Remember the first animated film jointly produced by Disney and Marvel, The Super Marines?
The film that blends family companionship with science fiction adventure tells the story of the genius teenager Xiaohong and his friends forming a super alliance to resist the evil forces. Among them, the therapeutic robot white left by XiaoHong's brother before his death is the most impressive.
Whether it is the embrace in the ordinary day or the sacrifice in the battle, Dabai is conveying to Xiaohong the concept of "the Si people are dead, and the living should live better". In addition to the optimistic and positive attitude towards life and meticulous care, Dabai's strong and cute shape makes many female audiences want a boyfriend like Dabai.
Seven years after the release of "Super Marines" in North America, another animated movie about human-robot companionship, "Heavenly Spirit Machine", met the audience.
With the advancement of science and technology, people's social behavior has gradually been replaced by electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets. Children who lack the company of their parents do not know how to communicate with others face-to-face and feel lonely. To this end, "Bubble Company" wrote a "friendship algorithm".
The "Bubble Bot" created by this algorithm integrates social, music player, immersive projection, transportation tools and other functions. In addition, they can match users with people with the same interests and hobbies, helping more children to make friends easily.
When people around you are communicating with smartphones, but you are still using PHS, then you may be a "freak" and "out of place" in the eyes of others, and Barney is such a "dirt bun". When students use the "little white robot" to get to and from school, Barney, who suffers from social disorders, can only ride a bicycle to school.
On Barney's birthday, the father bought a second-hand "little white robot" for his son at a low price. But cheap and good, this robot Ron who broke down during the transportation process (in fact, the driver braked sharply while dodging Barney, which broke Ron), but mistakenly became Barney's robot.
From dating mediums to artificial intelligence
"Little White Robot" is also known as "out-of-the-box best friend". They are everywhere for the user's consideration, helping users to dress up and promote themselves on the virtual network to obtain higher attention.
However, Ron did not look like a robot at all. Other robots communicate through virtual networks to help users make friends; Ron uses physical means to paste paper birthday party notices and dating information on other robots, and even runs to the road to forcibly "recruit friends" in the form of small advertisements.
Ron's "failure" is not only reflected in the non-intelligent physical communication behavior, but also reflected in the transformation of the subject identity of the demediated.
Robots are originally tools to help children make friends, but the emergence of Ron breaks the "subject-object" relationship between man and machine, and even makes itself subjective. This shift can be seen in the dating rules that Barney assigned to Ron.
Lonely for a long time, Barney's rules are all self-centered: "How to be my friend?" ""Within two meters of me" "Like me"...
But as he put it, "Friendship is a two-way street." "Companionship is also mutual. When Barney complains that Ron has made himself more and more unsupportable in front of his friends, Ron makes Barney realize that he is not taking care of the robot's feelings. Barney, aware of the problem, changed a few words in the rules, and the dating rules became: "Be friends", "Be with me", "I like you"...
The difference Between Ron is also reflected in the particularity of its "non-artificial intelligence".
Generally speaking, what we call artificial intelligence means that robots have human perception, emotion, and thinking logic, but this intelligence is still in the idealized category, that is, a moral, orderly, and technological human variant with a certain aesthetic literacy. But Ron in "Heavenly Spirit Machine" is a robot with a primitive thinking.
First of all, the non-automated Ron is different from other procedural robots and will not run according to programmed programs; secondly, its operating logic is not technological, but humanistic, a natural, face-to-face communication. Ron's way of thinking and habits are more human than those children who learn about the world through screens.
Artificial intelligence is not a cold algorithm, but a living emotional code. While enjoying the convenience brought by artificial intelligence, we cannot ignore the drawbacks of information technology. This evil does not refer to the evil robot destroying humans and ruling the earth, but the virtual world clamping down on people.
Humanity overwhelmed by technology
Technology deprives children of the ability to communicate normally. Grandma Barney recalled that she could still see Barney's friends at the birthday party before, but where are they now?
The "little white robot" became an iron curtain that prevented children from entering the real world. However, people living in the virtual world are not happy.
Boy Richie wins eyeballs through exaggerated, mocking, and deceitful behavior on the Internet, although he doesn't want to do it in his heart; the girl Savannah only cares about herself under the screen filter, sullen for a few bad reviews that ruin the image, and has long forgotten her friends in real life.
Is the outdated Barney lonelier, or are those with "little white robots" more lonely?
Ritchie would be frustrated by no one liking; Savannah would be demoralized by the denigration of others; and some classmates would just stare at the screen and play games, or put their shoes in a circle and imagine it as a multiplayer party.
Barney and Ron establish a human companionship relationship, and those classmates through the robot only get a temporary emotional filling and catharsis, unable to get growth and transformation, let alone unforgettable memories.
If children are a group that is used by technology, then Andrew, the new president of Bubbles, is the unscrupulous businessman who destroys humanity.
When the media exposed Ron's "attack" on humans, Andrew was bent on destroying Ron, just to suppress the threat of public opinion; in order to capture Ron, he also called up surveillance cameras installed on other "little white robots" to conduct a carpet hunt; after learning that Ron saved Barney, Andrew wanted to play a warm card.
In Andrew's mind, the safety of robots and children is not important, what matters is whether the stock price of Bubble Company has risen or not.
From "Remember Me" to "Stay with Me"
The science fiction movie "Finch", which also tells the story of human-computer companionship, has been launched on Apple TV+ on November 5, 2021.
A catastrophe turned the earth into a wasteland, and only a few people survived. The disappearance of the ozone layer, the increase in ultraviolet radiation, and the potential for storms in extreme environments at any time have caused the mechanical engineer Finch (Tom Hanks) to deteriorate.
Terminally ill, Finch creates a robot Jeff. So he and Jeff, along with a puppy, drove the old truck toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
The film does not use too many lenses to show the wonders of the apocalyptic world, but focuses on the relationship between people, dogs, and robots.
At first, Finch didn't trust anyone. He had seen the vicious faces of people killing each other for food after the catastrophe, and even witnessed the little girl being brutally killed by a gang of thugs, leaving only a puppy.
Finch made Jeff so that he could take care of the puppy after his death to make up for his cowardice. However, after seeing that Jeff gained self-consciousness, Finch, who had originally given up on himself, also gave birth to some hope of survival.
Jeff has been emphasizing subjective agency, the awakening of robot self-awareness. Finch's relationship with Jeff is more like father and son. The Father created a new life form, watched it grow, and then sent himself out of this world.
But hope will not be a miracle after all. Finch died on the most beautiful part of the journey, butterflies flying around him, and he seemed to see a bright future for Jeff and the dog.
After Finch's death, Jeff arrives at the Golden Gate Bridge with his dog. Their next plan is not to live alone, but to find other surviving humans. The spirit and life of human beings are continued through robots.
The person who is dying may hope that the younger generation will be able to "remember me", which is better interpreted in the animated movie "Dream Quest". But now, the survivors of these doomsday legends prefer someone to "accompany me."
Especially in the era of the epidemic, people are more willing to cherish the present and stay by the side of their loved ones. Therefore, such films that advocate the companionship of man and machine actually imply the psychological needs of the current real audience: we need a species that is more human-like, but has some transcendent qualities than humans, to accompany us.
They can be "Little White" Ron, or Big White, or Jeff.
【Text/He Thought】