Goldberg Demystifying the Science in WALL-E
Prof. Ken Goldberg will present at a JCCSF screening of WALL-E, on Feburary 10th. The event is the second, in a series featured in "Sci-fi classics get demystified by scientists in new SF series" in the Mercury News. Sam Hurwitt covers "Science on Screen," the Jewish Center of San Francisco's series of Saturday evenings, pairing beloved sci-fi films with talks by prominent scientists. In the article, Goldberg discusses the thought put into portraying WALL-E and EVE.
From the article:
“We really wanted to demystify the scientific themes in the movies, so we’re pairing the movies with a science professional in a related field, and they’ll be able to explain some of the real-life science behind these classic sci-fi films,” says Maggie Grabmeier, associate producer of Arts & Ideas at the JCCSF.
Ken Goldberg looks forward to talking about “WALL-E,” which shows a much more benign, even heroic, view of robots than we typically see in pop culture. At Berkeley, Goldberg leads the People and Robots Initiative, a research initiative involving four UC campuses focused on the beneficial relationship between robots and humans...
“‘WALL-E’ is a great example of the genre of a robot that teaches us something about ourselves,” Goldberg says. “I think all robots do that to some degree. They’re reflections of ourselves. We can identify with WALL-E’s diligence and determination, the idea of this robot that’s essentially trying to carry on despite all the negatives around it.
“The general idea of the series is to use these films as a starting point, then talk about some of the technology— where it is, and where it isn’t. One of the nice things about ‘WALL-E’ is it was based to some degree on real robots, so it has a lot of beautiful engineering in-jokes, and a lot of the mechanisms are familiar from a robotics perspective.”
Read the article and more from Mercury News here.
'Science on the Screen: WALL-E'
Feb. 10 at 6pm
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California Street, San Francisco
Tickets: $10-18