Follow TV Tropes

Following

A "Realistic" Robot Buddy Genre

Go To

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#1: Feb 29th 2012 at 3:50:02 AM

So I've been thinking about this for a while.  Based on what we've seen from the darker robot characters and settings and AI in anime and manga (ie the split between the Real Robot Genre vs Super Robot Genre, A.I. Is a Crapshoot, and Cybernetics Eat Your Soul), what would a traditional optimistic Japanese Robot Buddy genre look like if it was taken to its "realistic" extreme?  

I mean in the former's case, we've got Darker and Edgier epic plotlines about Deconstuctions of Humongous Mecha (Neon Genesis Evangelion), future postulations on the theory of Brain Uploading (Ghost In The Shell), and the Psycho Prototype.  And on the other scale, we've got......Doraemon and Medabots. It seems like such a dramatic shift from Childhood Idealism of "Let's be friend with our manufactured Robot Companions!" to "Holy sh*t, my sister was Mind Raped by an artificial sentience!" I'm wondering exactly where the transition of idealism to cynicism occurs and if there's a middle ground.

So I guess what I'm asking is what does it really mean when a child says his best friend is a highly advanced, artificially created conscious construct?  Is that individual simply a child prodigy who loves technology, or a desperate lonely individual who has such terrible social skills they have to resort to a mechanical "friend"?

BTW, this is my thesis for my Cogs Sys class.

edited 29th Feb '12 4:02:24 AM by Mattonymy

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
Fluid Since: Jan, 2001
#2: Feb 29th 2012 at 5:11:40 AM

You might be interested in what Pluto did with Astro Boy. At least, it comes close to the things you're describing.

fillerdude from Inside Since: Jul, 2010 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#3: Feb 29th 2012 at 5:21:26 AM

Yeah, Pluto's a good one for grey grounds.

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#4: Feb 29th 2012 at 9:45:26 AM

Hmmm Pluto sounds pretty good, I'll definitely have to look into it. Is it a deconstruction?

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#5: Feb 29th 2012 at 12:43:05 PM

Not as such, no. It's really more of an alternative universe take on a famous Astro Boy story that goes more deeply into the psychology of sentient robots and their place in the world. All the "dark" was there in the original, it just wasn't the focus.

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#6: Feb 29th 2012 at 3:14:55 PM

KBrowses trope page

Hmmm so a murder mystery set in an Alternate Universe that revolves around Fantastic Racism? Where have I seen that before? tongue

Yeah, that sound like an interesting premise, but I don't think its quite what I'm looking for. Based on what I read, it seems the robots within the society already exist as an independent social minority class, not necessarily Robot Buddy.

edited 29th Feb '12 3:16:00 PM by Mattonymy

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#7: Feb 29th 2012 at 6:07:41 PM

Two angles to work from if you're going for a "realistic" Robot Buddy story—

1. Who would build one, and why?

2. What is the Robot Buddy actually thinking—if it has true ability to think as humans understand the term?

Note that the ability to build such a thing in the first place is your "gimme" for the story, you don't have to justify it beyond "we now have the necessary technology."

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#8: Feb 29th 2012 at 6:32:43 PM

Huh, so do you its sufficient enough to say that current technology would yield a relatively cognizant robot? Writers wouldn't have to rely on the Imported Alien Phlebotinum aspect to explain how the robot came into being?

Also, another question I have is why are robots so popular in Japan? I don't just mean animation but literally every computer and/or automobile company in Japan (ie Honda, Sony, Toyota, Fujitsu, Hitatchi, etc) have their own robot division. Why? Is it just for The LULZ or something more socio-cultural?

edited 29th Feb '12 6:44:53 PM by Mattonymy

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
fillerdude from Inside Since: Jul, 2010 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
#9: Mar 1st 2012 at 12:39:30 AM

[up] It's definitely enough to say that the tech levels are good enough for robot buddies, it's your premise after all.

Also, robots are popular because they are cool and Japan is zany enough to try making one.

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#10: Mar 1st 2012 at 12:13:14 PM

I think the difficulty I'm having with this theory is that by making a robot buddy more "realistic", is the growing reliance that by doing so, the work becoming unnecessarily Darker and Edgier. I see this a lot with forced deconstructions, that by reworking a genre or subtext into a a more realistic setting, literally everything falls to sh*t. Like, "you want to have a team of cute adorable battling Mons? CONGRATULATIONS, your actions just caused your mother to shoot herself!" (???) Even something with Madoka, despite being completely amazing, some of the darker elements seemed a tad forced in, as a result of it being deconstructed.

I don't particularly mind that a genre becomes darker as a result of it being retold realistically, but I don't think it should be forcefully shoved on. If a human has a manufactured consciousness and the robot is built specifically for being the persons' companion, would it be realistic that robot would be Driven to Suicide? I don't think so. Similarly, if a Mad Scientist invents a completely cognitive autonomous robot, is it likely that the robot would be stolen by government officials for military warfare?

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#11: Mar 2nd 2012 at 4:31:03 AM

Yep, you don't have to put in extra pessimism to be "realistic."

luislucas Since: Feb, 2010
#12: Mar 2nd 2012 at 5:59:54 AM

One reason why there aren't deconstructions of the robot companion genre could be due to it not being a genre in itself but a part of the mon genre, since that is about humans interacting/befriending/forming a partnership with non humans. Of course, non-humans usually means fantastic animals, but that is not necessarily the case. For example, the Digimon are technically advanced AI's, so from a certain point of view they are robot buddies (although Digimon Tamers might be darker a deconstruction than you want).

On the other hand, the main reason why there aren't realistic robot buddies is that it would be difficult to make such a relationship interesting, since they could neither behave like humans (like in medabots) or behave like animals (like in pokemon). They could only have a very limited expression, and couldn't just develop emotions through their life experiences (like in Wall E), because that would make them as if they were children growing up rather than actual machines.

edited 2nd Mar '12 6:00:41 AM by luislucas

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#13: Mar 2nd 2012 at 9:05:26 PM

What about something like this: the "Robot" in question is nothing more than a slightly advanced roomba or AIBO. It doesn't really have any real emotional expression, and does little than simply bump into things and spout random expressions. The real deconstruction comes from the fact that the human counterpart, who is such a recluse, that they've actually begun to see a character in it and treat it like a semi-cognitive being. This might actually be present itself as an interesting psychological analysis of loneliness, like Wilson from Castaway.

Or alternatively, have the robot be something like WALL-E where it can think for itself and have a limited range of emotion, but the designer/ programmer utterly refuses to acknowledge this and sees their relationship as no different then to that of a toaster. I imagine this might become something like an Abusive Parent of sorts, where the robot's "conscious" aspects are thoroughly exploited by the human.

Or maybe a combination of the two. I guess if I did that (Recluse, lives with robot "companions") would it be necessary to facilitate a backstory for why this is (ie why the human lives alone, and why something as technologically advanced would not be sold for cash, etc) I was also thinking of having it from the robot's perspective, but I don't want a talking Funny Robot, as opposed to an R2 silent type. Anyone know how to write for a robot character?

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
luislucas Since: Feb, 2010
#14: Mar 3rd 2012 at 7:12:24 AM

[up]Your first idea reminded me of the movie Cast Away, in which Tom Hanks paints a face on a coconut.

Another idea would be for a kid to build his own partner, gradually improving it's intelligence (like those toys, where you can start with a simple response but then you learn how to make it do the complex stuff), but without it being human like or even animal like. The series would then be about the kid trying to justify why is self made partner is so much better than everything else, and what led the kid to want such a robot buddy (boredom, no social skills, disgust at others, lazyness, anything).

Most of all though, I agree on something: the robot buddy must be unintelligible, and much of it's appeal would be the audience trying to figure out the why behind it's actions/beeps/failures (like in silent movies, but with robots).

edited 3rd Mar '12 7:16:32 AM by luislucas

Mattonymy Mr. Dr. from The Evils of Free Will Since: Jul, 2010
Mr. Dr.
#15: Mar 11th 2012 at 12:17:18 PM

Added this to the Playing With page for RB:

Basic Trope: Your Best Friend is a a robot

  • Straight: You have robot companion, who will loyally serve you.
  • Exaggerated: After building a robot with the logic to be your friend, the robot takes it to the logical extreme and wants to kill you with love.
  • Justified: The robot is a toy built by a Japanese distribution company to befriend humans with limited programming. Compare with a Tamogotchi, AIBO, Pleo, Robosapien.
  • Inverted: The robot realizes their "friend" is actually an evil psychopath, their Morality Chip overwrites his coding for befriending him, and he kills him.
  • Subverted: The artificial "friend" is actually built by you're worst enemy.
  • Parodied / Played for laughs: A robot is built to befriend humans. However, it can not understand friendship/ takes everything to its logical extreme/ due to Fantastic Racism and always ends up terrorizing more people.
    • The person desperately wants a robot buddy tries to befriend all machines, regardless of it's inanimacy. His entourage includes a toaster, a broken record player, and a windows vista laptop.
  • Deconstructed: The machine's artificial intelligence was actually the result of a Mind Uploading of your human best friend into a robotic form. It takes a while, but the machine eventually realizes it was human at the start, and goes on a rampage to Kill All Humans.
    • A child builds a robot to be their best friend. Thusly said child becomes extremely anti-social, outcast, and eventually lives alone with only a computer simulation for company.
    • Criminals take advantage of a robot's programmed loyalty and use it to commit violent acts of murder.
  • Reconstructed: The Mind Uploaded robot has their human side forcefully deleted, and thusly reverts to its original coding for befriending humans.
    • The child loner is perfectly fine with living alone, and builds even more robots to keep themselves occupied.
  • Zig Zagged: An advanced A.I. program has bouts of logically obeying its human friend, to simply standing in a corner and processing data.
  • Averted: A man makes a robot sex slave for sick perverted men, but as himself ultimately views his device as nothing more than a motherboard and wiring.
  • Enforced: A random machine is reprogrammed with the sole directive of obeying a human's orders. Whatever the humans wants, the machine must service them to the best of its capabilities. Robots can not rise above their programming.
  • Lampshaded: The child's associates point out how unlikely it is that they can build a robot with artificial intellectual capabilities, yet is not in college or making millions,
  • Invoked: A father sees that his daughter is socially outcast at school and decides to build her a mechanical robot pet to become her friend.
  • Exploited: The robot buddy takes advantage over his human counterpart's "friendship" and uses this as a way to take control of his friends life for itself.
  • Defied: The A.I. Is a Crapshoot.
  • Discussed: "Do you really want a robot for a friend?"
  • Conversed: "Yeah, ever since I was six."


This product is now available at TV Tropes Store! Pick up your Robot Buddy today!

You are displaying abnormally high compulsions to over-analyze works of fiction and media. Diagnosis: TV Tropes Addiction.
Add Post

Total posts: 15
Top