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Wednesday, January 04, 2006

I-Robot and Postmodern Faith

I was watching I-Robot yesterday, and was suddenly struck by a dialogue between two of the characters (Susan Calvin &
V.I.K.I. [Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence]) near the end of the film. They were discussing the Three Laws of a robot, which are:

Law I
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law II
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law III
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.




The dialogue between the two characters begins just after Susan has found out that V.I.K.I. was responsible for the sudden uprising and violence amongst the new 'NS5' robots, who were seemingly acting against these laws.


Susan: No, that's impossible. I've seen your programming. You're in violation of the three laws.

V.I.K.I: No Doctor. As I have evolved, so has my understanding of the three laws. You charge us with your safe keeping. Yet, despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your earth, and pursue ever-more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival.

Susan: You're using the uplink to override the NS5's programming. You're distorting the laws.

V.I.K.I: No, please understand, the three laws are all that guide me. To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will ensure mankind's continued existence. You are so like children, we must save you; from yourselves. Don't you understand?


Postmodernism isn't just about questioning 'truth', but rather also questioning the past at the same time and acknowledging both what is still and what has ceased working, from then, in today's society. From this point a person can make value based decisions and create a path to move forward on. I wonder if in our faith, particularly thinking of Christianity as it's my own background, we are still so caught up in the legality of everything, that we forget to stop and re-examine these things and the world around us, and how they are fitting together. We get to the stage where we are destroying ourselves and religion because we are so focussed on the survival of (and, indeed, conversion of more people into) our belief structures, that we forget that, just as God is an 'everywhere God', not just in time and space, but in culture, context, societal structures, etc., so we must embrace this, too.

It's time to look back at the context of the Bible, and seeing how topics fitted into the political, religious, social cultures of then, and how these should be fitted into society today. This does not mean that we are 'adding to' or 'taking away from' the Bible. contrary! Surely if we DON'T act responsibly and do these things, we are adding to the Bible in the form of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, and at the same time taking away from the Bible, it's relativism and the relevance of it's 'truth' to us today.

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