Cory Doctorow Quotes

I had the honor of speaking with Asimov. The album ended up being something not directly related to Asimov, but related instead to the concept of the power of robotics.

Robots... I think that is a hot topic.

The concept of the robot encapsulates both aspects of technology. On one hand it's cool, it's fun, it's healthy, it's sexy, it's stylish. On the other hand it's terrifying, it's alienating, it's addictive, and it's scary. That has been the subject of much science-fiction literature.

Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men.

RoboCop the first movie was fantastic. But even if there was no movie, the concept of RoboCop is brilliant, first because it lends itself to a lot of social criticism, but also because it poses a question, 'When do you lose your humanity?'

Robots already perform many functions, from making cars to defusing bombs - or, more menacingly, firing missiles. Children and adults play with toy robots, while vacuum-cleaning robots are sucking up dirt in a growing number of homes and - as evidenced by YouTube videos - entertaining cats.

I just want the future to happen faster. I can't imagine the future without robots.

Zombies, vampires, Frankenstein's monster, robots, Wolfman - all of this stuff was really popular in the '50s. Robots are the only one of those make-believe monsters that have become real. They are really in our lives in a meaningful way. That's pretty fascinating to me.

In movies and in television the robots are always evil. I guess I am not into the whole brooding cyberpunk dystopia thing.

Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study - you can get a degree in robotics - and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds.

I worked with Stanley Kubrick for almost a year back in 1990, trying to develop the screen story for his project 'Artificial Intelligence,' which is about a robot boy who wishes to become a real boy, a future scientific fairy tale inspired in the myth of Pinocchio.

It won’t be long before we all number synthetic creatures among our friends.

I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans. And I am rooting for the machines.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

I am more on the side of humans than robots.

Science fiction is not quirky anymore; we live in a futuristic world now.

I hope people can envision a future where we as humans have robots that are alongside us, assisting in our daily lives.

Virtual reality, all the A.I. work we do, all the robotics work we do - we're as close to realizing science fiction as it gets.

Have you seen these Japanese hospital droids, or humanoids, or whatever they call it? They've perfected the skin, and the skin looks so real. They have these motors between the eyes for when they smile. It's just mind-blowing.

I wrote the first book, Harvest of Stars, and as I was writing it, I saw that certain implications had barely been touched on... It's perfectly obvious that two completely revolutionary things are going on, with cybernetics, and biological science.

Kids are really inspired to not just apply senses to robots and machines, but to try them on themselves.

Don't expect to be able to upload your cat's brain into your Roomba any time soon.

When my daughter was 3, she was eating Cheerios and spilled some on the table. So she swiped them onto the floor. I said, 'Darcy, what are you doing?' She said: 'Don't worry, Daddy, the robot will get it.' I didn't know whether to be horrified or proud. It was this idea that homes take care of themselves and robots are part of that.

We have a lot of suspicion of robots in the West. But if you look cross-culturally, that isn't true. In Japan, in their science fiction, robots are seen as good. They have Astro Boy, this character they've fallen in love with and he's fundamentally good, always there to help people.