degree will be launched next year, but the areas involving the social and ethical concerns of scientists and the need for effective communication of scientific concepts with the public, can currently be studied in BSc (Hons) Science and Science Fiction."

Readings Online

Two famous SciFi plays:

• The Adding Machine: Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist classic:
  • Elmer Rice's entry in The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001, provided by Bartleby.com.
  • The Adding Machine. Reviewed by Michael Billington. The Guardian (February 28, 2004).
• R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), by Karel Capek:
  • A fascinating collection from Gloria McMillan that includes an excerpt from the play, some quotations from Karel Capek, and even some reviews from the 1920's.
  • Plot summary and links. from Dennis G. Jerz, Associate Professor, Seton Hill University
  • The FAQ: Where did the word "robot" come from?

How much of Blade Runner has come true? BBC News (February 6, 2001). "The 'replicant' androids which run amok in the film are greatly troubled by their lack of meaningful memories and emotional inexperience. The film's message has not been lost on those developing so-called artificial intelligence. Dr. Anne Foerst, an AI researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Lutheran minister, uses Blade Runner as a teaching aid. 'The movie raises this wonderful question: how do humanoid creatures feel about having been created by us and how do they deal with their human-made limitations?'"

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long. By Brian Aldiss. "The inspiration behind Kubrick's ongoing AI project, a tale of humanity and of the aching loneliness in an overpopulated future." Available from WIRED (5.01 - January 1997).

• Visit the "A.I." movie web site.

  • also see our special "A.I.-the movie" portal [NOTE: this page is archived and is no longer being updated]

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute: Science Fiction and the Future. By Lorna S. Dils. "This unit is designed to be used in conjunction with the future studies that are a part of the curriculum for seventh grade Talented and Gifted students. However, the unit has been designed so that it can be used by any seventh, eighth, or ninth grade student of average or above average reading ability in their English classes with a minimum of adaptation....Perhaps the most important reason to discuss the subject of the future with our TAG students is to introduce them to the concept of change." In addition to the lesson plans and other resources you'll find here, there's a wonderful summary of the 20 short stories which have been selected for this teaching unit."

Rise of the Machines - Isaac Asimov turned androids into pop culture icons - and invented the science of robotics in the process. Now his classic I, Robot hits the big screen. By Cory Doctorow. Wired Magazine (July 2004; Issue 12.07). "This July, [Alex] Proyas turns again to his favored genre with I, Robot , an adaptation of Asimov's nine-story collection of the same name. ... As with all of Asimov's stories, the movie revolves around his Three Laws of Robotics, a set of rules governing android behavior. The central mystery: How could a robot programmed not to harm a human actually commit murder? Isaac Asimov wrote some 500 novels and short stories in his lifetime, and more than a thousand nonfiction essays. ... He penned dozens of stories devoted to androids with positronic brains, a term he invented to suggest an intelligent being, and coined the neologism robotics in the process. ... [H]e set out to reform the robot's bad rap, by making machines an example of how the world could be bettered through the mastery of technology. It embodied his hope for a rational, humanist way of being - the best and the worst of what it means to be a hairless ape. The robot was artificial intelligence in a man's shape, a foil for asking what it means to be human and what rules should govern us. With optimistic flourish, he believed robots could serve as an example of man's potential."

• Check out the I, Robot web site.

Films Such as 'I, Robot' Affirm Human Superiority. Duke News & Communications (July 14, 2004). "'I, Robot,' which opens Friday, revisits one of science fiction's common themes: A creation that develops a will of its own and turns against its creator. But why is that idea so appealing? It speaks to our society's deep fears that, as robots become more apparently human, we discover how machinelike we are, said Priscilla Wald, a Duke University English professor who studies how science is represented in popular culture. ... People feel anxious when they learn how easy it is to program a computer to appear to have emotions. This is possible because we follow predictable patterns, she said. 'Our sense of our uniqueness is threatened by the idea that we are predictable,' she said. 'The farther we go with artificial intelligence and the more human our machines become, the more we understand how machinelike we are. Many people find that deeply disturbing.'"

The evolution of movie robots. By Chris Heard. BBC News (July 19, 2004). "I, Robot, starring Will Smith, has gone to the top of the US box office. Based on Isaac Asimov's classic robot novel, it joins a proud tradition of androids in the movies. The granddaddy of them all was Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis, in which a robot in the shape of beautiful female union leader Maria (Brigitte Helm) leads a revolt against their oppressors in a future dystopia."

I'm Sorry, Dave... Letter from the Editor, James Hendler. IEEE Intelligent Systems 20(6): 2 - 4 (November / December 2005). "For one generation of AI researchers (including me),the first encounter with AI wasn't at a workshop but at the movies. Many early movies had a robot or machine that could talk (Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!), but one movie really defined in a moment, for many of us, what AI was all about. That, of course, was Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Arthur Clarke’s 2001:A Space Odyssey,which starred the computer HAL. And HAL was wonderful! Sure, I know, he went crazy, murdered the crew, and jeopardized the mission, but man, what a machine! A computer (not a robot), who could talk and see, could plan a mission and run a spacecraft, and had more feelings than the somewhat mechanical humans who crewed the ship he ran. It was mind-boggling!"

I, Robocop - Will Smith raps about busting bot outlaws, his secret geek past, and the future of thinking Machines. By Jennifer Hillner. Wired Magazine (July 2004; Issue 12.07). "WIRED: Are science fiction fans going to like this adaptation of Isaac Asimov's classic? SMITH: This movie has a twist at the end that is the science fiction fan's wet dream. Like in all Asimov's stories, the robots do something that seems to go against one of the Three Laws of Robotics, and then you figure out: No, it fits into the logical paradigm of the laws. ... What gadget would you like to take from one of the movies you've acted in? I, Robot has the ultimate home entertainment robot. It can read your vital signs, can tell you when it's time to have a checkup. Your robot can cook, clean, drive, take care of the children. ... What don't you want from one of these futures? ..."

The Sandman. By E.T.A. Hoffmann (1817). Translated from the German by Robert Godwin-Jones, Foreign Language Department, Virginia Commonwealth University. "Before I proceed to tell you, gentle reader, what more befell the unfortunate Nathaniel, should you by chance take an interest in that skilful optician and automaton-maker Spalanzani, I can inform you that he was completely healed of his wounds. He was, however, obliged to leave the university, because Nathaniel's story had created a sensation, and it was universally considered a quite unpardonable trick to smuggle a wooden doll...."

Fantastic answers to universal questions. By Alok Jha and Adam Rutherford. The Guardian (August 26, 2004). "We asked leading scientists from around the world what science fiction meant to them: how they related to it and what influence it had on them. The answers showed that science fiction not only reflects science but is also an inspiration for it. ... Robert May, population biologist and president of the Royal Society, says of science fiction: 'At its best it is very provocative and forethoughtful, like Asimov's books - they think of questions that have since arisen such as intelligent machines.' ... Science fiction, a term coined in the 1930s to distinguish the genre from the pulp fiction then becoming popular, carried on examining human morality by placing its characters into situations where some limiting problem had been overcome, such as time travel. What the stories invariably showed was that science does not have all the answers, and that each advance throws up new questions."

From Eden to ENIAC: Attitudes toward Intelligence, Knowledge, and Human Artifice. From Chapter One (available online) of George F. Luger's textbook, Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving, 5th Edition (Addison-Wesley; 2005). "The work of Aeschylus, the classical Greek dramatist, illustrates a deep and ancient awareness of the extraordinary power of knowledge. Artificial intelligence, in its very direct concern for Prometheus's gift, has been applied to all the areas of his legacy--medicine, psychology, biology, astronomy, geology--and many areas of scientific endeavor that Aeschylus could not have imagined. Though Prometheus's action freed humanity from the sickness of ignorance, it also earned him the wrath of Zeus. Outraged over this theft of knowledge that previously belonged only to the gods of Olympus, Zeus commanded that Prometheus be chained to a barren rock to suffer the ravages of the elements for eternity. The notion that human efforts to gain knowledge constitute a transgression against the laws of God or nature is deeply ingrained in Western thought. It is the basis of the story of Eden and appears in the work of Dante and Milton. Both Shakespeare and the ancient Greek tragedians portrayed intellectual ambition as the cause of disaster. The belief that the desire for knowledge must ultimately lead to disaster has persisted throughout history, enduring the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and even the scientific and philosophical advances of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, we should not be surprised that artificial intelligence inspires so much controversy in both academic and popular circles. Indeed, rather than dispelling this ancient fear of the consequences of intellectual ambition, modern technology has only made those consequences seem likely, even imminent."

Is Science Fiction About to Go Blind? Awed at the pace of technological advances, a faction of geeky writers believes our world is about to change so radically that envisioning what comes next is nearly impossible. By Gregory Mone. Popular Science (August 2004). "[T]he Singularity. A very real term, although the scene above is taken from a soon-to-be-published novel, Accelerando, by British writer Charles Stross. The idea was conceived by Vernor Vinge, a computer scientist and science-fiction writer who’s now a professor emeritus at San Diego State University. We’re living through a period of unprecedented technological and scientific advances, Vinge says, and sometime soon the convergence of fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology will push humanity past a tipping point, ushering in a period of wrenching change. ... The golden age of science fiction (SF, to those in the know), which spanned the 1940s and ’50s, inspired generations of kids to become astronauts, physicists and engineers, to try to make at least some of the stories real. (And those kids remember their imaginative roots: NASA, for example, sometimes calls in SF writers as consultants.) ... This new brand of science fiction, I realize, like all the best SF before it, is not just about predicting the future or pushing an agenda or even plain old entertaining techno-fun. It is all that, but it’s also about expanding the boundaries of the possible, building far-out worlds and then populating them with characters who bring the big ideas down to Earth."

Walter Mosley talks technology, race and his return trip into Futureland. An interview by Hugo Perez in Science Fiction Weekly (November 5, 2001) Issue 237 Vol. 7, No. 45.

• Also see: 'Futureland' full of violence, sex and 'Macrosoft.' By Barry Reddy. Jam Books / Canoe (November 29, 2001).

Arthur C Clarke still looking forward. By Martin Redfern. BBC News (October 4, 2005). "Eighty-seven years and the after-effects of polio have left Sir Arthur in a wheelchair and somewhat forgetful of past events; but as a science visionary, he is as sharp as ever, looking forward to the time when other predictions he has made come true. He is convinced that we will become a space-faring species. ... He is sure that we will journey to Mars and eventually on to other solar systems; first sending robot probes, then humans, perhaps in suspended animation or even with their thoughts and consciousness transferred into a machine."

• You can access the archived broadcast of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Arthur C. Clarke: The Science and the Fiction (October 5, 2005) via a link on the programme website. "In this programme, Heather Couper hears Sir Arthur's own story and meets with family, fans and fiction writers he has influenced."

Writing the Future: Computers in Science Fiction. By Jonathan Vos Post and Kirk L. Kroeker. Computer, 33(1): 29- 37 (January 2000). "Although we cannot be certain that science fiction directly influenced the course that computing technology has taken over the past 50 years, the genre has--at the very least--anticipated the technologies we're using and developing. Speculation about our future human relationship to computers-and to technology in general-has been the province of science fiction for at least a hundred years. But not all of that speculation has been as optimistic as those in the computing profession might assume. While cautionary tales in science fiction are plentiful and varied, the genre is also filled with more optimistic speculation about computer technology that will help save time, improve health, and generally benefit life as we know it. If we take a look at some of this speculation--both optimistic and pessimistic--as if it were prediction, it turns out that many science fiction authors have envisioned the future as accurately as historians have chronicled the past." - from the abstract.

Robot Stories, With a Heart. By Jason Silverman. Wired News (February 18, 2004). "Genre fans won't confuse Robot Stories with the typical studio sci-fi flick -- the film's entire budget would have paid for less than 30 seconds of Terminator 3. Writer and director Greg Pak used mixing bowls, pink paint and $300 of spare parts to build his most elaborate robot, and recorded household appliances for sound effects. But the tiny budget hasn't slowed the film, which has won more than 20 festival awards and is now beginning a national tour. ... 'I wasn't trying to remake The Matrix. Instead, I wanted to play with the genre and explore a certain tradition of science fiction that I love.' ... 'Probably 90 percent of robot stories are variations on the Frankenstein theme, with the machines eventually going haywire,' Pak said. 'I think those stories have given us this preconception that once machines become sentient beings they'll want to destroy all humans. That may be, but I was interested in the idea that these machines, once they begin to think and learn and feel, will want to find some sort of connection. And so they will give us an expanded notion of what it means to be human.'"

• Also see the Synopsis at the Robot Stories web site: "My Robot Baby - Before they can adopt a human child, young professionals Marcia (Tamlyn Tomita) and Roy (James Saito) must prove themselves by taking care of a robot baby. ... The Robot Fixer - Bernice Chin (Wai Ching Ho) has never really known her estranged son Wilson. Now a car accident has put Wilson into a coma. And the only clue he's left behind is a box of twenty-year-old toy robots. ... Machine Love - The latest component of the digital office, the Sprout G9 iPerson is a walking, talking coding machine programmed to fit seamlessly into its work environment by learning from its human co-workers. ... Clay - In John Lee's world, technology allows people to scan their memories - and thus their consciousness - into computers. John (Sab Shimono), an old sculptor, struggles to complete his design for a major public square project, but his body is falling apart. ... "
• ... and listen to 'Robot Stories' Director Greg Pak. Fresh Air (radio interview; March 3, 2004). WHYY-FM.

Voices in Your Head series hosted by Dave Slusher: "James P. Hogan and host Dave Slusher discuss how the film 2001 started Hogan on a career as an author, on his relationship with Marvin Minsky and the world of artificial intelligence...." (December 22, 2004).

The Future Is . . . Then. A Federal Report that Takes a Page from 1930s Science Fiction. By Bruce Sterling. Wired Magazine (November 2002). "Who needs science fiction? Federal tech and science wonks this summer went wild in a 400-page assessment of what nano, bio, info, and cogno might do for humanity. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance -- a joint effort by the Commerce Department and the National Science Foundation -- looks forward to a new age in federal science procurement. Consciously or not, the report echoes classic science fiction from 70 years ago at almost every turn."

HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality. Edited by David G. Stork. (MIT Press, 1996). An exciting collection of essays, many of which are available in full text, including:

• Scientist on the Set: An Interview with Marvin Minsky.

DARPA tech chief envisions the future - Sci-fi inspires Brachman to use computers in creative ways. By Frank Tiboni. Federal Computer Week (April 19, 2004). "Ron Brachman's curiosity about robots programmed to think on their own dates back to his childhood in New Jersey. It was the 1960s, 'Star Trek' first appeared on television and putting a man on the moon became a remarkable reality. ... Now Brachman works at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as director of its Information Processing Technology Office, where he oversees programs that study and develop cognitive computing. He wants to solve the same problem he pondered as a teenager watching 'Star Trek' -- how to get people and computers to collaborate. When he was in high school, Brachman and his father, an electrical engineer, built a robot equipped with a light and photo sensor that allowed it to follow a taped line on the floor of his basement, even in darkness. He became a science-fiction aficionado, watching Mr. Spock and 'The Twilight Zone.'"

• See the Fall 2004 AI in the news column in AI Magazine for more articles about science fiction inspiring AI scientists.

The Aims of Artificial Intelligence: A Science Fiction View. By Ian Watson. IEEE Intelligent Systems (March/April 2003; 18 (2): 78 - 80). "So what does an artificial intelligence do with itself after it has become self-aware? Suppose that we do succeed in creating an AI. Or suppose that an AI emerges spontaneously out of data networks’ growing complexity. What then—from the point of view of the AI? We talk a lot about the possible routes to AI. A question seldom asked is what an AI’s goals are likely to be. Will it be happy to serve as a companion-entity to people? Will it wish to take over the world? Will it want to distance itself from us?"

Related Web Sites

Artificial Intelligence in the Cinema. By Guy Walters. The Times (March 17, 2000). "Although the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was first defined in 1956, Robby the Robot in The Mechanical Statue (1907) is without doubt an artificially intelligent being, as is Proteus IV in The Rubber Man (1909). The plots centre on mechanical men going out of control - a theme that has been repeated to this day."

Cybercinema. An Interactive Site Devoted to the History of Computers and Artificial Intelligence in Film. Maintained by Matthew Hurt. Don't miss the AI Milestones which follow each collection of reviews of the films of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.

Timeline of Fiction Landmarks. From The Tech Museum of Innovation. "Even before the word "robot" came about earlier last century, people were thinking, writing, and creating fiction about the subject of humanity and its relationship to machines. Here is a reference list of landmarks in fiction about people and technology, many of which are centered around robots."

• The first entry: "1726 Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels (Academy of Lagado: satirized inventors and anticipated machine-produced literature).

Representations of Artificial Intelligence in Cinema. "This web site is mostly a summary of the movies that have some form of Artificial Intelligence in them, eg. as part of the background context as well embodied in a main character. I have also proposed a classification that discriminates between true AI (ie. agents with artificial computational systems) versus replicated or augmented humans (androids or cyborgs) which use natural intelligence mechanisms." From Bob Fisher, University of Edinburgh School of Informatics.

SciFi.com. From the SciFi Channel. Here's where you'll find resources such as:

• Archived classics and orginal stories, including:
  • Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
• Science Fiction Weekly. News, interviews, reviews of books, films and games, plus an out-of-this-world art gallery!

"The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (SFM) is a ... nonprofit organization created to inspire new generations to reach beyond the present, imagine the future and explore the infinite possibilities of the universe. The first museum devoted to this dynamic and far-reaching genre, SFM combines artifacts and information in evocative environments, immersing visitors in science fiction's 'alternative worlds.' Witness how science fiction touches all forms of artistic expression and reframes the complexities of science, art, culture and the humanities - helping give visitors new insights into themselves and their world." - from About SFM

• Also see this related news article (June 13, 2004).

Science Fiction Resource Guide. Since 1994, this web site has been winning awards for its comprehensive collection of links to bibliographies, online works, fan stuff, and everything having to do with science fiction.

Related Pages

• AI: the movie (archived)
• Ethical & Social Implications
• The Future
• General Index to AI in the news: Science Fiction
• Philosophy
• Robots

More Readings

Asimov, Isaac. 1981. The Myth of the Machine. From the book Asimov on Science Fiction, pp 153-163. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co. Asimov does some psychologizing about why humans fear machines and how this is reflected in science fiction writing.

Asimov, Isaac and Ralph McQuarrie (Illustrator). 1986. Robot Dreams. Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Most recently reprinted in 1990 by Ace Books. New York, New York.

• Excerpt from the Introduction: "I began writing robot stories in 1939, when I was nineteen years old, and, from the first, I visualized them as machines, carefully built by engineers, with inherent safeguards, which I called 'The Three Laws of Robotics.' (In doing so, I was the very first to use the word 'robotics' in print, this taking place in the March, 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.)"
  • Also see:
    • Rise of the Machines
    • Where did the word "robot" come from?

Dreifus, Claudia. June 10, 2003. A Conversation with Cynthia Breazeal - A Passion to Build a Better Robot, One With Social Skills and a Smile. The New York Times. "Dr. Cynthia L. Breazeal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is famous for her robots, not just because they they are programmed to perform specific tasks, but because they seem to have emotional as well as physical reactions to the world around them. ... Q. What is the root of your passion for robots? A. For me, as for many of us who do robotics, I think it is science fiction. My most memorable science fiction experience was 'Star Wars' and seeing R2D2 and C3PO. I fell in love with those robots."Q. R2D2 and C3PO were good robots, friendly. But so many of the robots of science fiction are either hostile, or at least misunderstood, like Frankenstein's monster and HAL of '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Why have fictional robots been so menacing? A. We have a lot of suspicion of robots in the West. But if you look cross-culturally, that isn't true. In Japan, in their science fiction, robots are seen as good. They have Astro Boy, this character they've fallen in love with and he's fundamentally good, always there to help people. In a lot of Western science fiction, you need some form of conflict, whether it's aliens or robots. I think in Western culture, being more suspicious of science, and hubris, you'll see a lot of fear of creating something that goes out of control. Also a lot of Western sci-fi books and movies are about the basic notion of taking responsibility for what you create. If you're talking about creating any new technology, this is always an issue."

Forster, E. M. The Machine Stops. Initially published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909) and republished in various collections. Wikipedia's entry for The Machine Stops includes links to external sites with the complete text of this short story.

McCaffery, Larry. 1991. The Desert of the Real. Also Cyperpunk 101 (with Richard Kadrey). From the book Storming the Reality Studio, ed. by Larry McCaffery, pp. 1-29. A discussion of cyberpunk, and an annotated list of books, movies, songs, etc. that helped shape cyberpunk. The rest of the book contains fictional excerpts and critical essays.

Pierce, John J. 1987. Artificial Intelligence. From the book Great Theme of Science Fiction, by John J. Pierce, pp. 77 - 94. New York and Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pierce gives a comprehensive rundown of stories about robots and discusses the influence of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. He also gives an overview of science fiction stories with intelligent computers.

Thwaits, Alan. December 4, 2002. The World Is My Cubicle - Welcome to the future. Opinion. Canada Computes. "Cyberpunk offers readers a whole host of guilty pleasures. ... Best of all, though, cyberpunk is writing that's all about technology -- and about how human beings deal with the consequences of the technology they've developed. The best of [William] Gibson's work, in my not-so-humble opinion, is contained in his so-called 'Sprawl' trilogy, which comprises the novels titled Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive. In Neuromancer, which was first published in 1984, Gibson coined the term 'cyberspace,' essentially inventing the concept."

Warrick, Patricia. 1986. Artificial Intelligence: Wild Imaginary Worlds, Wilder Realities. From the book Hard Science Fiction, ed. by George Slusser and Eric Rabkin, pp. 152-163. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Warrick discusses James Hogan (The Two Faces of Tomorrow) as one of the few science fiction writers who convey a realistic sense of what the future might be like given what we know now about AI.

• Listen to an interview with James P. Hogan in which he discusses The Two Faces of Tomorrow.

"beam me up"