Remember that one? It came from an episode of Lost in Space that I saw when I was maybe seven or eight, and it has stuck with me all these years. I even looked it up a little while back… apparently I’m not the only one it has stuck with.
Remember that one? It came from an episode of Lost in Space that I saw when I was maybe seven or eight, and it has stuck with me all these years. I even looked it up a little while back… apparently I’m not the only one it has stuck with.
Yeah, Robbie the Robot. 🙂 Every now and then he’d go haywire and start saying “destroy! destroy! destroy!”. Another case of a software system that dramatically needed to be fixed. 😉
Oh, that was another robot, not Robbie.
Although I’ve seen the Robbie the Robot costume in at least half a dozen contexts, I haven’t yet seen the movie it was made for. I intend to correct that oversight at some point.
In any case, that line could be attributed to any of several dozen SF/horror film robots. I’m no expert, but I can’t presently think of a science fiction movie prior to Star Wars that featured robots that were actually friendly, as opposed to dangerous-tending-heavily-toward-homicidal. Even the unnamed Lost in Space robot was shown, in the pilot episode (which I saw once, many many years ago), to be cheerfully capable of murder if so commanded.
Fortunately for the future of AI and robotics, robots have gotten much better publicity in more recent decades.
Considering Defense-Department dollars, I’m not so sure that homicidal-maniac robots were that harmful for research funds. 😉
Ah, the Lost in Space robot was unnamed. There was an episode where it went haywire and started ranting “destroy! destroy! destroy!”. For some reason I thought the robot’s name was Robbie, obviously I confused it with another robot. I did watch Lost in Space, regularly though, much to the consternation of my mother who didn’t like it at all. 😉
Maybe so on the defense department dollars, but the general public certainly wouldn’t have supported such research prior to R2-D2.
The Lost in Space robot was just called “robot,” unless it was some long-winded epithet by Dr. Smith. However, I do recall seeing the Robbie costume on Lost in Space at one point, though I can’t for the life of me remember anything else about the episode it was in.