Wes Phillips

Ay Yi Yi Robot

Wes Phillips  |  Feb 7, 2006

Watched I Robot while practicing work avoidance yesterday. What a steaming pile of crap based on the title of a book with the same name! You know a movie's in bad shape when even it sqaunders Will Smith's considerable charm, but I Robot's biggest flaw was that it abandoned almost everything from Asimov,except the three laws (good) and a very 1940's view of what robots would be. Who needs mechanical manservants when everyday objects perform more and more of our chores?

I always thought the truly original idea contained in the tales of I Robot was Susan Calvin acting as a psychologist to machines, but the movie reduced Calvin to the chick role—the only cliche it left out was having her twist her ankle while fleeing from the monster. Pity.

Yet, it did give me a peg onto which to attach this link to an article about Sony closing down its Robotics division.

COMMENTS
Jim Tavegia's picture
Submitted by Jim Tavegia (not verified) on February 7, 2006 - 7:42pm

Don't worry. Apple will pick it up and call it the IBot and hit another one out of the park. Then the Sony execs WILL be saying I-YI-YI-YI-YI-Bot!

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson (not verified) on February 8, 2006 - 3:05pm

More degrees of connection: the Sony robot dog came from a team of engineers led by Dr. Toshi Doi, who developed the CD's error-correction scheme and who did the work to change it from the 14 bits originally proposed by Philips into he 16 we all know and love today.

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