By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY
Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction, which normally deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts, such as advanced science and technology. Science fiction was the most popular in several periods of the 20th century:
- The 1930s-1940s: the Golden Age of Science Fiction
This period is generally considered to have been from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. It was a time when many fundamental works of science fiction literature were published.
The end of World War II and technological developments in space exploration and nuclear energy helped make science fiction popular. Japanese science fiction films, like Godzilla (1954), were also contributed to the popularity of science fiction in literature.
- The 1960s–1970s
Science fiction became exceedingly popular in film and on television during this decade. Some notable films from this period included: Fahrenheit 451 (1966), A Space Odyssey (1968), and Charly (1968). The new “wave” style of science fiction was also popular during this time, emphasizing the social and psychological sciences over the physical sciences.
The most prominent, and my favorite, science fiction writers who represent last two periods of the 1950s and the 1960s-1970s are:
—Ivan Yefremov (1908-1972) was a Soviet paleontologist, archaeologist and science-fiction author. He founded taphonomy—the study of how organisms’ decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record. His most controversial and popular science fiction book is The Hour of the Bull (1968).
—Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006) was a Polish writer and widely translated into Russian language. He was the author of many novels, short stories, and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical and humorous character.
—Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.
Nevertheless, it was Karel Čapek (1890-1938) of the Golden Age of Science Fiction period of the 1930s-1940s, who had pioneered and set a tone for this creative literary genre. Karel Čapek was a Czech writer and playwright; he was one of the most influential and prolific Czech writers of the 20th century. In addition to his first popular fiction R.U.R. (1920), he also wrote The Outlaw (1920), Pictures from the Insects’ Life (1921), The Makropulos Affair (1922), Adam the Creator (1927), War with the Newts (1936) and The White Disease (1937).
Čapek has become best known for his science fiction genre, including his most notable play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) written in 1920. In R.U.R. Čapek introduced the word “robot” to the English vocabulary; originally the word itself derived from the Russian word “rabota,” or work (noun). He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time, strongly opposing the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe.
The R.U.R. is set in a factory that produces artificial workers — “robots”— from synthetic organic matter. The robots physically resemble humans but lack original thoughts, emotions, and consciousness. They are created by humans to perform physical labor and eliminate hardship for humanity. Eventually, robots organized themselves, rebelled against humans and managed to kill most of them on Earth. Subsequently, the robots were unable to reproduce, because humans possessed a secret formula for their skin production; so, robots end and ultimate existence became inevitable.
The play is a social commentary on the dangers of humans thinking too naively and ignoring the consequences of their unwise actions. It also explores the idea that robots are viewed as unliving things, rather than people.
The play was an enormous success in Europe and North America and, eventually, it was translated into over 30 major languages by 1923. It inspired many other creative works, including Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”—a set of guidelines for how robots should ideally behave in human society.
In his play, Čapek attempted to convey to readers that human consciousness is the state of being aware of oneself and the world around them, including thoughts, memories, feelings, emotions, sensations, and environments. It is a subjective experience that is unique to each person and unique only to humans.
Historically, only humans among all other living creatures and species on the Planet Earth created complex social institutions, sophisticated technology, political parties, mythology, creative literature and art, major world religions, theological teachings, and the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments, to name a few.
Consciousness also has many biological and social purposes, such as: processing information, choosing actions, setting priorities, adapting to new information, and making rational decisions. Some examples of consciousness include: the tune of music stuck in people’s head, the sweetness of chocolate cake, the throbbing pain of a toothache, the strong emotions for the loved one, and judgement between good and evil, and right vs. wrong.
Today’s development and attempts to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to our daily life and, subsequently, to replace human labor is somewhat a blueprint of the Čapek’s 1920s play R.U.R.
Artificial Intelligence is a field of computer science that focuses on creating machines that can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence and labor. Artificial Intelligence systems use algorithms, quantitative data, and computational power to emulate human intelligence. In short, AI is the technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, and rational decision making.
In fact, the introduction of digital technology and cellular network and means of communication have already significantly changed many traditional aspects of our contemporary daily life, education system and cultural values. It remains a mystery of how the introduction of AI can and will change the fabric of human society—i.e., shared moral values, norms of behavior, laws, social institutions, cultural practices, distribution of wealth, and lifestyle of biological humans.
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
This post was originally published on here
