I Robot: Morality and Ethnicity

I Robot: Morality and Ethnicity

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I Robot is a movie based on a novel written by an atheistic man, Isaac Asimov, who believes in technology. Sometimes, technology does come into conflict with people’s morality and ethnicity which in turn has an adverse effect on their Christianity beliefs and faith as a whole. The movie dwells upon several themes, ranging from technology and modernization, fear, morality and ethnicity, foolishness and folly, language and communication, choices, friendship, science, power, and rules and order. It is a movie that majority believe is about robots who will take over humanity. However, the movie is about the ability of humans to adapt to the changes in technology. Morality and ethnicity is the major theme in the movie in which it encompasses the other themes.  

        The theological themes in the movie focuses on the daily personal questions about one’s faith and beliefs which seems as a challenge on a daily basis. The events portrayed in the film take place in future. The main location is Chicago city the year 2035. In the movie, it is shown that in the future there be many robots and there will come times when robots will be a basic need of every household. The film plot revolves around detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) who is a homicide detective who does not like robots. The detective hates robots because he was once involved in a car accident in which a robot saved him instead of a little girl he was involved with in the crash. The hate for robots continues when the scientist who repaired detective Del is found dead in the lobby of the U.S Robotics office tower. Detective Spooner concludes that the scientist’s death was an act of murder committed by a robot called Sonny rather than a suicide (Asimov, I Robot Theme of Morality and Ethnicity, 2016).

The detective believes that the robots are immoral and unethical which led to the killing of the scientist and it happens he is the only person who does believes so. Everyone knows that the robots are controlled by the three major rules but he does not believe in their stories and beliefs. For him, he had bad experiences with the robots as several robots had tried to kill him, therefore, he does not believe the three rules of robots. He had been attacked by the robots at his home and in the highway tunnel being ambushed by the robots. His attacks are against the moral and ethnicity that controls the robots because they are supposed to protect the human beings and not to harm them (Singer, 2009).

The robots are depicted as more stable, giving better reasoning, and given that laws control them they are supposed to follow them. Nevertheless, the same robots go against the laws and attack the detective as well as his family and friends. There is no any incidence when the detective is against the robot rules. The robots now attack him without any reason which now questions about the theological faith of the person who programmed them. It is evident that the robots cannot be moral and ethical when they trace the detective’s grandmother, and they hold her captive. Sooner, the same robot that saved his life and a robot expert learn that there is a motherboard at the control center that controls the robots at the US Robotics building. The three find the motherboard and destroy it thus saving both humanity and robots (Munteanu, 2005).

Technology sometimes can be very tempting and can make humans forget about their morality and ethnicity. The robots and the humans are in a dilemma on how they will both coexist and live a moral life. This seems to be the primary challenge for everybody. There are three ground rules that the robots have to follow which makes them moral. On the contrary, they trip some of the robots that try to be moral. The three laws are:

1. A robot should always protect a human and not injure them
2. A robot is subject to human being in which they ought to obey the laws given expect one that conflicts protecting human beings
3. It is the right of every robot to its own existence given that the protection does not conflict with the first and the second law (Toghia, 2014).

The theme of morality has a connection with theology because they both deal with what is right, the truths on whether they are ideal or they are embedded thus need some critical analysis. The movie focuses on the human creation. Human beings were created with the image of their Creator and given the ability to be above all the other creation. In the movie, the detective is amazed by what the robots can do, and sometimes they work more efficiently than the human beings. Moreover, they do it very quickly, quicker that humans do.   Given that humans are created in the image and likeness of God, the robots were created by scientists who have great minds thus giving them great minds (intelligence) too (Singer, 2009).