Resumo de The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Douglas Adams’ wonderful follow up to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams intentions in writing this book are quite clear…it’s pure entertainment of the highest order! But if we were to look at this science fiction novel in terms of what it says about AI, I feel quite certainly that Adams believes, as I do, that man’s obsession with making machines in his own likeness will eventually backfire on him.
In Adams’ universe every machine has not only been imbued with intelligence, but also with emotions. Elevators (called Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporters in the book) get bored with going up and down. Robots are so smart they can’t relate to anybody. And drink dispensers, capable of providing any drink in the universe, can tie up an entire ship’s control while trying to figure out how to get just the perfect taste of Earl Grey tea. So while the picture of AI is "strong" in the sense that the machines can think/learn/feel, in the end it is actually weak in that, it seems to hurt the characters more than it helps them.
One great example in the book of strong AI "gone wrong" is the robot, Marvin. Marvin can do anything, he’s strong and smart and he’s also depressed. Marvin spends much of his natural language processing skills in describing his depression. The worst part is that for the most part, no one pays him much attention. He’s a robot and the characters find it a little difficult to be concerned when he laments his current woes.
The Happy Vertical People Transporters are also nothing but trouble.
Too smart for their own good, they are often in need of counseling.
The characters’ goal in the book is to reach the restaurant at the end of the universe, Milliway’s. At Milliway’s diners can sit back and enjoy steaks (cut from cows that were raised to want to be eaten - in many ways, this book is very PC, although being PC wasn’t very big in the early 1980s when this was written) and watch the end of the universe. Through some type of time warp technology, the diners can then go back to their normal lives while the end of the universe continues to happen at least once an evening. Reaching the restaurant however, is not made any easier by any of the robots/computers. In fact in many cases, the trip is made that much more difficult.

The second Hitchhikers novel picks up right where the first left off and incorporates still many of the story elements found in the radio show, the first incarnation of this irrepressibly goofy and perennially popular SF comedy hit machine. Under attack by the vile Vogons for stealing the Heart of Gold, the brand new starship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive, former Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox (with the chronically depressed robot Marvin in tow) finds himself plucked away to Ursa Minor Beta, the homeworld of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy publishing offices. There he must locate Zarniwoop, a fellow who can help him (he assumes) unlock the locked-away portions of his minds ? remember, Zaphod has two heads ? and, from there, locate the being who is really in charge of the Galaxy after all. And will we ever learn the Question to the Answer to life, the universe, and everything? I mean, forty-two whats?
Plot logic is not a high priority of Adams'. The point is just madcap fun, and so as the story races along pell-mell in whatever direction it feels like, the best thing to do is just go along with it. Although in fairness to Adams' singular brand of comic genius it must be said that it all does make a kind of sense in its own loopy and inexplicable way. Just don't ask me to make sense of it for you; I'd rather sit back and enjoy it!
This is far and away my favorite entry in the madcap saga, and it contains some truly inspired moments of lunacy, such as the bit where an unarmed Marvin defeats a devastatingly powerful battle robot (a bit which had me gasping for breath hearing the radio show, thit was cut from the TV series); or the explanation of how the Hitchhiker's Guide copied its explanation of the "geo-social" nature of the universe off a cereal box; or how about Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Travelers' Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations, which teaches you how to speak in the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional! The entire sequence at Milliways, the titular restaurant, however, has been a source of bellylaughs ever since I first heard the radio show all these years ago. Many authors have tried, but few have managed to match the inventiveness of Adams' wit as he casually tosses us across unfathomable gulfs of time (backwards and forwards) and space, as easily as you or I might throw a frisbee. You might feel as if you need a good stiff Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster after voyaging through Douglas Adams' warped cosmos, but don't panic...Bon appetit!

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