This document summarizes research on the relationship between robot fiction in popular culture and engineering research. It discusses how science fiction introduced concepts like robotic personalities and behaviors that influenced robot design. Recurring themes in fiction around robot shapes, behaviors, and automation are explored, as well as how fiction grapples with problems like defining what constitutes harm. The document argues that science fiction and technology development co-construct each other, with films inspiring new technologies and technology fueling new fictional visions.

1. LIREC
ROBOT FICTIONS: ENTERTAINMENT
CULTURES AND ENGINEERING RESEARCH
ENTANGLEMENTS
NICOLAS NOVA, 15.06.2011, HATFIELD
WWW.LIFTLAB.COM

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I ROBOTA: A FICTION FROM THE OUTSET 24
Rossum’s Universal Robots (Karel Kapek, 1920)

3. 3
I THE EVOLUTION OF SCI-FI THEMES (STEPHANIE FOX) 24

4. 4
I ROBOT ARCHETYPES 24

5. 5
I ROBOT FICTION INFLUENCE(D) THEIR DESIGN 24
“Robots are popular culture. There
isn’t any “knock-off” possible
there; it’s been knock-off from the
get-go. It’s like worrying about
somebody “knocking-off” cowboy
movies.”
Bruce Sterling

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I CULTURAL ELEMENTS CIRCULATION (ZIMMERMANN, 2010) 24

7. 7
I ASSUMPTIONS EMBEDDED INTO OBJECTS (AKRICH, 1992) 24
these assumptions influence
robot design (consciously or not)

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II ROBOT IDIOMS 24
robot, droid, android, bot, bioroid,
cyborg...
Asimo (Asimov), irobot (Asimov’
book), GOLEM (jewish fictional
character), Hadaly (Villiers de l’Isle
d’Dam’s fictional android), ELIZA
(after Bernard Shaw’s theatre play)
-> influence on what robots do/are

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II RECURRING TROPE 1: THE SHAPE(S) OF ROBOTS 24
pool-cleaner
robot-objects vacuum-cleaner
automatic car
lawn-mower
android
bio-mimetic robots robotic arm
zoomorphic robot
4-legged (dog)
2-legged (duck)
No legs (snake, fish)

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II RECURRING TROPE 1: THE SHAPE(S) OF ROBOTS 24
“the android is a solution
waiting for a problem”
Mark Meadows

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II RECURRING TROPE 1: THE SHAPE(S) OF ROBOTS 24
Study conducted at Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne (2008)
about people’s feeling towards robots

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II WHAT THE ROBOT IDEA TAUGHT US... 24
robots in scifi introduced the
idea that objects can have
“personality”, a behavior

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II SHOULD ROBOTS BE MIMETIC? 24
“it becomes real by behaving
real, by demonstrating the
behavior of things that are real”
Kevin Slavin

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II RECURRING TROPE 2: ROBOT BEHAVIOR (ASIMOV) 24

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II RECURRING TROPE 2: ROBOT BEHAVIOR 24

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II RECURRING TROPE 2: ROBOT BEHAVIOR 24

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II IS LAW 2 APPLICABLE? (KAPLAN, 2001) 24
how to define a “human”?
how to define “harm”?

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II RECURRING TROPE 4: AUTOMATION 24
ambivalence: control
versus automation

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III BUT SCI-FI IS NOT JUST A GADGET CATALOGUE... 24
“Implications not just applications” Antony Dunne
"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the
automobile but the traffic jam" Frederik Pohl

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III ... SCI-FI AND PROBLEMS... 24
“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.(...)
payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted
a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
(...)
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless
steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew
the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll
sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.Joe Chip
said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can
live through it.”
Philip K. Dick: Ubik

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III TODAY’S PROBLEM 24
‘The fact that the robot couldn't
tell if it was a good time to
interrupt was a big problem for the
nursing staff: "I called it nasty
names and told it, 'Would you shut
the hell up? Can't you see I'm on
the phone? If you say "TUG has
arrived" one more time I'm going to
kick you in your camera.' "Some
staff members actually did lash
out and kick TUG in frustration’
New Scientist, 2010: http://cli.gs/
T7VH6e

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IV CO-CONSTRUCTION 24
“Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies” by Schmitz,
Endres & Butzi (2008)
films cite existing technology
technology films inspire
inspire films new technology
filmmakers and technologists
developed shared new visions

23. THANK YOU MERCI GRACIAS DANKE GRAZIE
NICOLAS NOVA
nicolas@liftlab.com
www.liftlab.com

24. 24
REFERENCES 24
Article references
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Interview with Bruce Sterling, acm Plenty, Thanks. MoMo Amsterdam, A. (2008). A survey of human-computer
interactions, march-april 2005. http://www.youtube.com/watch? interaction design in science fiction
Slide 6: Zimmermann, B. (2010). v=o03wWtWASW4 movies, Proceeding of INTETAIN '08
Redesigning Culture: Chinese Characters Slide 15: Weld, D. & Etzioni, O. (1994). Proceedings of the 2nd international
in Alphabet-Encoded Networks”, Design The first law of robotics (a call to arms), conference on INtelligent TEchnologies
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Slide 7: Akrich, M. (1992), "The twelfth national conference on Artificial
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Bijker, W.E., Law, J. (Eds),Shaping Slide 16: Murphy, R.R. and Woods, D.
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Slide 11: Ray, C., Mondada, F. & Slide 17: Kaplan, F. (2001). Un robot
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