ROBOT was introduced to the English language (and globally) by the Czech critic and playwright Karel Capek from his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), oddly enough a play I have heard very little about, given its significance. An odd origin giving that most words have less direct historical roots to a single historical figure. However, it does please me to know this one has come from art and not some random silicon valley type. Although Robot was widely popularized by Karel, it was actually his brother, Josef, who coined the term Robot in a short story.
Robot thus came from the Czech robotnik meaning “forced worker,” then from robota meaning “compulsory service,” or “drudgery.” this one goes all the way back to Old Church Slavonic rabota essentially meaning simply “servitude,” coming from the original rabu meaning “slave.”
I do love when an etymology seems to align poetically with our modern sense of the word. Of course, our modern notion of Robot is more metal-and-wire that that which Karel originally conjured up. Yet, the function and essence of the word remains oddly intact, for what would our perceived idea of robots be without the notion of labour, forced or otherwise, and the the placement of these labours in a slave class.
Karel described Robot in R.U.R., still, I think the most genuine way to date
“Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work—everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul.”
I think of the prophesized “post-work” era and connot help but think that if we did actually develop A.I., not the bullshit that runs your smartphone’s camera, but actual artificial intelligence that would put machine on the same level as organic biological matter, we would be mistaken in doing so. For authentic intelligence would, I think, symtomatically create soul type requirements in the metal being.
And there is no place for soul in the labour we have planned for these robots.
VAN BIBLIO 