Robot Visions

After this human interchange they may return, with some relief, to the endlessly knowledgeable, endlessly flexible, and, most of all, endlessly patient machines.

But who will teach the teaching machines?

Surely the students who learn will also teach. Students who learn freely in those fields and activities that interest them are bound to think, speculate, observe, experiment, and, now and then, come up with something of their own that may not have been previously known.

They would transmit that knowledge back to the machines, which will in turn record it (with due credit, presumably) in the planetary library-thus making it available to other teaching machines. All will be put back into the central hopper to serve as a new and higher starting point for those who come after: The teaching machines will thus make it possible for the human species to race forward to heights and in directions now impossible to foresee.

But I am describing only the mechanics of learning. What of the content? What subjects will people study in the age of the teaching machine? I’ll speculate on that in the next essay.

Whatever You Wish

The difficulty in deciding on what the professions of the future would be is that it all depends on the kind of future we choose to have. If we allow our civilization to be destroyed, the only profession of the future will be scrounging for survival, and few will succeed at it.

Suppose, though, that we keep our civilization alive and flourishing and, therefore, that technology continues to advance. It seems logical that the professions of such a future would include computer programming, lunar mining, fusion engineering, space construction, laser communications, neurophysiology, and so on.

I can’t help but think, however, that the advance of computerization and automation is going to wipe out the subwork of humanity-the dull pushing and shoving and punching and clicking and filing and all the other simple and repetitive motions, both physical and mental, that can be done perfectly easily-and better-by machines no more complicated than those we can already build.

In short, the world could be so well run that only a relative handful of human “foremen” would be needed to engage in the various professions and supervisory work necessary to keep the world’s population fed, housed, and cared for.

What about the majority of the human species in this automated future? What about those who don’t have the ability or the desire to work at the professions of the future -or for whom there is no room in those professions? It may be that most people will have nothing to do of what we think of as work nowadays.

This could be a frightening thought. What will people do without work? Won’t they sit around and be bored; or worse, become unstable or even vicious? The saying is that Satan finds mischief still for idle hands to do.

But we judge from the situation that has existed till now, a situation in which people are left to themselves to rot.

Consider that there have been times in history when an aristocracy lived in idleness off the backs of flesh-and-blood machines called slaves or serfs or peasants. When such a situation was combined with a high culture, however, aristocrats used their leisure to become educated in literature, the arts, and philosophy. Such studies were not useful for work, but they occupied the mind, made for interesting conversation and an enjoyable life.

These were the liberal arts, arts for free men who didn’t have to work with their hands. And these were considered higher and more satisfying than the mechanical arts, which were rarely materially useful.

Perhaps, then, the future will see a world aristocracy supported by the only slaves that can humanely serve in such a post-sophisticated machines. And there will be an infinitely newer and broader liberal arts program, taught by the teaching machines, from which each person could choose.

Some might choose computer technology or fusion engineering or lunar mining or any of the professions that would seem vital to the proper functioning of the world. Why not? Such professions, placing demands on human imagination and skill, would be very attractive to many, and there will surely be enough who will be voluntarily drawn to these occupations to fill them adequately.

But to most people the field of choice might be far less cosmic. It might be stamp collecting, pottery, ornamental painting, cooking, dramatics, or whatever. Every field will be an elective, and the only guide will be “whatever you wish.”

Each person, guided by teaching machines sophisticated enough to offer a wide sampling of human activities, can then choose what he or she can best and most willingly do.

Is the individual person wise enough to know what he or she can best do? -Why not? Who else can know? And what can a person do best except that which he or she wants to do most?

Won’t people choose to do nothing? Sleep their lives away?

If that’s what they want, why not?-Except that I have a feeling they won’t. Doing nothing is hard work, and, it seems to me, would be indulged in only by those who have never had the opportunity to evolve out of themselves something more interesting and, therefore, easier to do.

In a properly automated and educated world, then, machines may prove to be the true humanizing influence. It may be that machines will do the work that makes life possible and that human beings will do all the other things that make life pleasant and worthwhile.

The Friends We Make

The term “robot” dates back only sixty years. It was invented by the Czech playwright, Karel Capek, in his play, R. U. R., and is a Czech word meaning worker.

The idea, however, is far older. It is as old as man’s longing for a servant as smart as a human being, but far stronger, and incapable of growing weary, bored, or dissatisfied. In the Greek myths, the god of the forge, Hephaistos, had two golden girls-as bright and alive as flesh-and-blood girls-to help him. And the island of Crete was guarded, in the myths, by a bronze giant named Talos, who circled its shores perpetually and tirelessly, watching for intruders.

Are robots possible, though? And if they are, are they desirable?

Mechanical devices with gears and springs and ratchets could certainly make manlike devices perform manlike actions, but the essence of a successful robot is to have it think-and think well enough to perform useful functions without being continually supervised.

But thinking takes a brain. The human being is made up of microscopic neurons, each of which has an extraordinarily complex substructure. There are 10 billion neurons in the brain and 90 billion supporting cells, all hooked together in a very intricate pattern. How can anything like that be duplicated by some man-made device in a robot?

It wasn’t until the invention of the electronic computer thirty-five years ago that such a thing became conceivable. Since its birth, the electronic computer has grown ever more compact, and each year it becomes possible to pack more and more information into less and less volume.

In a few decades, might not enough versatility to direct a robot be packed into a volume the size of the human brain? Such a computer would not have to be as advanced as the human brain, but only advanced enough to guide the actions of a robot designed, let us say, to vacuum rugs, to run a hydraulic press, to survey the lunar surface.

A robot would, of course, have to include a self-contained energy source; we couldn’t expect it to be forever plugged into a wall socket. This, however, can be handled. A battery that needs periodic charging is not so different from a living body that needs periodic feeding.

But why bother with a humanoid shape? Would it not be more sensible to devise a specialized machine to perform a particular task without asking it to take on all the inefficiencies involved in arms, legs, and torso? Suppose you design a robot that can hold a finger in a furnace to test its temperature and turn the heating unit on and off to maintain that temperature nearly constant. Surely a simple thermostat made of a bimetallic strip will do the job as well.