Sarcastic robots: A rhetorical analysis

So there I was last weekend, watching Super Sci Fi Saturday Night like I always do.

I was also live tweeting along with my fellow fans, like I always do.

Sometime during Buck Rogers, amid all our usual MST3K-style jokes, someone tweeted a good question:

"Why are robots so often written as sarcastic wise-crackers?"

The tweet was in reference to Twiki, of course (pictured above). Voiced by Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny and myriad other cartoon characters), Twiki's lines are written to come across as the comic relief of the program, sounding either crotchety and warmly caustic (only way I have to describe it) or serving the purpose of groaner one-liners. Groan though we might, he's the only member of the cast to make the others laugh. Not even Buck can pull that off, even though he tries.

Twiki is not alone. In fact, there's another sarcastic robot right in the Super Sci Fi Saturday Night line up. The Robot, as a matter of fact, from Lost in Space.

More often than not, the Robot delivers lines a flat, serious tone. Sometimes the tenor mismatches the words of the statement and hilarity may ensue (numerous examples, go find them yourself). Towards the end of the series however, a dry sarcasm creeps into his dialogue, particularly as a means of dealing with the irascible, nigh insufferable, Dr. Smith.

Then of course there's R2-D2.

The running gag among Star Wars fans is that Artoo is actually the most sarcastic and foul-mouthed droid in the galaxy. We just can't hear what he's saying. The typically gnathonic C-3PO does, and has from time to time said, "You watch your language." In Empire Strikes Back, when Threepio is more or less in pieces, R2 beeps something at him.

"Of course I've looked better!" Threepio snipes back.

Seems logical to infer that R2-D2 said, most sarcastically, "You've never looked better."

Why do we do this? Why do writers in science fiction repeatedly instill a sarcastic, metallic tongue in the mouths of our 'bots? Not always, of course. There are plenty that aren't funny, but the trope does appear common. Why?

Comedic effect is the obvious answer. Somebody needs to bring cheap laughs and relieve the tension while the hero of the space opera fights the good fight. True as that may be, the tendency to instill wisecracking and sarcasm in our mechanical creations goes beyond the fictional into the real. Just like Siri for example, and the eye-rolling jokes she's programmed to kick out.

The rhetorical device may be there not simply to make us laugh, but to put us at ease. I would argue that it serves as a verbal, textual means to lead us out of the "uncanny valley."

The "uncanny valley" is a concept in robotics that deals with the robot's appearance. If a robot has the obvious appearance of a machine, such as the ones we've looked at thus far, we are not troubled by the device because it doesn't look at all human. If a construct is completely human in appearance, such as the Replicants of Blade Runner, we don't even know the difference.

Anything in between is just a little too strange and weirds us out. That's when we arrive in "the uncanny valley." A real-life example may be...

There may yet also be a bit of "uncanny valley" going on in the "cute" robots of shows and movies I mentioned as well. Twiki can fly a starfighter, R2 can work a computer and pick locks, and in general they are more than able perform many of the tasks once reserved for opposable-thumbed, higher-thinking humans. If so, what else can they do? What else will they be able to do? Will the robots take your job? Can the robot revolt be far away?

The rhetoric of sarcasm disarms such fears. It is present not solely for comedic effect, but to lead us out of the uncanny valley, or perhaps to prevent us from wandering down into it in the first place. "You have a sense of humor, and a feisty one at that. You must be like me. You must be on our side. You must be all right." 

I could be wrong. As the great scholar of rhetoric, Wayne Booth once wrote: "The problem is thus that in judging rhetoric, we cannot escape our own deepest convictions." While "convictions" might be a bit strong of a term, I certainly have an admitted affinity for these mechanical characters and despite their cheese factor, maybe I just want to see something more than entertainment at work, even if influencing the writing on a purely subconscious level.

Maybe the presence is part of the solution, too. True, we can help prevent the possibility of a "roboapocalypse" by teaching AI's philosophy and helping them to adopt high ideals and to mimic the best of human nature while eschewing the worst. A sarcastic sense of human might serve to further "humanize" our creations.

Or give them great one liners to kick out while they're mowing us down.

Bidi bidi bidi.



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