Analyse af 'Super-toys last all summer long'

How is artificial love different from the love one human can have for another? And if a robot truly could love a human, what responsibility would that human have towards the robot? Those are just some of the thought-provoking questions Brian Aldiss raises in his short story “Super-toys last all summer long”. Artificial intelligence of that caliber will not be achieved before many years into the future, but with technology still improving day by day, it is not a future further away than we can imagine, and the ethical questions raised are something we will have to take a stand on sooner or later, whether we like it or not.

Brian Aldiss shows us a slightly dystopian future in his Science-Fiction short story “Super-toys last all summer long”. It is a world where three-quarters of the world are starving, and the only way of preventing that is to implement population control. This means you cannot have a baby without winning the weekly parenthood lottery, and hereby takes away one of the most basic human instincts, to pass along our genes. Obesity is also a big problem where Monica and Henry live. Even in our time it is a substantial problem, but in the story it seems like they have almost promoted the problem. “I guess there is nobody around this table who doesn’t have a Crosswell, working for him in the small intestine, a perfectly safe parasite tape-worm that enables its host to eat up to 50 percent more food and still keep his or her figurine” (pages 1-2, lines 103-104+1-4). While the story does contain some brighter ideas like the Whologram (page 4, line 57), it is clear that the story pictures a dark outlook on the future. It is a future that seems unfriendly and lonesome to many and where robots have made humans somewhat redundant.