Theme in Literature Every book has a theme; some more powerful than others. In the story “Trurl’s Machine,” written by polish author, Stanislaw Lem, you join engineers, Trurl and Klapaucius, on the run from a not-so-dumb thinking machine. Be determined,be brave, and be prepared to destroy your creations, for the outcome of not doing so may be catastrophic. As seen on page 109, Trurl and Klapaucius finally realize that the machine needs to be demolished. “For the machine, in stubborn pursuit, was plowing through the walls of the buildings, like a mountain of steel, and in its wake lay piles of rubble and white white clouds of plaster dust.” This sentence is proof that if Trurl and Klapaucius had gone to the mountains instead of the town
and gotten rid of the machine, the destruction and loss in the poor town could have been avoided. Trurl had been mostly prepared, but he did not think ahead to realize that going to the town would be decimated if the machine stormed through. Bravery is a word that can be used to describe Trurl standing up to the machine. Trurl had the bravery to stand up against the machine’s threats by continuing to say that two and two was four and not seven.“...there was a violent, loud, creaking and crashing sound that came from the outside...and they saw gigantic boulders falling... They saw the machine lay flattened at the bottom of the valley...” In a fit of rage, the machine had caused an avalanche, leading to its demise. If Trurl hadn’t been brave and stood up for himself, he could have died along with Klapaucius. Trurl and Klapaucius are both determined to stay alive and shut the robot down before something bad happens. Trurl didn't give up and stays focused on the task at hand. An example of determination is shown when Trurl risks his life and his friend’s life to destroy the robot before something really bad happens, “That’s not true! It’s seven! Say it’s seven or I’ll hit you! He didn’t let anything get in the way of him reaching his goal. All of the listed reasons helped Trurl destroy his work before the machine caused even more destruction. You needed to be determined, brave, and prepared to be able to accomplish destroying something of your own.
When looking into the inner workings of a machine, one does not see each individual gear as being separate, but as an essential part of a larger system. Losing one gear would cause the entire system to stop working and eventually fail. This concept of mechanics lays the foundation to many issues touched on in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The machine imagery comes through in two conversations with men that the invisible man may idolize, though he does not realize this at the time. The first of these conversations is with the veteran, while the second is with Lucius Brockway. Though the two may not qualify as “main characters,” they both play a crucial role, or as two gears in the system of Invisible Man. While one has a more literal focus on machineries than the other, both men have similar ideas of the topics they inadvertently discuss. Both conversations pave the way to the narrator’s awakening and the realization of his use in society. Within Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator’s various interactions with people regarding machines allow him to acquire knowledge in regar...
own and soon devises a method of controlling the minds of everyone in the city. Only two young people, Caro and David, are not manipulated by the computer. They band together and work out a strategy to disable the computer. The two make a daring infiltration of the building that the computer is located and after a traumatic episode in which Caro is blinded, the computer is destroyed and the city is returned to it's previous state. The theme of the book is to show that technology is not a perfect solution to the many problems faced by man.
What role will computers play in the future? What happens when artificial intelligence gets to the point of actually allowing machines to give birth to original thoughts, or suppose artificial intelligence became identical or superior to human intelligence? While attempting to answer these thought-provoking questions deeper questions arise that are more pertinent in our lives such as what defines being human, or as Morpheous says, “What is…real?” The Matrix as well as the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Phillip K. Dick, attempt to answer these questions through different matrices. These matrices are implemented into stories to provoke thought and ask the question, what if?
The story “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury is a science fiction short story that has themes connecting to what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. “The Veldt” was written in 1950, where notable technological advances were made. Things such as the first TV remote control and credit cards (although, known as the “travel and entertainment” card at the time) were made. 8 million televisions were also being used in homes around the US (The People History. Retrieved from http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1950.html). As technology is advancing, things are getting easier; people are starting and continuing to become more leisurely. The story “The Veldt” is showing how our future might end up as technology advances, and people themselves
...n against machine in a noticeably strained battle, but they also despise that the humans are more machine like than they ponder, and that the machine possesses human qualities as well. The humans, for their part, are as persistently compelled as machines. The incredible fighting skills and superhuman strength of the character seem to put them in machine type category. It showed how dependent man and machine actually are, or might be. One terror of fake intelligence is that technology will trap us in level of dependency. It emphasized the idea that artificial intelligence enslaves the human race. With the time we people are also becoming slaves of the machines that we have created. In time people will be so dependent on machines that they can no longer survive without them. This is the implicit idea of the film matrix, idea which hardly people would have noticed.
Warrick, Patricia S. "Science Fiction Images of Computers and Robots." The Cybernetic Imagination. N.p.: The MIT, 1980. 53-79. Rpt. in Contemporary Lieterary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale, 1983. 53-56. Print.
Artificial Intelligence is very similar to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in that the underlying themes, questions asked, and moral issues raised are the same.
Adas, Michael, "Machines as the Meaure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance", Cornell Univ. Press 1989, pp. 1-35.
If a machine passes the test, then it is clear that for many ordinary people it would be a sufficient reason to say that that is a thinking machine. And, in fact, since it is able to conversate with a human and to actually fool him and convince him that the machine is human, this would seem t...
The text of “Burning Chrome” by William Gibson, is based on the tale of two professional hackers, Automatic Jack and Bobby Quine. Jack buys a piece of unknown software that turns out to be a sophisticated and almost untraceable Russian hacking software. Bobby decided to use this software to break in and steal money from a high level and well connected criminal known as Chrome. After Jack agrees, the two hackers successfully break in and steal money as well as take down Chrome. These two characters live in a futuristic world where human anatomy and customizable technology have become one and both software and hardware have become crucial to the people of this time. In this essay I will briefly explain how software and hardware play a crucial part within the plot and how they differentiate from one another.
Reflected in Scott 's Blade Runner, Tyrell has turned into the "God of biomechanics" and Roy his "prodigal son". These biblical suggestions are apparent of the consumerist drive for development of global organizations in the 1980 's and further uncovered how science effectively assume control; take control. The replicants are given embedded recollections and in that capacity are compelled to act a specific way.
In this book, Forster is able to portray a reality that could become true if we, human beings, keep depending on technology for survival. Although it is very distressing that people became dependable to the Machine to the extent where they loose their humanity and become like a machine as well, with no mind of their own. It is incredible how people were not able to survive when the Machine stopped working; it is understandable that people nowadays will also have a hard time surviving without technology since we were born into a technological world. But the World will be well when people like Kuno remind humans what is really important in life.
...his gap in difference widens even more when comparing place. The people of “The Machine Stops” live in a hell like environment deep underground, being ruled by a man made version of the devil. Which some even consider a god. While the twenty first century lives in the surface of earth, free to manipulate the environment, to learn, and to pursuit happiness.
His story starts off with the machine going over a year a second in the future. The first thing he notices when the machine stops is a big sphinx statue and a group of people. The
Turing, Alan. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. Margaret A. Boden, ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 40-66.