Robots have become diabolically complicated – and I don’t mean from a technical point of view, since I still find this aspect completely unfathomable. Created as an obedient form of labour, which also flattered our sense of superiority and powers of invention, they gradually came to embody murkier ethical and moral questions. Now it seems that a robot’s main function is to give us the third degree: about our sense of what it means to be human, or about the distinction between natural and artificial, the meaning of consciousness, the redundancy of our species, the wonder and curse of technological progress, the warping of the act of creation, or the relationship between slave and master. And much more besides.
Among the most popular automata who graced the screen prior to Forbidden Planet, Tobor (try reading it backwards) can now be safely labelled as one of the progenitors, rapidly condemned to obsolescence like all products produced by socalled artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, this “electronic human simulacrum” (as it is referred to in the Italian version) suggests exciting possibilities that are only hinted at here. It can, for example, escape your control and crush a child if used incompetently. When faced with the simulation of a meteor shower on a monitor, it is so shocked it becomes aggressive (the problem can be solved by lowering its antennae and switching it off). As a result of its “artificial survival instinct”, it is also capable of displaying something like paternal affection. These elements pose a challenge to the supposed cold functionality of the machine and reveal the spectre of neurosis, which in turn implies the beginnings of a personality.
That said, we would be doing it a disservice if we didn’t admire it, above all, as a magnificent giant toy – even today, and even if only on the antique market. A child’s toy? Certainly. But suitable for all ages.

Andrea Meneghelli