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SCMP Reporter

Nowhere more than in film and on television has the function and form of robots been so well explored.

 We've seen robots as domestic servants and ruthless assassins, guardian angels and messengers of death.

 But in tonight's Future Fantastic (Pearl, 8.30pm) Gillian Anderson examines a new generation of robots that is waiting in the wings.

 They are machines that can repair themselves, teach themselves, and even breed and evolve.

 Science fiction's babies are growing up faster than most of us dare imagine: many scientists now believe that one day we will share the planet with machines that are not only stronger than us but more intelligent.

 Already, astonishing developments have been made.

 Robot scientist and guru Hans Moravec has produced a car that thinks fast enough to drive itself at the speed limit, take corners, slow down for other traffic and find its own way about.

 But, rather than try to programme a super-intelligent robot, many of today's scientists are starting with very simple robots and allowing behaviour to develop as it does in babies.

 At Britain's Reading University, Professor Ken Warwick has created 'seven dwarves' that have only as much brain power as insects but are the future of robots because they learn and develop like children.

 They talk to each other via infra-red transmitters and receivers, and are programmed with basic instincts from which they can mature.

 They learn by trial and error and then tell each other what they have learned.

 Inevitably, there are sinister aspects to the swift development of robot technology, such as nightmare Terminator scenarios where machines try to destroy their creators.

 Instead of watching robots become more powerful than us, some scientists are attempting to merge man and machine, taking the best parts of them and, like Robocop, improving our bodies.

 At the University of Utah, work is under way to create a robotic arm that can be connected directly to a monkey's brain and in Baltimore a bionic eye is being designed to improve sight.

 Inevitably there are candidates willing to undergo such changes: the Extropians of San Francisco have enhanced their bodies as far as they can and look forward to the day when they will be superhuman. Fact, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

There's a mixed bag of movies today. Few films are worth staying in for: John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (Pearl, 1.50pm), with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, is one of them, and it improves with age.

 Moment of Truth: a Child Too Much (Pearl, 12.15pm) is the true story of a woman's experiences as a surrogate mother and the impact she had on commercial surrogacy laws in the United States.

 Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Pearl, 9.30pm) should have been a classic parody but the laughs are regrettably few and far between.

 Although this lavish version of Mutiny on the Bounty (Pearl, 12.30am) is beautifully photographed, even performances from Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian and Trevor Howard as Captain Bligh cannot lift it.

 Despite its being an expensive production and winning an Oscar for lavish costumes, the fact that no one can sing makes Camelot (World, 1.30am) look cheap.

 And a stellar cast - Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Muriel Pavlow - making understated performances lift Malta Story (World, 4.45am), a World War II action pic about a lieutenant (Guinness) forsaking love for honour. Above average.



When robots come of age