News Tip: Films Such as 'I, Robot' Affirm Human Superiority

"I, Robot," which opens Friday, revisits one of science fiction's common themes: A creation that develops a will of its own and turns against its creator. But why is that idea so appealing?

It speaks to our society's deep fears that, as robots become more apparently human, we discover how machinelike we are, said Priscilla Wald, a Duke University English professor who studies how science is represented in popular culture.

"I, Robot," is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's nine-story collection of the same name. The film takes place in 2035, just as the all-purpose personal robot comes to market. But this is threatened when a robot is accused of murder. Detective Del Spooner, played by Will Smith, is assigned to track down the killer and answer the question of how a robot programmed not to harm a human could commit murder.

"The malice that stems from the lack of emotion of these robots defines what's different about human beings -- we have souls and they don't," Wald said.

People feel anxious when they learn how easy it is to program a computer to appear to have emotions. This is possible because we follow predictable patterns, she said.

"Our sense of our uniqueness is threatened by the idea that we are predictable," she said. "The farther we go with artificial intelligence and the more human our machines become, the more we understand how machinelike we are. Many people find that deeply disturbing."

That anxiety is quelled by movies such as "I, Robot," and the "Terminator" and "Matrix" series. The triumph of humans over machines is expressed in two ways. First, the robots mimic humans, which in itself reaffirms the superiority of people. And, in the end, the humans triumph over machines because of their will and spirit, despite the machines' more sophisticated weaponry and technology, she said.