Historically, sci-fi has depicted mechanical beings as lacking "humanness" (the intrinsic quality which makes humans different from all other animals as well as from automatons, androids, and cyborgs). These beings were depicted as constantly striving to attain humanness -- the universal ideal. Early sci-fi films are a clear example of this trend. Number Five of Short Circuit (1986) is an automaton who (#1) is endowed with a human persona/personality. Number Five wants to learn the meaning of being "human". He first reads through a set of encyclopedias and then any printed materials he can get ahold of, yet his craving is not satiated. He finally solidifies his personality by watching television. His speech becomes a conglomeration of television sound bits. For this being, human identity can be found within the walls of a television. The lesson to us, as viewers, seems to be that media should dictate our existence.

Star Trek: The Next Generation's Data represents a different vision of a machine striving for humanity. Data is an android who is physically superior to humans (in areas such as strength, speed, agility, and perception). Yet Data, more than anything else, desires to be human. He would gladly give up his technical superiority to be a person, though he has a distinct identity and personality already. He repeatedly has tried to install an "emotion chip", but like Edward (of Edward Scissorhands [1990]), he falls short of his programmer's intentions.

Edward is an automaton who was origianlly constructed as a metal robot. Over time, his maker was supposed to convert him to human form -- an android. But the old scientist died before he completed his creation. Thus Edward was left half human and half machine: a bizarre man with scissorhands.

Classic sci-fi is replete with these visions of automatons striving to be more "human". However, newer sci-fi depicts a more frigtening view of the conflation of mechanics and humans. Recent sci-fi films show a cross-over in thought: machine is now viewed as better than the flesh. Take, for example, the following scene from Robocop (1987):

Alex Murphy is being reconstructed with metal parts after several fatal gunshot wounds have destroyed his body. He has intermittent visions of his transformation into Robocop -- law enforcement cyborg of the future. At one point he sees Dick, an Omni Consumer Products (OCP) executive, talking to the technicians who are (re)constructing him. One technician is pleased becasue they were able to save one of Murphy's arms. But the executive orders them to "loose the arm" in favor of full-body prosthesis.

One explanation of this phenomenon is that this "mental marriage" signals our desire to give up our individuality and merge with a collective consciousness. And yet we fear loosing our identity to a machine. Sci-fi films serve to explore peoples' simultaneous fear of and attraction to a mergence with technology. The films (a visual medium) depict our fear of not being able to tell human from machine. They show the way in which technology can be useful to us. They explore the trajectory that our society is following in terms of our growing dependece on technology.