What Makes Artificial Intelligence So Uncanny?

Robots are a phenomenon that have been a science-fictional creative outlet for as long as the genre existed. They're mainly symbolic of the future, but ironically enough, they replicate the fundamentals of human nature more than you would think. A lot of the time, a movie would start with a scientist or a human in general who gets a robot of some sort, but then they notice that their robot is starting to develop human characteristics... mainly emotions or sentiment, that attracts or repels the main character. Sometimes, it works out really well where the robot becomes a part of the human's life. Other times, their development worries the human and they try to get rid of it. From there, the robot may either fight back or just become a martyr for robots everywhere.

But one movie that I just recently watched on Netflix showed me something really interesting about the significance of robots. The movie Uncanny is about a scientist and a robot who live together, and a female journalist who visits them for seven days to write an article on the scientist's work. Basically, both the scientist and the robot become attracted to the journalist and take their different routes to pursue her. However she knows that the robot is artificial and is incapable of human affection. Plus, the scientist was being a complete jerk to the robot and constantly emphasizing his supposed inferiority to the intelligence of man. So the robot does research on women and carefully observes how the scientist and journalist interact. After a while he begins to act impulsively: asking her questions about intercourse, "accidentally" walking in on her in the bathroom, and eventually attempting to embrace her. The scientist tries to defend her and starts yelling at the robot like he's a child, which makes the robot curse at him and yell back. The robot attacks the scientist, and the journalist wakes up in a lab with the robot experimenting on the scientist. She tries to get him to stop because she said that she loves him. The robot asks if she loves him, and she says, "how could I ever love something like you?" Then he proceeds to pull a chip out the scientist's brain, and reveals that he was the scientist all along.

Apparently, it was a social experiment on how well the robot could mimic human behavior enough to not be detectable. But it was a lot more than that. It was an observation of human nature, more along the concept of groupthink. The journalist lady was deceived to believe the robot was human, but often judged the actual human for not being normal. He played the part so well that she sincerely thought that he was lesser than her and the "scientist". I personally believe that she was being condescending to the robot because he wasn't trying to be dominating or compete for her as much as the scientist, who apparently also showed signs of an inferiority complex. It was really interesting to see it all blow up in her face at the end that she was being played the entire time.

Which one do you think is the robot? Exactly. Be confused. I know I was.

But before the plot twist, the "robot's" behavior kind of reminded me of David's from Artificial Intelligence. The premise behind his existence was his uniqueness. He showed a great deal of sentiment towards the mother he was programmed to, more than any of the other models. But David had to constantly compete with this human boy for the mom's affection, and at some point allegedly attempted to harm the mom. The problem was he was trying to understand how to express his love for her, but didn't know how because all he had was programs and not actual emotion. The mom abandoned him deep in the woods, and the rest of the movie was based on him finding her again. But then that trickled into him coming up with the idea that all he needs is to become a real boy for his "mommy" to love him (he was really fond of the story of Pinocchio, which is legitimate since he wasn't a real boy, and the lady read the story to him a lot). This movie is about one of the longest movies a person can ever watch, but it is pretty great so I highly recommend it.

There are lots of other movies that use the concept of a robot that loves, like Big Hero 6, The Iron Giant, Robot and Frank, Her (that was an operating system that a man fell in love with. It was a really great movie) and probably more. The same concept is used for movies with aliens in it. The theme may be to ask yourself what you would do from a human perspective, but I think that people can relate to the robot just as much. They're introduced to a new world or environment, and they have to try their best to blend in so that they're not ostracized by civilians. The more they observe, the easier it is for them to become another replica of the mass majority. But at the same time, they see patterns in human nature that they become skeptical of and ask why they exist, and the human normally says that it's just the way things are.

 Every once in a while, people fluctuate between understanding and contemplation. So everything in nature follows the same patterns and can be appreciated for this if given enough perspective. Even your phone could have feelings or is wondering why you favor certain apps over others and the way you take care of it. Why wouldn't it? Technology is kind of made to monitor your habits and patterns anyways in order to improve, so it isn't too harsh of a reality to accept.

Would you accept a robot civilization into your life? If so, are you willing to deal with their flaws and the human dominance that could eventually be our downfall? And if not, what makes this concept any different from the use of smart phones, televisions, or even social media? These questions should be faced at some point, because there's a reasonable chance that technological advances can be leading up to this evolution.