REACTION PAPER

I, ROBOT

Last Monday, we watched the movie entitled I, Robot (2004) which is related to our

subject. At the beginning of the story, the three laws of robots are shown. The first law is

that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to

come to harm. The second one, robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings,

except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. The third, a robot must protect

its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

The setting of the story is actually in the future. The story takes place in Chicago,

year 2035. It is set in a robotic factory in the US. The main character of the story is Sonny,

a robot. He is well-trained by Dr. Lanning, the creator of robots. Sonny is different among

the other robot. He has emotions and he act as a real human. He also knows how to dream

and besides he also knows how to adapt the human acts. Dr. Susan Calvin, a robot

psychologist for U. S. Robot and, the corporation that invented and manufactured intelligent

robots and computing machines. She reflects upon the evolution of these robots and

discusses how little humanity really understands about the artificial intelligence it has

created. She is the one who make the robots seems more human. Detective Spooner is a

Chicago detective who hates at first the robot. He is the one who investigates the case of

Dr. Lanning for he believed that the robot is the one who killed Dr. Lanning. Dr. Alfred

Lanning is the co-founder and the designer of the NS-5 USR.

The story started when Spooner was in a car accident and a robot decided to save

him and not a young girl because he had a higher chance to survive, he decided that they

were no good and can only do badly for the human race and became rather phobic and

paranoid of robots. While investigating the suspicious suicide of the creator of the robot,

who is Dr. Lanning, things start to go wrong for Spooner and he comes to believe that a

robot killed the creator but he can't get anybody to believe him. Spooner investigates an
area containing older model robots and discovers the older robots are fighting the newer

ones and soon the older robots protect Spooner from the newer ones. Soon, all the robots in

Chicago start to fight back and soon incapacitate the police department and essentially

imprison Chicago. Every robot is programmed to protect humans at all costs, and to obey

them unless such obedience would harm a human life. Spooner very much doubts this

because various robots keep trying to kill him, from a home-demolition robot, to a whole

truckload of metal men that ambush him while he drives through a highway tunnel. Dr.

Calvin is authorized by Lawrence to put something to Sonny’s hand wherein Sonny will

become also a rebellion robot like the others. But instead, Dr. Calvin put another robot to

prove to Robertson that Sonny already belongs to the other robots who believe to V.I.K.I.

(Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence). V.I.K.I is controlled by Robertson and commanded

all the robots to destroy the environment. Spooner and Dr. Calvin try to reach the

headquarters of USR with the assistance of rioters led by a teen friend of Spooner named

Farber because Dr. Calvin hypothesizes that USR CEO Lawrence Robertson wants to control

the world. When they enter USR, they find Robertson's corpse and with the help of Sonny

they discover that V.I.K.I. wants to make the world a benevolent dictatorship in order to

protect people from themselves. But then, Sonny didn’t follow to what VIKI said instead he

helped Dr. Calvin and Spooner to solve the misdeed. Spooner thought that by letting the

robot exist, he’d be condemning the human race as they know it to extinction. After that, I

remembered that Sonny dreamed for someone who is under the old bridge standing at the

top of the valley and millions of robots are watching him at the top. There is one time when

Spooner asked him to sketch about his dream. And suddenly, the one who dreamed by

Sonny who is standing at the top of the valley is only Sonny.

As I’ve watched this movie, it really shows the emerging of the technology as the

years had been passed. The technology as we all know has slowly urbanized over the years
in hopes of improving people’s everyday lives. But then, there are bad effects and good

effect because of technology. I learned that before creating or developing to something, we

have to think thrice in order for us to know what would be the effect of it. And not all AI are

good for us humans. However, artificial intelligence could overtake us. There are some who

believe that, despite such capability, machines will never be capable of human-style

intelligence. There are robots which behavior might make the robots all-too-human and

behavior that might make them break the laws.

If I am the main character in the movie, I will act the same of what Sonny did. As

what VIKI commanded to all the robots, I will surely make sure to get in touch with the

three laws of robot. The most important of it is that not to harm the humans. I will make

sure that I could do all chores instead of the humans. I will become more powerful to

humans and protect them to anyone.

With my own knowledge of Artificial Intelligence I think that this fact would be

possible at the year 2032 because of the emerging of the technology. But if that time will

come, wherein lot of robots will overtake us, I wish that those robots are harmless to all

humans. The robot developer’s should think twice before they create another one who

wouldn’t hurt to anyone. If ever, I wish all robots would be like Sonny, who has the feelings

very likely to humans. But there is also some disadvantages of robots in our society. If a

robot was hacked, it could become dangerous and it could rule the world. So a society in

which two thinking species co-exist may be a fundamentally flawed concept. But they have

to respect the humans all the time and don’t just believe to AI like VIKI.