Prophets of Science Fiction | show | 2011 | Official Featurette - video Dailymotion

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The series covers the life and work of leading science fiction authors of the last couple of centuries. It depicts how t | dHNfNnFEQ3RZbW1UMjg

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00:00 I'm Wrigley Scott, and these are the profits of science fiction.

00:07 Stories.

00:09 Susan Calvin's employer produces an obedient domestic robot called...

00:14 The young girl and Robbie form this amazing friendship.

00:18 However, in the background of this story, there is a...

00:23 The mother and father decide to get rid of their robot.

00:26 Robbie's removed from domestic life and cast out into a world of industrial labor.

00:32 The daughter becomes so distraught that her father reconsiders.

00:36 He takes her to the factory where Robbie now works.

00:40 And the young girl sees Robbie and she rushes toward Robbie.

00:48 Robbie saves her life.

00:50 And so Robbie is now accepted back into the family.

00:55 Robbie puts his laws to the test in the 1942 short story, "Runaround."

01:01 Asimov's "Runaround" is about a mining operation, but it's dangerous to go out and get it.

01:06 So they send out this robot to go get it.

01:09 Asimov names the robot "Speedy."

01:12 They send out Speedy for a five-hour mission.

01:15 They discover Speedy near a Selenium pool, and he seems to be almost drunk.

01:21 What's happening here is two of the laws of robotics are in conflict.

01:27 The second law of robotics, to obey all of man's orders, is driving him to the pool of

01:31 Selenium.

01:32 But apparently the Selenium is affecting him mechanically, and that conflicts with the

01:37 third law of robotics, which is self-preservation.

01:42 They recognize that the law about protecting...

01:45 Speedy's owner puts himself at risk.

01:49 Forcing the robot to break from its vicious circle and come to his rescue.

01:55 His early stories, so many of them hinged on the fact that...

01:58 In his murder mystery, "The Naked Son," Asimov imagines brainwashing robots in the same way.

02:07 The antagonist tried to get the robots in "The Naked Son" to violate the first law of

02:12 robotics by changing the...

02:15 He was able to change their programming so that they no longer saw human beings, but

02:19 rather saw inorganic material.

02:23 It allowed a rope that he was doing it.

02:29 Isaac Asimov.

02:32 In his short story, "Reason," Asimov places a robot in charge of a space station.

02:38 QT-1 works side by side with humans.

02:44 He's on this spaceship in order to control rays from the sun that they're directing to

02:50 Earth for energy.

02:54 Asimov's favorite short story explores the burden that can come with knowing everything.

03:00 Asimov's last question postulates a future...

03:07 And the computer says, "I don't..."

03:10 Insufficient data for meaningful answer.

03:14 For eons, generations confront multivac with the last question, yet it perpetually lacks

03:21 the knowledge to answer.

03:23 The computer keeps growing, keeps absorbing data.

03:27 Human beings disappear because there's no more need for them.

03:31 The computer has amassed all the information in the world, in the universe, supposedly.

03:37 In the last question, Asimov assures us robots will not take over the world or bring about

03:43 the end of our species, but achieve perfect harmony with mankind, a theoretical collective

03:49 consciousness known as singularity.

03:53 Singularity is the idea that the evolution of man and machine...

03:59 At various points in the naked sun, a robot is expected to do something he isn't allowed

04:04 to do by the three laws of robotics.

04:06 Isaac, clever lad that he was, always found a way around it.

04:34 (upbeat music)

Prophets of Science Fiction | show | 2011 | Official Featurette

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