A There are a lot of books, films, cartoons and comic books about robots, androids and cyborgs. Read the synopses of the following films. Answer the questions below.

‘I, Robot’

In 2035 humanoid robots have become common. They are considered to be absolutely safe as the Three Laws are integrated into their mind: 1. A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human being, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. А robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

NS-5s are new robots with an uplink to V.I.K.I (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), allowing them to receive updates wirelessly. But there is a robot which greatly differs from others. Its creator has named it Sonny. The robot is unique as it can display emotions, experience dreams, keep secrets and disobey the Three Laws. Sony has been created without an uplink to V.I.K.I that is why when other robots revolt against humans and attack the, Sonny helps people destroy V.I.K.I. At the end of the film Sonny gets freedom and becomes the main character’s friend.

‘Terminator’

The terminator is a cyborg assassin. It is very strong, has no emotions and feels no pain. The robot has been sent to the past to prevent a human resistance against the machines in the year 2029. It has a mission to kill and nothing can

stop the Terminator to accomplish it. The robot is indistin-guishable from humans as it is covered with living tissue. It has been invented by highly intelligent robots which have the aim to take over and destroy the human race. So the Terminator is very dangerous as it is programmed to kill mercilessly. Fortunately at the end of the film the robot is destroyed.

‘WALL-E‘

WALL-E is a robot which has been designed to clean up a polluted Earth. WALL-E has been performing its duties for sever centuries and after many years of prolonged activation it has evolved and become more human-like. WALL-E is fond of collecting interesting knick-knacks which it finds among the rubbish. The robot has made friends with a cockroach. It often watches an old video tape of Hello, Dolly! and learns about human emotions including love. WALL-E falls in love with another robot named EVE which is cold and indifferent at first but warms up to WALL-E a little later. Thanks to WALL-e’s brave and adventurous nature people return to Earth.

Questions

1) What are the relations between robots and humans in these films? Are clever machines people’s friends/servants/exterminators?

2) What adjectives can you choose to characterize the robots from each film (strong, funny, adventurous, powerful, dangerous, harmless, helpful, merciless, clumsy etc.)?

3) When do the robots begin to experience human feelings? Why?

4) What is the main idea of each film?

6b Read the text ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and say if machines can be as clever as humans.

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