Wednesday, May 23, 2007

hell yes!



fiona and i enjoyed watching the beck video for "hell yes" about 1000 times. after it would finish, she would say "again robots? please?" among other early and pressing concerns, she would wake in the morning and come to my door and say "robots? please?" emily (her mom, my sister) then bought her a little robot from target. she slept w/ it, hard, jangly plastic and all.

i keep thinking about why robots are so fascinating. i don't have anything very sophisticated to say. it's something about this thing that does elementally human things, performs human-like movments, but. just. not. so. there is something about the inelegant jumpiness of a robot that is maybe appealing to a toddler, to anyone. something appealing about an approximation that mimics the complex real but does so only by (over)generalizing to the point of distraction. it's hard, being complex, i think (the robot masters are not so sure).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is an MIT professor of robotics, Rodney A Brooks, who writes great books on the relationship between robotics, artificial intelligence and the philosophy between them. Recommended, definitely.

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

i hadn't thought of taking up this line of inquiry seriously, but it may be helpful for me as i work on some things i'm trying to say about working in film. so, thanks for the recommendation.