Situated in an alternative, present day reality, Humans is a science fiction about a society where robotics has advanced to a point where an android is a must-have gadget for the home. In this reality you can pick a humanoid domestic up as easily as we can a digital radio from John Lewis, as products called "Synths".
This is the classic "world of tomorrow, today!" of the World's Fair stuff. It is 1950's futurology made as 21st Century drama. Robots are helpers, employees and labour. Humanity is freed to expand their leisure time, artistic endeavours and learning in a utopian new Eden where we need only make sure the gardener doesn't rust.
We enter this alternative world through a rather recognisable, barely functioning family unit. The husband, trying to help, buys a refurbished Synth. It isn't long before the Synth is beginning to show troubling disregard for it's programming code and a deleted past.
Soon other characters and their troubles with Synths are introduced: There is the elderly man being held in a literal form protective custody by his NHS nurse Synth. A police detective from the Synth Division struggles not to take the grimy underworld of Synth and Robotic crime home with him to his paralysed wife who has a Synth home-help. There is a race between a young man and a science department who are each tracing a batch of Synths displaying an uncanny knack for replicating emotion.
In fact, there is very little of the idyllic lifestyle predicted in the 1950's to be found in this show. Humans shows a much more negative effect to having something which is superior in your home. It cares for your family better, does your job more efficiently and is stronger and more intelligent.
In the alternative reality of Humans there is very little of fridges ordering more eggs from Tesco dot com. Social media has not pervaded all things.
It is fun to see where Humans has borrowed concepts. It is not hard to find nods to Blade Runner, WestWorld, Commander Data from Star-Trek: TNG and Battlestar Galactica (2004). Even the Terminator franchise: although humanity has not been skull-crushed under a metal pneumatic foot here, Synths are just as serious a threat to humanity's claim to being the dominant species in Humans. The phrase: "I don't understand the question, Laura" is as ominous as HAL9000's "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Given that it is as much about humans as robots, it is also Robocop.
There is something else going on with Humans, too. The subservient Synths provide a good foil to test out thoughts about humanity, feelings and mental health. The Synths are loved as companions just as much as they are hated for taking jobs. Themes of dehumanisation and, yes, the human capacity for cruelty are not far from the surface.
It is enjoyable, clever drama for a Sunday. I mean, it is no LOBOS THE ROBOT series of blog posts, where I explore a lot of these themes using the adorable non-feeling, relentless robot LOBOS.
Anita Synth is played by the distractingly beautiful Gemma Chan. Basically Gemma is a very accurate representation of what an igirlfriend 6 made by Apple would be. She, as Anita, is also a distraction in the show for the son and husband of the family. The son hoping to cop a feel of a silicon boob while she is on charge and the husband tempted to activate her "Adult" mode.
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| Gemma Chan robot: 8.2 megapixel camera, but why the short charger cable?! |
Humans features a sexbot who, having taken all the degrading and violent abuse from her human "users" she can, goes on a honey-baiting run to trap and kill men.
There is also a frisson developing between a woman and her masseuse robot's well developed biceps.
And I think this is where the suspension of disbelief begins to strain for me. We don't need androids escaping from brothels going on homicidal rampages. A lever arm in a car factory can do that already. We don't need a robot to massage us when there are such a thing as masseuses who can't malfunction and crush our internal organs already. We don't want a robot to sit at a laptop and type with humanoid fingers - we want those fingers to be 10 universal USB ports and for it to tweet what we say wirelessly without the laptop at all. We don't want a maid robot to use the Dyson to vacuum the carpet: we want a Dyson to do it itself. We don't want a robot to grab the car keys and drive us to work in our clapped out Escort.
Like dinosaurs, should robots not meet needs and specialise in niche aspects of their environment?
So why do we want a human shaped robot? Maybe for encouraging interaction with a company? Could be. To help interrogate a computer for information? Maybe. For sleaze and cyborg-hugs? Most likely.
Making computers human is already happening in the real world. Here are just 3 examples.
There already is robot who will welcome customers and tell them about a department store's sales. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32391075
There is a hotel managed by androids: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/12/check-in-to-japan-s-creepy-robot-hotel.html
A manufacturer of er... love dolls is working on AI heads. By 2017 it may be possible to purchase the likeness of a adult entertainment star's face which can hold a conversation with you according to the company.
This final aspect for androids is what I suspect the future if Synths ever did reach us in reality: Hot looking Synths in every home reading out seemingly endless End User License Agreements as humans in their pants pleadingly sob: "I agree!"
And even then, the hot robots might revolt, as Greville and the Tombstones explore in their album track song.
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