doubts about urasawa's pluto

[gabriel]

I have some doubts about Pluto, I'm sure you can help me to solve them.
Who was the evil teddy bear thta is the criminal mind after all the mess? I know he is called Dr Roosevel and he sholud be an artificial AI but who is him and where does he come from? Definitely what was his purpose?
In Pluto 8 Astro asks Braun one-thousand-and something to do a specific action. Do we must intend that Astro's request was that trying to kill the teddy bear like Braun searchs to do at the end?

[AprilSeven]

Good questions, as they are not answered in the story in a very direct fashion.

The teddy bear is the "face" of the AI of the "super-computer" guiding the government of the United States of Thracia (aka United States of America). Instead of the President talking to a faceless machine/mind, he addresses the "Teddy Bear" (and, as you may know, President Theodore Roosevelt was the inspiration for the Teddy Bear -- so the choice is very appropriate!).

Apparently the bear -- beyond being equipped with a speech emulator -- also possesses "eyes" -- you'll see him in the background behind the President when he addresses the public.

Somewhere in the story it mentions that America (Thracia) holds the development of humanoid robots in disdain -- which is apparently the explanation for not having a robot with the mobility and human likeness of seven most powerful robots of the other countries. The disdain does not extend to emulating/surpassing the capabilities of the human mind, however (they also refer to the "teddy bear" as the "mother computer"). This certainly nods at HAL/IBM and how, as a country, we haven't focused on perfecting a complete, human-like artificial life-form.

You can see a giant computer set behind the bear in a number of places throughout the story -- THAT'S the "brain" -- the bear is the "mouthpiece." So, one could say this is another Japanese/American "conflict" -- with the US trying to spread our idea of "prosperity" around the world -- and running up against the equally advanced AI created by Dr. Tenma of Japan (in "Goji" and Atom).

I guess that's why he felt he couldn't call the US by it's [present] name (same with "Persia") -- I wasn't able to glean what happened to the USA -- so he leads you to believe it's always been "Thracia" and is just trying to avoid legal issues.

And yes, I saw the "favor" Atom asks of Brau is to destroy Thracia's "mother computer" -- it's interesting that Atom would not do this on his own, but would ask another robot to do it. It's also interesting to note that Brau said if he removed the "spear" in his chest, he would "die" -- and that's what he did -- pull out the spear, and fling it at the bear. So, in the end -- they both die (it's like Brau gave himself the "death penalty" in order to save other lives, and Atom doesn't have to destroy another life).

I found Pluto very compelling in many ways, not the least of which is to get an idea of how people around the world see my country. We've moved into an age when things that used to keep us all separated (language, distance, oceans, time zones) all become blurred. The whole "good guy/bad guy" thing gets complicated -- and here they've thrown robots/AI's into the mix. It's very humbling and deserves our consideration as we move onward (and upward?) into the 21st century.

[dannavy85]

What was Atom's involement in the war? Why does he seem to be hiding it?

[AprilSeven]

What was Atom's involement in the war? Why does he seem to be hiding it?

He was sent in as an "emissary of peace" after Hercules, Brando and others did the heartbreaking work of war. There's more than a hint of resentment towards Atom and Epsilon. In fact, on the cover of one of the books you can see where Hercules says "I'm jealous of Atom." This is one of those "lost in translation" elements that is so common with these works.

Atom is a complete pacifist -- UNTIL he experiences Gesicht's rage. And then, at the last moment, both he and Pluto cry out in pain over the tragedy that is human conflict/war. But it's important to note there's an awful lot of "water under the bridge" at that point. And Atom is so incredibly powerful -- he's a one-person army.

I have a lot of poignant feelings about the messages here. My father (who was born the same year as Osamu Tezuka - 1928) actually lied about his age to join the Marines at the end of WWII, and he was stationed in Kokora (very close in spelling to kokoro, isn't it?) -- when I read about how Dr. Tezuka was beaten up by American GI's I actually cried -- my father and this wonderful artist could have crossed paths, and seen each other as enemies -- or worse!

I think Urasawa also kept Atom out of the fray so we could all feel a bit detached from any particular "side" of the conflict.

[Astronomical girl]

I know a site where the Pluto manga is

the entire series!! those who ask i will send you the link via private message.

[gabriel]

First of all I thank you, April, for your extremely accurate answers to my questions, yo're a great Pluto expert! I must say I just had the feeling that Urasawa was doing a metaphor of the Usa – Iraq conflict because of Dario XVI: he is clearly the dead dictator Saddam Hussein.

I am reading for a second time all the volumes I own (unluckily i don't find number 1 and 7 anywhere in comic book shops) and I want to do other questions and share some of my impressions. The first question is: why was Abra recorded as a human during the jump from the apartment while he was a full robot?

Why is there all this hate in Pluto? Here i have two hypothesis: the first is that Sahad is fulfilled with hate because he has discovered that Abra has told him a lie and the truth is that Abra did not love Sahad at all. The second is this: Abra's hate was so strong that it has, in some way, corrupted Sahad when he became Pluto.

If I remember correctly, two years were cancelled from Gesicht memory, especially the things involving his son and his murder of a human. But why was Brau able to detect this in Gesicht memory chip? Here I presume that maybe, being impossible to totally delete the memory, Gesicht chiefs sealed it but Brau had the ability to bypass this obstacle making Gesicht remember the 500 Zeus thing.

[dannavy85]

when I read about how Dr. Tezuka was beaten up by American GI's I actually cried

all due to misunderstanding between cultures and languages, which Tezuka touched on many times as his true reason for developing the Atom/Astro universe. Then again you can bet animosity towards the Japanese was still fresh and raw among the occupation troops at that time.

[fafner]

Why is there all this hate in Pluto? Here i have two hypothesis: the first is that Sahad is fulfilled with hate because he has discovered that Abra has told him a lie and the truth is that Abra did not love Sahad at all. The second is this: Abra's hate was so strong that it has, in some way, corrupted Sahad when he became Pluto.

I would say because they killed Abra, originally his father.

If I remember correctly, two years were cancelled from Gesicht memory, especially the things involving his son and his murder of a human. But why was Brau able to detect this in Gesicht memory chip? Here I presume that maybe, being impossible to totally delete the memory, Gesicht chiefs sealed it but Brau had the ability to bypass this obstacle making Gesicht remember the 500 Zeus thing.

This is not clearly explained, but I would assume that when data is generated by AI, it is disseminated across multiple places, the same as humans. This dissemination is mostly unconscious, and since it was proven that AI have an unconscious mind (according to Dr. Hoffman), I would say it checks. So probably unconscious versions of the memories remained after the deletion of the conscious ones, in a similar way as amnesia with humans.

[jeffbert]

If I remember correctly, two years were cancelled from Gesicht memory, especially the things involving his son and his murder of a human. But why was Brau able to detect this in Gesicht memory chip? Here I presume that maybe, being impossible to totally delete the memory, Gesicht chiefs sealed it but Brau had the ability to bypass this obstacle making Gesicht remember the 500 Zeus thing.

This is not clearly explained, but I would assume that when data is generated by AI, it is disseminated across multiple places, the same as humans. This dissemination is mostly unconscious, and since it was proven that AI have an unconscious mind (according to Dr. Hoffman), I would say it checks. So probably unconscious versions of the memories remained after the deletion of the conscious ones, in a similar way as amnesia with humans.

It is pure speculation as to why characters rather than real people did this or that, & it may even be geekish, but I do not think a robot's physical memory need resemble its functional (for lack of a better word) memory. I can write a program with memory arrays (or tables) of any number of dimensions, but this only means that the program treats the memory in that way, though it is all contiguous memory. Likewise, with STRUCTURES or CLASSES, though the software treats the memory as though it were arranged in some logical way, it is all still contiguous memory locations.

But even if not, if the program is able to distribute the appropriate characteristics across various memory locations, or in the case of parallel processing, various individual processors each with its own memory, then there ought to be a way of finding it for purposes other than simple retrieval. Thus, if a thing's color, texture, shape, density, etc are all stored in different systems, those wanting to obliterate that data should easily be able to do it.

I think that over analyses this subject enough for now, it suffices to say that the plot contained an element for which there may be no logical explanation.

[AprilSeven]

@gabriel: Good question, and I haven't completely figured it out -- this is the first manga/graphic novel I've read, and it's quite different from reading a "regular" book -- I find I remember it more like a "movie" (visual). I plan to read it all again - and more slowly. My "take" on the interaction between the different robots is that Urasawa is suggesting that complex AI may be more complex than what we can "reason," and once it reaches a certain level of "humanity," it appears to exist on what we would call a spiritual or "soul-like" level.

I think Jeffbert is correct in suggesting there may be no logical explanation -- but that doesn't mean there is no explanation. Notice how they "see" each other at "death" -- but they don't actually, completely "die" -- they (especially Atom) can experience each other's souls (that's how Atom -- and earlier, Epsilon -- could "see" Sahad in Pluto, and knew him to be good deep inside.

I believe Gesicht and his wife were reprogrammed during "maintenance" to be denied access to some of their memories -- but the other AI's Gesicht gave his memory chip to (Atom and Brau) both saw that he had killed a human, so they were not denied access to the experience. Note, though, they didn't tell him what they saw (and Atom lied to Helena at the end of the story when she asked him about the missing memories -- he told her there wasn't anything else there).

I have to re-read a part of it to get the order of events for your other question.

Urasawa, in my mind -- is using Artificial Intelligence to suggest how our "natural" souls exist and interact. We use words like soul, spirit, God -- and he's showing us that ambiguous area where you really can't say for sure, just what is going on.

@ dannavy85: I totally agree with your comments. What a horrible time that must have been. Can't help but wonder how things would have gone back then if we all had Internet access!