Just came across this article in the Globe and Mail today and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s funny when a respectable publication like this one chooses to release something that I myself would have done, or did do, in small increments. In fact, many of the contenders on this list call to mind my little listing on Robots, Cyborgs and AIs which I did awhile back.
But dammit, they left out HAL and Robocop. That’s just plain wrong! Sure, they were trying to keep it to top 10 and felt the need to exclude cyborgs and supercomputers, and did have the good nature to apologize in advance for this, but still…
Here is the list as it appears in the article:
- The Terminator
- Droids from Star Wars (R2D2 and C3P0)
- Wall-E
- Replicants from Blade Runner
- Maria (Metropolis)
- Ash (Alien)
- The Iron Giant
- Gigolo (AI)
- The Stepford Wives
- Robby the Robot
Check out the full article here, complete with a gallery and some explanations of why these constitute “our” favorites 😉
Stories by Williams 
I think Robby the Robot got gypped.
Where are the Transformers? Got to admit though, the Terminator is pretty bad-ass.
Bingo. Hence why I say “our” favorites. It’s like, who decided which robots made the top ten? Is this just an acknowledgement of pop culture icons, was this a survey of some kind, what?
reminds me of the argument sheldon and raj had about raj getting into people magazine because he discovered a planet. what made him more special than any other under-30 scientist, and who the hell picked him on what criteria?
Maybe Hal was left out because he is a villian and therefore not a ‘favorite’ cinematic AI. Maybe those of us who are Hal fans are sick, twisted people who are out of touch. Or else the compilers of that list are totally out of touch with the people and personality markers of people who are big sci-fi fans.
I don’t usually think of Robocop as a robot or an AI. I think of him as the human cop that became Robocop. So maybe it didn’t pop into thier minds.