Should we fear the rise of robots? The dawn of human/machine fusion is clearly on its way; remarkable advances in technology have led to the creation of self-driving cars, bionic organs, Siri and similar voice-controlled virtual assistants, just to name a few examples. Science fiction is rife with stories exploring the increasingly complicated relationship between man and machine, playing up our fears of a robotic takeover while allowing us to stand side by side with cyborgs and supercomputers. Stephen King, a master of the pulp genre, is one author who exploits our technophobic side in many of his works. His novels Cell and Christine, as well as his script for the film Maximum Overdrive, all embrace the concept of technology being used as an instrument of tyranny.
Pulp horror fiction about the rise of automation tends to be pessimistic. Machines that evolve to replace people have been presented as everything from irritating intrusions to rampaging terrors. In dystopian masterpiece Metropolis, one of the earliest films to focus on the subject, Fritz Lang reflects on the anxieties of Weimar era Germany, and the fears that an increasingly mechanized world would create uncontrollable powers that would eventually become unstable. In Lang’s world, sentient robots are more human than their live counterparts. A detached ruling class of elites uses workers as disposable assets, removing any sense of their individual characteristics and reducing them to unthinking automatons. Today we may not toil at giant clocks and gears, but since we sit in front of “thinking machines” for most of our days, Lang’s prophecy doesn’t seem too far from the truth.
Yet it is perhaps even more terrifying to think of machines functioning autonomously, seeking to repress humanity by their own volition. Another prevalent theme in the pulp sci-fi genre, it’s also a favorite of King’s. Addressed most noticeably in Christine, the tale of a used 1957 Plymouth Fury that comes to life with a taste for blood already engaged. With Google’s announcement of self-driving automobile prototypes on the way, could real-life Christines be a hazard in the future?
King is a transcendent genre writer, in that his work has helped to shape public discourse. To some degree, his works, like Maximum Overdrive and The Mangler, even seem to reflect something about his cynicism toward not merely technology, but particularly technology as it relates to consumerism. Or, in other words, technology being used toward questionable ends. King’s immensely popular Under The Dome program, which is becoming even more popular now that it can be streamed directly from the CBS homepage, Amazon Fire TV
In one of his more recent novels, Cell, ring tones spell doom for civilization when cell phones become vehicles of apocalyptic chaos. After a mysterious “pulse” is broadcasted to all cell phones, everyone using their phone at that moment devolves into a zombie. The human race actively seeks to destroy itself by inwardly turning to cannibalism. Talking on a cell phone, often used as cinematic shorthand for emotional unavailability, in this case means a total loss of any human-esque faculties. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president and former spymaster, is just one known figure averse to cellular technology (or any information passed via phone) due to its instability and tendency to be monitored. Cell provides a justification for his phobias, and then some.
Technology can be wonderful, especially in its ability to bring us together via electronic channels of communication. But each year, new inventions encroach on terrain that was previously occupied by humans alone. With every innovation, it often feels like real inventions are manifesting anxieties that used to exist solely within the realm of dreams. Computers are decision makers, facial and pattern recognizers, translators, and evolvers. While they may still need us to create them, technology is advancing at such a speed that it’s clear there will soon be a day when they don’t. As many of us find it hard to exist without our computerized devices, the line between humans and machines is growing increasingly blurry.
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Author Bio: Elizabeth Eckhart was born in raised in Chi City, Illinois. She studied Creative Writing at Loyola University. These days, she puts her English degree to good use by writing about science fiction and fantasy.
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