ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Robots on the Silver Screen: Real and Imaginary

• In Event: When Scientific Images Go Rogue: Popularization, Pluralization, and Contestation

English Abstract

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be very glad to tell my story. I am a smart fellow as I have a very fine brain of 48 electrical relays.” This is how Elektro, one of a family of robots that evolved out of Westinghouse’s switchgear business, introduced itself to crowds at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Standing 2.1 meters tall and weighing 118 kilograms, Elektro performed 26 different tricks, including walking, talking, counting, and singing. He had a vocabulary of approximately 700 words, although his responses were all prerecorded and played back from 33⅓-rpm records. Elektro went on to star in two movies: The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair (1939) and Sex Kittens Go to College (1960). While writing a piece about Elektro for IEEE Spectrum, I created an IMDB entry for the robot. In this paper, I will compare Elektro to other robots who have earned their fame with an IMDB entry, including Johnny 5, BB-8, TARS, Alexa, and Siri, to show how shifting perspectives on robots have been reflected in movies throughout the 20th century. I will also show the disconnect between these fictional counterparts and their real-world functionality and how that shapes public understanding of robotics. Recognizing that Edinburgh was a hub of robotics research in the 1970s, I will also include Donald Michie’s Freddy (who starred in an episode of the BBC’s tv series Controversy and is currently on exhibit) at the National Museum of Scotland) and the controversial Lighthill Report that led to an “AI Winter” in Britain.

Author

• Allison Marsh, University of South Carolina