I watched WALL-E today.
From the get-go it is a strange mixture of satire and environmentalism that’s quite effective when paired.
Overall, it’s a noteworthy movie that is an odd yet welcomed deviation from many of Pixar’s films. Not only funny but relevant as well.
While watching the movie as well, I found it to have very little connection to actual robotics in general. However, it did make me think of artificial emotion.
Throughout the movie, the movie’s main character, WALL-E is a robot who has been left on Earth to clean up humanity’s messes. He is the last “surviving” thing on dying Earth, with the exception of a cockroach. He’s quite lonely.
Artificial emotion. Ah, I wish I could program emotions in robots. That would be quite possibly the most amazing thing in the whole world. While not having any inherent relevance to science, it would be a milestone both magnificent and horrifying at the same time. To program gratitude in a microwave, so perhaps we could take appreciation in the small things in life we take for granted.
And then, the actual benefit. As some of you may know, I have a “rig” that overheats like crazy. It’s a computer that I use for general gaming. If it had emotions, that would change everything. My overheating computer would have a purpose, find a purpose, and overclock itself dynamically – shut itself down when it has expanded too much past it’s capacity. Much like a sprinter, it has a drive to perform at it’s best. It would reroute voltage to computer parts on it’s own, taking a lot of the guess work in overclocking out of the equation.
It’s horrifying, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a “pandora’s box” – where, if opened, would encourage so many ills, but possibly just as many innovations.
If I had the ability and experience, I would open that box without as much as a hesitation.
Integration of humanity and processor for creation of artificial thought. Haunting, ain’t it?
