![]() Today, machines seem to get better every day at digesting vast gulps of information-and they remain as emotionally inert as ever. H14, like all computers in the real world, was an imbecile. Henson’s film offered something else, too: a critique-echoed on television and in novels but dismissed by computer engineers-that, no matter a system’s capacity for errorless calculation, it will remain inflexible and fundamentally unintelligent until the people who design it consider emotions less bothersome. The film, titled “Robot,” captures the aspirations that computer scientists held half a century ago (to build boxes of flawless logic), as well as the social anxieties that people felt about those aspirations (that such machines, by design or by accident, posed a threat). Ticking and whirring, it begs for a human mechanic seconds later, it explodes. While mere mortals wallow in a sea of emotionalism, the machine is busy digesting vast oceans of information in a single all-encompassing gulp.” H14 then takes such a gulp, which proves overwhelming. ![]() “The machine possesses supreme intelligence, a faultless memory, and a beautiful soul.” A blast of exhaust from one of its ports vaporizes a passing bird. “Data program readout: number fourteen ninety-two per cent H2SOSO.” (Robots of that era always seemed obligated to initiate speech with senseless jargon.) “Begin subject: Man and the Machine,” it continues. “This is computer H14,” it proclaims as the film begins. Told to devise a faux robot that believed it functioned better than a person, he came up with a cocky, boxy, jittery, bleeping Muppet on wheels. Henson had been hired to make the film for a conference that the company was convening to showcase its strengths in machine-to-machine communication. ![]() stumbled upon a rare fragment of computer history: a short film that Jim Henson produced for Ma Bell, in 1963. By scanning your face, computers can decode your unspoken reaction to a movie, a political debate, even a video call with a friend. ![]()
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