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anytime that you want. It's the intelligent thing to do. Of course,
we go live to tape, so we give you the dates so you have
some relevance as to when you're listening to this program. And this evening is
July twentieth, as the date of our taping, fran Drescher, presidents of
the Striking Sag Union, said human beings and all different walks of life are
being replaced by robots. Actually, people have been concerned about robots for hundreds
of years and have expressed that fear and science fiction robots through the ages.
A new anthology, to be published very soon July twenty fifth, presents stories
starting with Ambrose Beers Moxon's Master in eighteen ninety nine, two stories written in
the past few years that look at robots as deadly rivals and essential friends.
Paul Levinson, the media theorists, science fiction writer, co worker, my
colleague and professor at Fordham, and frequent guest on Being Frank, contribut did
one of those stories, Robinson Calculator. He joins us here tonight for this
crucial discussion about robots and in our continuing efforts towards full transparency. I have
to say that he actually wrote that intro, because I could have done better
myself. Paul, Doctor, Paul Levits, and Paul, thank you once
again for joining us here. On Being Frank, Well, it's my pleasure
as always Frank, and obviously I mean people who know me won't be surprised
that I wrote that, because why else would have such a great compliment that
mentions my story. You certainly are, You certainly earned your way, and
we're going to talk about the story in just a little bit. But since
you started with Fran Drescher and the striking SAG union, which is very much
in the news, the first time both the actors and writers on strike together,
first time in sixty years, and it's affecting an enormous multi billion dollarstry
and also millions of workers, So it's an important thing. And the statement
human beings and all different walks of life are being replaced by robots. Is
she accurate? Is that true? No, it's not true at all.
And also let me person I support the unions and the strikes completely. I
think they deserve a lot more money. I agree with Fran Dreschler and other
people who've noted that the executives in the various studios make millions and millions of
dollars, and they have homes that are so splendid. If you stuck your
nose in there, you know, it would probably would be like walking into
some magical kingdom. You'd probably think you were flipping into another dimension. So
I think that the strike and the unions and the actors and the writers should
be supported by the public. These studios, these productions, companies have to
give them more money, more security, more benefits. But fran Drexler is
wrong in so many ways with that statement. First and foremost, she is
confusing or conflating robots with AI. The fact of the matter is robots are
not replacing human beings in so many areas. I mean, in what ways
are robots now replacing human beings? I guess there are. There's like a
vacuum cleaner that rolls around, that's all. I think it's called something along
those minds advertising, but I think they call it that a thing. Yeah,
I think you're right, And actually, at least over ten years ago,
probably even more the there's a Japanese company it may still be selling it.
They developed a robot called Asimo, where you're named after Isaac Asimo.
But what is a robot that does vacuuming replacing? It's not replacing a human
being. Basically, it's making life easier for a human being. That human
being is still there and can do other things. But I think what the
actors are understandably concerned about is the use of AI to write scripts. What
they're understandably concerned about is the use of AI to replace human actors, and
instead of a human actor portraying a role, you basically have an AI program
put together a compilation of what the actor or actress did in the past,
and they have them say new words in a new film. So those are
justifiable concerns. But the truth of the matter is not only are human beings
not being replaced by robots. Even the great cern and we've discussed this previously
about AI replacing us, I think is a lot overblown. I just saw
a great interview Ari Melba interviewing Nolan, the brand director, and about his
movie about Oppenheimer, who basically, you know, he wasn't the only one,
but he led a tear head of the effort to create the atomic bomb,
that's right, So you know that's something that they were concerned even back
then in the nineteen forties, the very people who were developing it, they
were concerned that if they set off an atomic reaction like this, it might
not stop, it might have blown up the world. Were lucky that didn't
happen. So that is the kind of technology, the kind of scientific advance
that we need to be concerned about. It's a fearsome weapon of destruction,
even if it's used to end the war that we didn't begin World War two.
I think there's a serious ethical issue as to whether it should have been
invented. I don't know what I would have done back then. Today in
twenty twenty three, we have to be concerned that Putin doesn't lose his mind
even more and unleas some kind of nuclear weapons. So there's a human element
that is a huge factor in AI. Also you know the actual use of
it. But well, if I might like to pressure a little bit too
about the job replacement, because I saw a very interesting report and it was
kind of a peppy, happy thing, but it was about a place now
that's using robotics to make pizzas. Okay, and it sounds gimmicky, but
but you can see where this is all going. They're already using and it's
fun. There are certain I believe in Japan that they're actively using serving robots
so replace as a server. We see automatic checkouts which replace people who used
to run cash registers, etc. Now this pizza maker and for years I
know for years, as you said, this is not new technology, the
auto industry has used robotics to assembly line and that are replaced assembly workers.
So this does seem to be a march towards at least some of the more
menial work, if you will. But but it's all honest work. If
you see what I'm driving at and it's if that goes somewhere, then what
do we do with people who once held those jobs? So there is some
substance to that worth worrying about. Your comments. Well, that's a fair
point, but I think you said an essential word there, replacing menial jobs
that human beings do. So here's something that happened years ago. Again,
it wasn't a robot, it was I guess a form of AI, and
we see it all over the place today. There are very few, if
any toll collectors left doing their jobs because instead the car is driving and you
know the little thing of a jig that you put in your window stand right,
and that's how you pay your toll. So what kind of a job
is it to sit there and breathing carbon monoxide eight or more hours a day.
And I think it's great that those human beings who did that kind of
job have been freed to seek other work. And you know, you could
even say, and obviously depends on what the job is, but I don't
know. If you are working all day in a pizza place and it's the
kind of heat that we've tragically been experiencing this summer, yeah, you better
hope the air conditioning is working one hundred percent. So I think that of
course, like all new technologies, these are not being used perfectly. There
are things that maybe they shouldn't be applied to be doing. But by and
large, if the focus is on allowing human beings to do more satisfying,
less dangerous jobs than so much the better. Look, there are robots that
dive deep down into the sea to see certain things. It's good that human
beings are not doing that because if something goes wrong, it's not a human
life that's lost, as what happened, of course, just a couple of
weeks ago. By the way, one point, and as both a science
fiction writer and as someone who thinks about the future of technology, one area
in which I'm not that happy about robots is sending robots out into space,
because if you send a robot to Mars, yes, the robot can basically
look at things. The robot can, you know, pick up materials and
you know, do maybe some experiments with the materials, you know, drop
it into, you know, a certain kind of acid to see how the
material reacts. But a robot cannot appreciate the beauty the majesty of being out
there in space. And I think nothing can and ever should replace human astronauts
who when they're out there, they can experience things that no robot can possibly
experience. The robot might be able to transmit images effectively, but as we
get out into the cosmos, I think we need human beings to do that.
So I certainly don't think human beings should be replaced in every job,
and in fact that most jobs they shouldn't. And again there will be errors
made, you know, as far as robots replacing way waters and waitresses.
I wouldn't particularly like to be served by a robot. Yeah, I liked
the personal interaction that you have with another human being. I mean that's some
of the things that gets lost in here generally. I kind of like people
speaking, and I like the interaction of going always friendly with waiters and waitresses
and hopefully they are in return. That's part of the human interaction, you
know. But that's I think it's a really good segue. You know,
we talk about robots, we talk about a AI and androids. Sort it
all out for us? What is the what's the difference between a robot and
android? A human clone if you will? So what are there are so
many terms being thrown out? Set a straight Well, first of all,
the difference between a robot and android is like a central and very very important
difference, and it's a very straightforward difference. The robot is the tin man,
even worse than the tin man, because the tin man had something of
like a human face and the rest of his body was ten. But a
robot classically and currently it has the general shape of a human being. But
no one in a million years would mistake it for a human being, would
you say, Like, well, I mentioned I mean to cut you off,
but just for clarity here, the robots that would do spot welding,
for example, on things, they have arm like things that reach out and
spot weld here and there, but you certainly couldn't. It's almost human like
the movement, but you certainly couldn't mistake them for for human that's right.
You mean by that exactly right. They have human form. They have human
like limbs in the shape of human limbs, but they don't have human flesh.
If you look at their faces, they look nothing, you know,
like a human being. No one would ever mistake them for you human being.
Androids in contrast, rather than having brains that are made of protein and
what human being brains and what any organisms brains are made of, androids do
have digital or some kind of non organic brains. But that's on the inside,
on the outside. And this is why I think in many ways they're
more much more interesting and exciting and science fiction. They look like human beings,
and it's a question of how far you want to go. And if
you think, for example, about the character of Data in Star Trek the
next Generation. First of all, Data was played by a human actor,
Brent Spiner, and so he looked human with makeup, but the actor deliberately
talked in a more stilted way to make it clear to viewers that he was
not a human being. He was an android. But there's no reason that
androids have to speak in that more stilted way. And to get to give
a little preview of Robinson Calculator, but I certainly didn't create this in Robinson
Calculator. One of the most I think interesting and exciting things about science fiction
with androids is can a human being in an android fall in love? Or
can a human being and an android have sexual relations? And you know,
you could say that's totally impossible and ridiculous. Isn't it happening? To agree
to a degree, Paul, I just want to jump in here. I
mean, I've seen stories where there are sex spots, if you will,
looking incredibly like life like that some men do use for sexual pleasure. I
think, unless those are false reports, as best as I can tell,
there is some level of that already happening. Yeah, that's true. But
those aren't really androids. Those are basically dolls. Okay, so that's that's
important difference. I'm glad you Why what makes that clear? There? Okay,
that's not quite there what you're talking about yet. Okay, Yes,
those might be dolls that look very human, and they're even built with some
kind of plastic that maybe it feels like flesh. But what they're missing is
the inn Asthimov's world, the positive tronic brain and our world, we might
say, the cybernetic brain that they're missing the intelligence that the androids have,
and and basically, you know, that's the primary distinction in every story in
Robot through the Ages is either one or the other. And we do,
however, have even gone beyond that in terms of if you think also about
science fiction and the history of science fiction, a novel like Frankenstein, Mary
Shelley's story, what was Frankenstein, Well, he was put together by doctor
Frankenstein played by Boris Califf in the movie. Boris Colliff played what doctor Frankenstein
put together basically a bunch of body parts from dead humans, including a brain
of some sort, and then you hooked up with something that connected him so
that when a very powerful lightning strike hit it, he came to life,
was able to stagger around and can barely talk those I think are I mean?
And that was a great piece of science fiction. But that is not
an android either. In other words, if you build something told organically and
somehow you're able to put into that entity an organic brain, maybe a human
brain, and again that's right, but that case right, then then that's
you know, something a little different. The other point though, about both
robots and androids, and in this on this point, they're pretty much the
same what over and over again science fiction deals with and suggests, and in
fact, what fran Dressler is calling up as an important point to consider is
that we develop these entities to do work that we don't want to do,
and we make them more and more intelligent because we want them to work more
and more effectively. And certainly in the early stories like Carol Kpex Are You
Are? Which was a plane in the nineteen twenties, and there's a story
sorry that read visits Are You Are? Sanspor Rossum's Universal Robots in robots through
the ages, Eventually these robots getting more and more intelligent or androids get to
the point where they don't want to be slaves, and that's an important point
also, and therefore they might turn around and want to kill us. I
want to I want to get to that point in a minute. But you
and you mentioned how far these stories go back. What are some of the
oldest stories. I noticed you we mentioned one eighteen ninety nine, so the
very end of the nineteenth century, is that considered the first story that involves
a robot? Or are their earlier ones? Believe it or not Homer,
you know, who wrote the Ilia and the Odyssey. There is a passage
there in which there is talk about these artificial beings that are able to think
and in effect that in our current Paul and so they use the word robot,
then that, by the way, comes from r you are. But
clearly they were describing robots. So that's way, way way back in ancient
Greece, and then you don't have to go that much further in ancient Alexandria.
We're talking about maybe two three hundred. No one is under cent sure
exactly when Heron did all his work, and he invented many things, and
although none of these kind of inventions of his have survived, there are written
descriptions of machines that he built which walked and did and basically had the proportions
of humans and did work. And so that's obviously a robot um. But
robots through the ages. I guess they couldn't get permission from Homer's estate because
he has no estate, so they did start denying with Ambrose Spiers, who
I have to say, you know, just on a personal level, what
a thrill it is for me to be in this anthology because I read that
story has, by the way, two different names in the book. I
think it's a Night at Moxon's. That was the original title of the story
that Ambrose Spiers wrote, but for some reason it got to be known as
Moxon's Master, which is like a more exciting story. And by the way,
that without giving too much away there for people who don't know the story,
there's murder in that story also. So in eighteen ninety nine, the
concern was what would happen if the robot got too intelligent and looked at human
beings as a rival, took unbridgid things got angry. So people like Jules
Verne, we're writing twenty thousand Leagues under the Sea. People like H.
G. Wells, who I think was a more profound thinker than Jules Verne,
we're writing The Time Machine, the Islands of Doctor Moreau. But they
are considered correctly by and Lodge the grandfathers of science fiction. But Ambrose Bierce
is probably the first real titan. He actually wrote a combination of science fiction
and horror, and his story about Marxon was in many ways at the beginning
of writing about robots, and it's stimulated other people like Jack Williamson, who
he has a story in the book, Fritz Lieber, Clifford Simak, and
again just mentioning these names, it's thrilling for me just to mention, because
I was like a twelve year old kid, and I don't know if I
ever told you this story. I'll tell you very quickly. Well, I
mean junior high school. IM in seventh grade. One day I come into
my class in the morning, minding my own business, and the homeroom teaching
this is funk Believed or not was a name. She was Funky. Ide
is from the school librarian, Missus Dayson, and the note says, Paul
would like you to come down in your free period to the library. I
have something I want to talk to you about. So I go down to
the library, sit there, Hi, Missus Dason, Hello Paul, And
she said, you have any idea why I called you down to my office
and said, no, I honestly don't. And then she with like a
really grave expression on her face, she hands me this piece of paper and
I look at the piece of paper and I see it's a list of all
the books that I've taken out of the library. And it's not that I
hadn't returned the books. I quickly realized what she was getting at because all
the books were science fiction. And she says to me, as you can
see all the books you read a science fiction. I said, yeah,
I love science fiction. I mean I was like twelve years old. And
she says, well, and then she offers me this this brilliant being sarcastic,
and you know, metaphor, she said, you know, Paul,
if all you do is eat one thing, you're gonna get physically. If
all you do is you're gonna get mentally. And what happened, Paul,
exactly science fiction and the prophet state came exactly right. But she said,
and then she said to me, I'm not going to let you come back
in the library and take out any more science fiction books. You know,
there are other great books. You know, there's read you know, a
ten or two Cities you know by by by Charles Dickens, read a Hemmingway
book, reading Norman Mail or for God's sakes, But but don't read science
fiction. By the way. Nowadays, things have changed so much. If
there was a kid in the library who was only reading science fiction in the
school library, they be thrilled. They'd be happy the kid read pornography as
long as the kids reading. So but what I do is I never went
back to that library. I went to the local branch of the New York
Public Library, the Allerton Avenue branch, and I read every science fiction book
on the shelf back then. And that's why who was in these books?
You know, many of the people who have stories from the thirties and forties
and fifties and sixties in Robots through the Ages, Well, you mentioned some
of the giants, and of course that would have to include Isaac Asimov.
And you mentioned in a lot of the stories the robots are capable of doing
harm. And according to Asmov, and I need you to explain it more
fully for us and certainly for me, the three laws of robotics, that
a robot can never do harm to a human. What is this premise to
say that why would he know that? Well, you know that he Isaac
Asimov, in my opinion, and I've read men any many stories and novels,
and seen obviously a lot of science fiction on television. Isaac Asimov for
me, has always been the best and in fact I took out it was
his novels. I took out every single Asimov novel I could find in my
junior high school library, and I found more of his work in the Alton
Avenue library. What Asimov did he was a very rational person. He said,
look, if we're going to invent robots, we have to make sure
that the robots are guided in a way that they cannot just nullify or overcome
important principles. And the first principle was, as you said, a robot
shall never harm a human being or by in action, allow a human being
to be harmed. That was his first law. His second law was,
and this is you know, you can see how sharp Asimov was. His
second law was a robot must follow every human order, except if that conflicts
with the first law. So why do we want robots. We want robots
to do our bidding, but not if our bidding is Hey, that guy
is getting on my nerves, mister robot. And then the third law,
because robots were expensive of course money Asthmov saw that too, is that a
robot must always act on behalf of its own survival, unless that conflicts with
the second law. So if a human being says, hey, we do
do me a favorite jump off the roof. I don't want you anymore.
The robot has to do that. And even more importantly, the first law,
you know, if if if a robot is endangering its own existence in
order to set in order to save a human being from harm, it's going
to do that. So so that's the brains a brilliant set of laws.
And years later Asthmov came up with those laws in the nineteen forties and developed
him further than the nineteen fifties. Years later, in the nineteen eighties,
Asimov, who was a he was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.
He thought, I'm not going to make enough money from science fiction, and
professors don't make that much money, and he realized a total decades to us
in the nineteen eighties, hey, I'm making more money for my science fiction
than being a professor here at Boston University. So he pretty much left Boston
University and concentrated. He still had some association with them, but he concentrated
much more in his writing, and he came up with the zero law,
which is more important than even the first law robots, and the zeroth law
is if a robot has a choice of saving a lot of humans or a
few humans, or more than one human or just one human. The robots
shall always go with saving more humans. And this was real again as a
philosophy, this was an embodiment of John Stuart Mill's fundamental utilitarian principle, the
greatest good for the greatest number. That's what you have to try to do.
Perfect segue to pull because the implication is that there would be a certain
level of self awareness, a certain level within these robots. There would have
to be the function. I would think on that level, you have to
be aware of the situation, the consequences, so a certain level of awareness.
Therefore, is it right to use them in a way that we're almost
in a way of slavery where they're only doing our bidding. They have no
free will? And I guess I know that's a fine line. Are they
truly sentient beings? So there's a lot of room for debate in there,
but let's kick it around a bit. Yeah, well, there is a
lot of room for debate. I was thinking about that in the nineteen nineties
when I wrote an article and people can search for it called the Civil Rights
of Robots, and I raised that very question, and I think, no,
it's a paradox. If we continue to make our robots and androids more
and more intelligent, it's going to get to a point where I think it
is not ethical to order them around. And we have a really bad history
in terms of ordering human beings around, making slaves of human beings. But
even the way we treat our animals, you know, on the one hand,
everywhere, oh, I love my dog, okay, But if that's
the case, why do we order it around? And why do we get
upset when the dog doesn't exactly follow our commands. So we're leaving the house,
the dog wants to come out with us, and you say the dog,
no, no, you know, daddy or whatever your name is for
the dog is going out. You have to stay, stay, stay,
And the dog sort of moans a little bit, you know, the dog
wants to go out to it's a nice beautiful day outside, and we get
a little irritated when the dog doesn't follow our commands. So we human beings
like ordering things around, and we don't have a very good record of respecting
what it is that we do order around. And I think that that is
in itself a very serious problem. But let me make a very very important
point here, and this in a way also gets back to fran Dressler.
The reality right now there is we are so far away from developing a robot
which is anything like Asimov's Robots, anything like Lieutenant commanded data in Star Trek,
anything like Maxen's Master. The fact of the matter is that is in
the realm of science fiction. And you know, the Terminator obviously was another
crack at this, you know, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'd be back,
you know, and so, but that is pure science fiction where we're not
even close to it. And you know, as far as developing in some
kind of digital brain, anything like our intelligence, I think is light years
away. Well if we don't, if we don't do something now, will
it get away from us? And they often use the Internet, which which
came and nobody knew much about it, and then all of a sudden got
away from us content that was harmful to children, etc. Because there was
no control, no regulations, because we waited too long. So it is
it hyperbole to to act now with some of these issues. Well, look,
it's always good to be aware of potential problems. But if we're talking
about the Internet. You're asking the wrong person in terms of your question,
because I think by and laws, the internet has been helpful to humanity absolutely,
yeah, And I know you know, obviously nothing you know is undludedly
good or bad. I understand all the problems that the internet has created,
but it has opened up the world to every human being, and it's made
it easy for any human being to express his or her or their thoughts.
And you know, if that person is a psycho or a bad person,
that's not good. But by and laws that's a good development. But yes,
you're right in this important sense. And as someone who study technology,
one of the first things you realize when you look at the history of technology
and the development of technology is that they always have unintended consequences. You can't
predict what the technology is going to do. And even scientists you may know
this because you worked in radio. Hirich Hurtz, who discovered electromagnetic carry waves,
was asked at some point, well can these be used for communication?
And said, no, no, what are you talking about. You have
to have it transmitted the size of Europe, you know, to do that.
And Marconi, I love radio, did a very good thing said,
you know what, I think Hurts is wrong, and then he demonstrated how
you can broadcast electromagnetic carrywaves. So technologies almost seem to have minds of their
own. But the truth of the matter is scientists don't even understand much about
how intelligence arose in the biological world. You probably heard that orangutangs and chimpanzees
and guerrillas have over ninety eight percent identical DNA with human beings. We don't
know anything really about how that one point something percent led to Isaac Asimov,
to Mozart to being Frank the only way to be intelligent radio. We have
no idea how that a little more than one percent difference in DNA led to
that, and so then noose and that we are on the verge of developing
these intelligent artificial beings. Again, it's great science fiction, it's not reality.
One more question I'd like to ask you before we go to the break,
and after the break, I want you to talk a little bit about
your story Robinson Calculator in the anthology and also your radio play. It's real
life, just one a very prestigious award and it's being again very well received
and well reviewed. We talk about that after the break, but before the
break, and we were talking off air before we came on, I ut
of breaking news story and it was about Google and is developing AI artificial intelligent
tools for journalists under something called Genesis. Now, of course that raised the
hackles in many a newsroom around the country and around the world, and Google
responded by saying, of course this would just be a tool. It wouldn't
be meant to replace journalists. But I see issues for within that also because
part of the tools they're offering is, for example, choose a writing style
that would be most appropriate for this story. You plug that in and it
would give you back. Well, you might want to choose this style.
Well that's not true journal isn't That's that's letting all right, Maybe you put
in some of the parameters, but somebody else is doing all the work.
I can't imagine that being in that the way they're describing it being something that
I would be very interested in it all Well, I agree with you completely.
And my solution to this, which I've been saying but nobody ever listens
to me, is another feeling wall. I'd like to see Congress, you
know, once and for all, do something that makes some sense. And
here is something rather than just ringing hand say oh my god, chat EPT
is destroying education, it is destroying journalism. Bab bla blah blah, whatever
name. Whether there's Chat GPT or chat x y Z, I don't get
there. But basically, this pass a simple law that says that any product
of artificial intelligence, any written product of artificial intelligence, have an indelible watermark
on it in Delaware. You can erase it, you can expunge it that
says this was created at least in part or maybe completely by an AI.
And then let the reader decide. And you know, I'm with you who
wants something that's put together by an AI? And this obviously not only affects
writing, it affects art, it affects music. But I do have to
say, as far as music is concerned, I make this point over and
over again as well, that ever since the nineteen sixties, when you hear
a recording, there's been some kind of electronic words. Remember pulpit. And
then we'll go to the break. First recording session I saw many many years
ago, and I was just astounded how they recorded separately, like they start
with the drum somebody lays down the rhythm and then the bass, and he
does the bass thread, and then the guitar comes in, and the last
thing they put in is the vocals, and then they might do another altogether.
And as you mentioned, the engineer is manipulating a little here, or
they're sweetening there, adding there, detracting there. And that was oh God,
I think they had to be in the late seventies that I saw that.
Yeah, I look, Frank Sinacha started his career. Where if he
made a mistake when he was singing a song like that Old Black Magic Got
Me in the Days. Oh wait a second, no, the word is
not days is in a spin? Okay, they would have to start at
the very beginning and have him sing it over again. But at the time
Sinatra was saying Strangers and the Night, exchanging the l answers. If he
made a mistake, he didn't have to sing the whole thing over again,
just how to go back into studio and just saying the correct note, maybe
a note before and after, and they would splice that in or even pretty
soon after that digitally be able to insert that and replace the bad notes.
Well, well, I'm going to give away a trade secret. Neil does
that for me on every show as I tripple all over myself on a regular
basis. At the end of the show, Neil says, I can fix
that, so so I very much, I very much appreciate it. Look,
let's take let's take a quick break. When we come back. I
want to talk a little bit about your story. Robinson Calculator gives a little
bit more detail and what's happening with its its real life, the alternate history
of the Beatles. My guest here on Being Frank is doctor Paul Levans,
and we're talking all things AI, robots, androids, etc. I'm your
host, Frank Leborno. This is Being Frank, where the only way to
be is Frank will be right back on Coney where you at Hudson River Radio
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wherever you get your podcasts and go watch a movie. Hudson River Radio dot
com. You're back, or I hope you're back. We're back with being
Frank where the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host, Frank
Lebono. You know we're here with a new topical program every week at Hudson
River Radio dot com. But remember you can catch us whenever and wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Speaker, ihet Radio,
etc. My very special guest tonight is doctor Paul Levinson. We're talking AI,
robots, androids, etc. He is going to be represented in a
new book and anthology that's going to be published on July twenty fifth, and
we are recording on July twentieth, and so just a few days. We're
excited about that. It's called Robots through the Ages and again an anthology of
all things science fiction concerning robots and androids, and Paul contributed a story,
Robinson Calculator. Paul, Welcome back. Paul, tell us a little bit
in some detail. What is Robinson Calculator. Where did you get the title
from? What's it about? Well, here's where I got the title from.
And this is a true story. The story I was first published in
twenty nineteen, so I guess it was in two eighteen that I went to
something called an unveiling, which in the Jewish religion, a year after a
person passes away and has a funeral that first year, the tombstone is veiled,
and then the family comes back the following year and there's an unveiling.
The veil is taken off the tombstone. So it was a cemetery in Westchester,
and we went to the unveiling. And this part is not fiction,
this is true. I'm walking back to get my car to pick up my
family, who's still there, you know, at the grave site. And
I'm walking and I do a double take because I see there's a tombstone,
and on the tombstone is carved the words Robinson Calculator. And I said to
myself, Wow, rob it's a calculator. I mean, you know,
I don't mean any disrespect for the dead. Yeah, it's a very usual
name. And I couldn't stop thinking about that. And so finally, and
you know, when you're a science fiction writer, things that I guess most
people were just Okay, this happened, but they say, stick to your
brain and they roll around there. And finally, after a week, I
said, there's a story here. And what the story is is that there
is a group of androids. I don't know how far back in history they
go. They've been with us for centuries, you know, maybe even longer,
called the Calculators, and they've been keeping secret all this time. But
for some reason, either somebody made a mistake or maybe more likely that going
out in the open now, you know, burying you know, one of
their lost members in a public ceremony and putting the name Robinson Calculator, you
know, on the tombstone. So that was the impetus for writing the story.
That's what you read at the beginning of the story. But as I
said before, when we were talking about androids, it's what has always interested
in me, is Matt, you know, androids and robots rising up and
destroying us. Although that's always, you know, a good thing to write
about in science fiction. But I'm always more interested in the other side of
life, androids as friends, androids as lovers. And so the character in
the story of the lead character, who unsurprisingly is a professor film and philosophy
at Fordham University. Uh, you always write best about what you know,
so I know about being at what you know. And so he realizes that
a friend of his had been married to a calculate early and calculator, but
it didn't work out. His friend was human, she was a calculator,
and so he decides he wanted he wants to try to get to know her,
and that leads to some very very interesting consequences, including that the family
of calculators are not going to be happy about this. The last thing they
want is a professor at Forham University with a big mouth, again modeled up
to me, you know, finds out more information about them. So that's
what the story is. And I knew when I wrote the story that it
was going to go places. You know you can always tell. I mean,
a writer usually likes everything that the writer writes, but every once in
a while you write something and you realize I really hit it. You know,
there's something special about this. And so I was delighted when Brian Thomas
Schmidt, who co edited the volume with a great science fiction writer, Robert
Silverberg, and Brian's an excellent science fiction writer himself, sent me an email.
I guess it was a couple of years ago, already saying hey,
I'm putting together this volume, this anthology with Robert Silverberg. We think your
story, Robinson Calculator, would be a great part of that volume. How
would you feel about that? And I said I would feel great about it.
I think I feel pretty good about congratulations. Where can people get the
book, Well, they can get the book anywhere. And by the way,
the publisher, Blackstone, a really great distinguished promison company. They are
putting the book out in almost every conceivable ada. You can get it as
a kindle, you can get it as a paperback, you can get it
as a hardcover, you can get it as an audio book. And let
me mention here I mentioned Lieutenant Commanded Data Apropos Star Trek. That was Star
Trek the next generation. Well, everyone of course knows Leonard Nimoy played Spock
in Star Trek, the original series and in a whole bunch of movies.
And what I didn't know is that Leonard Nimoy a couple of decades ago,
read a story written by Abram Davidson, The Golan and Appropo how far back
this goes? The Golan was a mid evil legend in Czechoslovakia. It was
basically a rabbi puts together some clay and he puts together in a way that
becomes an artificial being. In the nineteen fifties, and another author that I
read voraciously was Abram Davidson, who sadly is no longer with us. He
wrote a great story, The Golem, and Leonard Nimoy narrates that story,
and that is going to be in the audio book of Robots through the Ages,
so you can read it, you can hear it. And you know,
I've read all the stories in the book. I gotta tell you that
most of the stories in the book I had already read, but it was
great to see them again. Well, that's just great. And if that's
not enough, you have its real life just won a Mary Shelley Award.
Tell us a little bit. It's the alternate history of the Beatles you've been
on. The program talks a little bit about it, but tell us about
the Mary Shelley Award, what that means to you, what it means in
general, and what it means to you, and a little bit more about
the radio play. Well, it means the world to me. It's given
by the Media Ecology Association, the Media Ecology program at New York University with
Neo Postman as the primary professor. There was where I got my PhD.
So I'm a member of the Media College Association. But they contacted me a
couple of months ago and said, hey, we're giving you the Mary Shelley
Award this year for your story and the radio play Robinson Calculator. And this
also was directly tied to form University. As you know, I knew Pete
Forna tell I've admired his work since I was a professor at Bailey Dickinson University
and used I think his very first book, Radio in the Age of Television
and one of my classes back then in the late nineteen seventies, early nineteen
eighties. And so it's real life tells the story of what Pete fun to
tell in nineteen ninety six, it goes through when he plays a couple of
Beatles songs, gets this Incohte feeling of dread. It doesn't quite know why
goes down to Grand Central Terminal because he has an appointment with WNET to do
a beat you know, someone who's a special show about the Beach Boys.
But what he discovers in Grand Central Station is, and what we the reader
discover, is that Pete was living in a very different world than we're living
in and that tension between these two worlds, the world as it could have
been, the world as we know now reality. That's really the essence of
the story, and it reflects my feeling. And I've mentioned this to you
before. There are many things that are wrong with this world. There are
many things that shouldn't have happened. And the killing of John Lennon, to
me, in many ways, is the single worst thing that happened because he,
Okay, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. They almost killed, they just missed,
and they wound up killing the mayor of Chicago, Franklin down Or Roosevelt.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Tragically, when you're in politics,
people take shots at you, and those are horrible, but John Lennon was
He was a wonderful musician, a brain songwriter. And from the day that
I heard that John Lennon was killed, I just felt that somehow I was
living and everyone in our world was living in a universe that had been bent
into a world that should not have happened in the first place. And that's
what I was trying to do in both the story and the radio play.
I would say one final thing. Vin TC, who was a student of
mine at the New School, is the guy who produced and put together the
radio play, and I was really delighted. He said to me, Hey,
we need somebody play peace born a tell uh you have any ideas?
And you know how arrogant I am. I said, yeah, how about
me? You do I know I'm kind of showing that way too. I
guess people haven't noticed. Where can people here hear the play? The radio
play? Okay, so they can hear in a variety of places. Um
but Apropoa. Vin TC, who actually now pronounces his name ventis um but
spelled the same way. He has an internet radio station called Killer What Radio
KLW, So just search on quote it's real life unquote and killer k I
L L E. R. Watt Radio and you'll find the radio play there.
And if you just search on the story, it's real life and you
put the word vote Vocal. After that you can find the website Vocal where
the story was published. You can also buy the story on Amazon. But
I'm you know, I like money as much as the next person, but
I would much rather, you know, I don't. I'm not doing this
to make money. I would rather people know that it's available out there for
free and avail themselves of that. All has always want to thank you for
your intelligent conversation. Always a pleasure. We could talk all night, but
just about that at the time, of course you'll be back. So grateful.
Thank you, Paul, my pleasure as always anytime. And of course
that guy where you can't see him, but because we only we only stream
the audio but video. That guy up top with the funky hat on,
that's that's Neil Richter. The he's the mailman. He's always driving our bus
getting us to where we need to be. Of course, special thanks to
our listeners who take the time to give us a voice in their lives.
And remember we offer a fresh topic every week. Catch us wherever and whenever
can make it easier than that. Wherever you get your favorite podcasts either at
Hudson River Radio dot com or Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Speaker and more.
Remember we have a Facebook page Hudson River Radio Wells on website Hudson River
Radio dot com where you can catch all the great shows that we offer.
Let me leave you with two last little bits, a little slogan and some
music, as is my tradition, and this one's from one of my favorites,
Marcus Aurelia is getting really high brow here at to tonight Ball. The
happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. Simple and direct
enough, but right on. You've got some great music from a good friend,
former co worker, Chris Wall and his band they called wreck Wall.
This is a great acoustic acoustic tune on an acoustic album. This is Chris
Wall of Right Wall. This too shall pass. I'm your host, Frank
Labono. This has been being Frank. We're the only way to be is
Frank, for better or worse, and hopefully we'll see you next week.
Thanks to everybody. Nothing new, be right, free fights, maybe this
here, Oh my good right, it's too accating out of fight. I
am no say here, I have no right listsh O bass. I had
a bolded crab listsh O pass at least tipting that it goes so fast,
it goes so fast. Nothing new here, do emphisside. Maybe this time
I will can bide. It's true, I saved it all my time.
I'd like to stay here me before while, let's do sho pass. I
have a fod the ground. Let's to shine bass at least I mean it
less go to fast, it goes so fast. This is Hudson River Radio
dot com.