The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/author/mikaylatettehmartey/)
In the beautiful city of Pisa, Italy, a chilling exhibition took place a little over a week ago in the heart of a historic palazzo. Passersby could stumble upon an art show featuring 450 works by renowned artists like Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol and others. A beautiful day, right? But what if I told you that every single piece was a fake? Not just poorly made replicas, but high-end counterfeits — scarily authenticated by experts.
A hundred years ago, in a world brewing with change, an idea emerged from the literary and artistic movement of the 1920s. The publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 introduced groundbreaking ideas that challenged conventional notions of reality.
In a world where science fiction often feels confined to the pages of our books or the threads of our imagination, Tesla’s reveal of its humanoid robot (Tesla Bot) offers a glimpse of fiction melting into reality. In I, Robot, humanoid machines struggle between obedience and the tantalizing possibility of something more — reflecting human desires and fears. Are we approaching a world where the lines blur between creator and creation?
With the Tesla Bot entering the scene, a daunting sense of familiarity emerges as ethical and societal concerns from I, Robot resurface, highlighting unsettling parallels between fiction and reality. In the film, robots are bound by The Three Laws of Robotics to ensure they remain obedient and harmless to humans. Yet, as the plot unfolds, we see that despite these strict safeguards, the machines begin to develop minds of their own, pushing the boundaries of their programming as doubts about their owners’ intentions cloud their “minds.”