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# We’re preparing for the post-Valentine’s robot takeover.
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/robot-panic-takes-hold/
- Published: 2013-02-15T18:30:22.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T15:57:10.000Z
- Description: It’s one of the most common sci-fi – and video game – tropes: the fear of a hostile robot takeover. The terror that humanity’s breakneck technological race to create better machines will result in the creation of a master race that’s bigger, better, stronger, and much, much smarter than we are. It w
- Author: Danielle Riendeau
- Tags: News, cultural fears, Literature, sci-fi, technology, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

It’s one of the most common sci-fi – and video game – tropes: the fear of a hostile robot takeover. The terror that humanity’s breakneck technological race to create better machines will result in the creation of a master race that’s bigger, better, stronger, and much, much smarter than we are. It was the very plot of *The Matrix* and *The Terminator* series, the theme of *Battlestar Galactia*, the underlying drama of *I, Robot*, and the narrative domain of such seminal games as *System Shock 2*, *Portal,* and the recent *Binary Domain.*

This terror has found its way out of geek media, to the realm of the mainstream.

– – –

A recent New York Times piece counted the many ways robot terror has afflicted the public consciousness as of late.

> Robots have once again gripped the nation’s imagination, stoking fears of displaced jobs and perhaps even a displaced human race. An [alarmist segment on “60 Minutes](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138922n&ref=killscreen.com)” was only the most vivid of a recent series of pieces in [respected](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/12/ff-robots-will-take-our-jobs/all/?ref=killscreen.com) [magazines](http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21569573-attractions-employing-robots-rise-software-machines?ref=killscreen.com) [and](http://news.discovery.com/videos/the-robot-takeover-is-coming.htm?ref=killscreen.com) [news](http://news.yahoo.com/practically-human-smart-machines-job-052642993--finance.html?ref=killscreen.com)[outlets](http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/01/18/Why-Robots-Are-Worse-for-the-Economy-Than-You-Think.aspx?ref=killscreen.com) warning about widespread worker displacement. Professors at Cambridge University and a co-founder of Skype are [creating](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/cambridge-cabs-and-copenhagen-my-route-to-existential-risk/?ref=killscreen.com) a new [Center for the Study of Existential Risk](http://cser.org/?ref=killscreen.com), which would research a “[Terminator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator%5F%28franchise%29?ref=killscreen.com)”-like scenario in which supercomputers rise up and destroy their human overlords, presumably plotting the whole caper in zeros and ones.  
>  
> In New York alone, [there](http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/theater/reviews/the-truth-quotient-at-the-beckett-theater.html?ref=theater) [are](http://www.japansociety.org/event/seinendan-theater-company-osaka-university-robot-theater-project-sayonara-i-worker?ref=killscreen.com) [four](http://theater.nytimes.com/show/84734/R-U-R-/overview?ref=killscreen.com) plays running this month with themes of cybernetics run amok. One is a [revival](http://www.resonanceensemble.org/season.htm?ref=killscreen.com) of “R.U.R.,” a 1920 Czech play that was the granddaddy of the cybernetic revolt genre and that originated the current meaning of the word “[robot](http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/166641?rskey=WiyZ1D&result=2&isAdvanced=false&ref=killscreen.com).”

Fascinatingly, the unease seems to be stoked by unemployment, not a fear that we will be subject to *Terminator*\-style warfare and extermination. Obviously, one of those tends to be the domain of gaming, the other, the (increasingly) real world. Even this frame would make for a fascinating game – imagine how a fear of losing one’s job (to better tech, to AI, to a superhuman robot, etc.) could be dramatized by gameplay.

They don’t need to kill you, to kill you, after all.