Robotophobia

Interesting connection made today in a USA Today article about how Americans have some skittishness about believing in robots as helpers in their daily lives. This writer calls fear of robots a "Frankenstein complex," as if to suggest that our worries over the monster made by man limit our enthusiasm for push-button vacuum cleaners and the like.

The Japanese, he suggests, have no such self-imposed phobias. But we Americans put faces on our robots in our imaginations. They become droids poised to take over our world. Writer Tom A. Peter cites a list of films—and, implicitly, our favorite monster—as the cultural forces that shape our fears and prejudices.

If we could come to love our monster, can't we learn to love our robots too?