Researchers follow their childhood dream

[jeffbert]

The current state of the art versus the goal of a real Astroboy. This is an interesting article. :wahah:

[Nannou]

Interestingly enough, Kubrick began- shortly after Barry Lyndon- to developing a little robot for AI.

[DrFrag]

I just saw Bicentenial Man and there are a lot of similarities there too. The robot spends his whole life striving to become more human.

[jeffbert]

I do not recall any but one event in Astroboy in which he obviously yearns to be human. In episode #1, he eats a doughnut, and after removing it (in one piece, although he consumed it in several bites), he drops his eyes, in a sad expression, as though thinking, "I am just a machine." I have a CD with 100s of classic books including Pinocchio. After reading that, I could see that his overwhelming desire was to be a real boy, but it seems not so important to Atom.

[DrFrag]

I thought it happened a lot more. In The Hijacked Airship (80s series) he gets Dr Elefun to take his super powers away so he can have dreams like a human boy. In the manga #7, Dr Tenma and his wife really push him to be more human-like and he tries to, but I guess that's a bit different.

[jeffbert]

My mistake. I am now viewing the VHS series.

[DrFrag]

My mistake too. As I think more about it there really weren't that many moments when he was trying to be more human. I think there is a better perspective on it in the manga #7 page 134.

A friend of Astro says "You're a robot. But you're special because you're being raised as a human child. You will be a go-between, between humans and robots. Understand?"

In contrast, Bicentenial Man's whole existance seemed to be about trying to become more human. A greater parallel is Bicentenial Man's fights for human rights. I think he ends up marrying a human in the end.

[jeffbert]

I saw the film, but that was some time ago.