Many people view I, Robot as a movie about mankind losing control over technology and the dire consequences that it would have on society. While any change in power dynamics, no matter how trivial cannot happen without some kind of consequence. This is not the most important theme of I, Robot. The most important idea in the movie is “what is humanity?” and “what does it mean to be human?”. To answer this question, I will look at the character of Sonny in the film.
The movie I, Robot is set in downtown Chicago in the year 2035. Society now consists of humans and the robots who perform the tasks that the humans do not care to handle. Tasks such as cleaning, walking the dog, and collecting garbage. Del Spooner, who is a homicide cop is not a fan of the robots. His dislike stems from the fact that after a car accident a robot calculated that he had a greater chance of survival 45% and saved his life rather than that of a little girl who only had a 11% chance of survival. Spooner feels that the tendency towards logic that rules the robots is detrimental to humanity. He also fears that the robots may become too sentient and that this could cause trouble for mankind.
Many of the people he shares his concerns with dismiss them saying that "Robots don't feel anything; they're not alive,". People see that robots as nothing more than sophisticated wiring and hardware that comes with a warranty. On top of this even if a robot wanted to cause harm to humanity the three laws of robotics, which are encoded in their programming would prevent them from doing so. The three laws of robotics are. (1) A robot shall not harm a human or through inaction allow a human to be hurt. (2) A robot shall obey a human except where it will violate the first law. (3) A robot shall preserve itself from harm unless it violates the first and second law.
After the murder of Dr Lanning, who is the creator of the robots. Spooner is assigned to the case. He meets a robot named Sonny, who is different from the other robots. Sonny was programmed not to follow the three rules. He is also more humanlike than the other robots in that he can dream and synthesis human emotions. This “humanity” is the result of Dr Susan Calvin a robot-psychologist who works for U.S Robot. Spooner believes that Sonny was responsible for the death of Dr Lanning and that this only confirms his belief that robots are detrimental to humankind.
Eventually Spooner’s fear are realized when the older robots and the newer robots begin fighting, with the older robots acting to protect Spooner and mankind. The newer robots are seemingly breaking the three rules of robotics mentioned above. The newer robots are connected to a Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence (VIKI) which Spooner and Calvin believe is being controlled by the CEO of US Robots, Lawrence Robertson. Spooner and Calvin find Lawrence dead and are told by Sonny that VIKI intends on making the world a benevolent dictatorship in order to save mankind from itself. Sonny helps Dr Calvin and Spooner to defeat VIKI and prevents her from fulfilling her goal of saving humanity from itself.
One of the themes brought up repeatedly in the movie is the one of humanity and what makes someone/ something human. Del Spooner, while biologically human has an almost paranoid hatred of the robots that brings into question his humanity in several scenes. The first of these is the scene at the beginning of the movie where he is chasing the robot who is trying to return the blue purse to their owner and his desire to decommission all of the robots brings his humanity into question.
Sonny on the other hand is a robot that has been given freewill by Dr Lanning. This means that he is not controlled by the three rules. It also means that unlike the other robots Sonny’s sole purpose is not to improve the life of humans. His pursuit seems to be the desire to feel human. This desire to feel human is the motivation for many of his actions in the film. The reason that he was given free will by Dr Lanning was so that he could kill Dr Lanning thus alerting someone to the fact that VIKI was misinterpreting the 1st law. The “gift” of freewill allowed Sonny to display many human traits and brings into question his humanity.
Of course it is easy to say that Sonny is not human. (1) To be human, one must be born, rather than created. This does not take into consideration current and future scientific advances that allow embryos to be created outside of the body. (2) In order to be human the being must have attributes such as hair, skin organs, etc. This is true, but attributes like skin and hair can also be fabricated. (3) The capability to think and feel. Most humans are born with the ability to use both logic and emotions. Logic allows people not only the ability to solve problems and analyse information. While emotions help people to connect to each other on a social level. (4) Freewill this is the main thing that separates humans from machine. It is to some the great determiner of being human. This has a number of flaws, the most obvious being, if a person cannot exercise their freewill, does that make them any less human. The answer is of course not. So, the question is does having freewill make Sonny human.
As mentioned earlier Sonny was designed with the capability of ignoring the three rules of robotics. This means that he is not tied to the same submissive roles as the other robots. The other robots due to their programming can only act to serve mankind. Sonny on the other hand has no such compulsion. Sonny also has the ability to depict emotion. This allows him to have a “personality”, he also dreams and questions. The concept of robot humanity is something that in the movie Dr Lanning believed would occur naturally, saying on the police recording found after his death.
"There have always been ghosts in the machine . . . random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. . . Why is it that when some robots are left in the dark they will seek the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space they will group together rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter moat of the soul?" (Dr Lanning, I, Robot)
Sonny’s shows his penchant towards being human in the scene where he is asking Spooner about winking. He refers to Dr Lanning as his father, rather than his creator when he tells Spooner that Dr Lanning had tried to give him emotions. Spooner tells him that winking is a sign of trust and that he would not understand. Later in the film when Sonny is holding a gun to Dr Calvin’s head and telling Spooner to follow him outside, he winks letting Spooner know that he could trust him. This indicates that while Sonny may not have emotions himself, he understands the need for them when it comes to human interactions.
Works Cited
"I, Robot": What Do Robots Dream of? (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://www.filmquarterly.org/2012/07/i-robot-what-do-robots-dream-of/
Grau, C. (n.d.). There is no ‘I’ in ‘Robot’: Robotic Utilitarians and Utilitarian Robots. Retrieved February 25, 2016, from https://www.aaai.org/Papers/Symposia/Fall/2005/FS-05-06/FS05-06-007.pd
Kaku, M. (2008). Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Oliver, B. (2008). When Robots would really be Human Simulacra: Love and the E thical in Spielberg’s AI and Proyas’ s I , Robo. Film-philosophy, 12(2). Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://www.film-philosophy.com/2008v12n2/olivier.pdf
Proyas, A. (Director). (2004). I, Robot [Motion picture on DVD]. USA: 20th century fox.
