Robots Rights NOW!

So, while many of the NPR commentators on this story say it is a waste of time, they weren't looking at the representations of what it means. This simple "Should Robots Speak 'Jive'?" question is asking us to look at many deep topics.

The question of stereotypes is deep. Stereotypes are useful markers to help humans make quick decisions, and stereotypes are often based in some reality. The problem is when we hold on to an idea of a stereotype too closely, we may not let people out of the ideas and it may harm them. Is 'jive' an ethnicity? When we use ethnic characters are they ethnic 'caricatures'? They are ideas in their simplest form. My opinion is, if the ethnicities are represented as heroes, and are shown to be of value, they are likely good. If the ethnicity is a marker to distinguish them from the good guys or as a bad guy, the use of ethnicity/culture is racist. Racism is using race/ethnicity as a distinguishing trait for preferential or negative treatment. If we use the marker of ethnicity especially with accents (like is all too often the case) to mark negative traits, we associate the two. Bad guys have accents=people with accents are bad guys. If you don't believe me, just think...The chef who tries to kill Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, Jafar from Aladdin, and it isn't just in Disney movies.
A great link to check is http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A891155 It is analyzing some of the reasons so many villains have British accents.

One of the hot debate points about the use of ethnicity towards the Robots in Transformers was how one particular character had both physical distinguishers and was described as "gleefully illiterate." I laughed aloud when I first read "gleefully illiterate"...but what was my own reaction based on? It is "common sense" that to be illiterate is a trait that my peers would not be proud to have. My laughter was because of the lapse of logic about being "gleeful" on a right that most Americans may take for granted. I interviewed a woman this week who will tell you about how the right to read was taken away from her and other ethnic Albanians just 2 decades ago.

Writing has been around since for about the last 6,000 years. But modern humans have been around for about 200k-160k years. I'm talking Homo Sapien Sapien. We have had the same wiring for that long. This means we have been physically capable of being literate for that long. There is still debate about how we may have been mentally capable before being physically capable...but I digress. I ask, why is being literate a marker of being more advanced? For over a hundred thousand years we didn't need writing. We have strong evidence that oral traditions were what held the knowledge we needed. So why today do we hold literacy in such high esteem? I wonder if it is the same reason we love our iPhones...because it is the newest and coolest technology. Or are we ethnocentric. Either way, we should check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.

The most interesting comment I came across was the Robots Rights NOW! comment. It went as following

"Why isn't anyone talking about the stereotypical way that giant intelligent robots from outer space are portrayed? I for one am sick of Hollywood portraying them as bent on the destruction of mankind when all they want to do is harvest us for their interstellar carbon farms. Robots rights now!"

Now, seriously, why are robots stereotyped they way they are. Their audio voices are based on a history of technology that is outdated. Don't programmers have ethnicity? Does the primary language (or bi-, multi- lingual ability) of the programmer change the code that affects computers? Is it not foreseeable that robots would have linguistic distinguishers or diversity that would at times mimic what we know?

If intelligent robots from out of space are just farmers, then aren't we demonizing farmers? I'm still worried about the Robot Holocaust (see previous post).

And I have to have my last word on gender, but I'll quote a comment from the NPR website.

"what about the way female robots are often depicted? Why would a robot need gigantic breasts or wear high heels?"

Why is un-gendered & uni-sex most often male. This is a blog for another day. Believe me, it will come.

clipped from www.npr.org Should Robots Be Allowed To Speak 'Jive?' One of the more fascinating discussions on the film (besides the varied and creative ways film critics are finding new ways to insult director Michael Bay) is whether the personalities assigned to some of the titular robot stars could be considered racist. (Or at least grossly stereotypical.) The robots in the film could be considered an extension of our fascination with high-tech gadgetry (only in this case, bigger is better). When we're at the point where we can assign a Homer Simpson voice to our GPS devices, do we owe it to give them a little bit of dignity. Does it matter that they're fictional?