I saw I, Robot the other night with a friend. Appropriately the movie claims it was suggested by Isaac Asimov's book, I Robot: the suggestions are limited to the three laws of robotics and character names. As movie it isn't bad, although it is straight genre: lone detective not entirely happy with the modern gadgets of 2035, questions how safe robots really are, despite the three laws, and well, he turns out to be onto something.
More interestingly, though, is why we tend to envision robots as almost human. The movie's robots are built to imitate human movement, and succeeding generations of robots mimic more and more closely human faces. And the movie employs the now-common theme of these almost humans. These entities are wanting because they cannot feel, but cause trouble when they wade into murky emotions. Yet, once these beings exhibit emotions we humans must reconsider whether they are alive and merit life and liberty.
There must be something to this in how we perceive what is worthy of protection as a life and what is an object. It is funny though how our fictional machines become lifelike, while our cars and robot vacuum cleaners remain resolutely machinery.
A delightful little way to waste some time: can you outfox a computer in a game of 20 questions? Guess the dictator or sitcom character.
At least for human evolution. Researchers have found a more than fourfold increase in the number of old humans beginning 32,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic Era. By analyzing the rate of wear and tear of molars, they were able to gauge how much of the population was old, that is twice the age at which they could reproduce, across four groups of hominids. And among Upper Paleolithic humans, suddenly many survived to be grandparents. Other studies have shown grandmothers provided the extra care, wisdom and food to improve the odds their daughters' offspring would reach adulthood. So the thinking runs, suddenly having more grandparents around benefits not just the survival rates of additional children, but increases the knowledge available, and opens the possibility of creating cultures and civilizations.
And to think we consider 30 somethings young and callow now!