“With the robot, we see ourselves reflected in the products of our own creativity.”
The collective fear of robots has been developed throughout history. We worry at the thought of a group of beings, having all their value boiled down to what they give us in Labour without consideration of their own needs, because we’ve lived through those same atrocities time over time again.
Culturally we may feel anxiety discussing a hypothetical robot Labour race because we know that when we mistreat other beings and boil their value down to what we can exploit them of they will eventually break, and we fear those potential consequences.
We can pull so many examples of Labour exploitation and discrimination like this in history.
Science Fiction authors have already been aware of the idea of robots as Labour; Karl Capek views the concept of robots as more worker exploitation than tech and uses this idea in his novel. War with the Newts, As discovery of a pacific sea-dwelling salamander race is initially abused and enslaved later gaining human knowledge and rebelling against their human oppressors.
Čapek uses the newts as an outlet for dark satirical commentary poking fun of pre-ww2 European politics, with their colonialism, fascism, arms race and even taking digs at America with how the newts are treated in similar ways White Americans treat the Black population. Going as far as mocking Nazism when writing how a German researcher has concluded that the newts are a superior Nordic race and should have land expansion rights.
Science fiction authors have been using the genre to tell stories about the world like this for decades, of course we have cultural anxiety about very progressive technological advancements. Incidents we have experienced and studied.
We make these connections because we are supposed to.
Another grave fear is potential job loss for our current working class. Cashiers, bus drivers, librarians and data analysts, sewer and waste management, warehouse workers and movers, a few jobs and careers technology are capable of overtaking. Executed in ways like this cashier less Amazon Go store:
However, dropping the need for the cashiers doesn’t rid the need for store workers. Of course, they would redirect their employees to other tasks around the store, human to human connection is still needed in a do-it yourself society. We have rid ourselves of tasks before, barrel makers, bowling pin setters, milkmen, and rat catchers no longer exist or are even really wanted because of technology.
The thing is, the working class fears robots overtaking their jobs. The jobs they worked to be qualified for. But the concern shouldn’t be that machines are overtaking their jobs, rather than in a capitalist society they aren’t even given the resources to not be seen as disposable work. The worry is that people born into the working class, or entering it, are being barred from these opportunities because they are being exploitered to further supply financial gain to billionaires who view them – as robots.
Norbert Wiener, the father of the cybernetics concept said that:
“An automatic machine whatever we think that any feelings might have or not have is the precise economic equivalent of slave Labour“
Should we be discussing the hypothetical idea and fear of a new group being oppressed and exploited by humans, when its already happening as we speak with groups of people, we are fully aware sentience exists in? why are we more fearful of the robots than we are of the working class when both are capable of inflicting the same damage? I don’t think the issue and fear should be of machines thinking like people, when it should be of people thinking like machines.
If cultural fears around new technology is to be dissipated, the people developing the technology must prioritize ethics above all else. As humans we see ourselves in what we create, and we need to fully absorb the message sci-fi gives us and realize where the dystopian future comes from.
These cautionary science fiction stories about robots revolting are more commentary on living in capitalist society rather and is much more symbolic of our realities.