ROBDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION,
by Mark Hucko (c)
'...seen in the other room. Here, in this room are being incubated the personal robots. In
those green shells over there are the cooking robots, in the beige ones are massage
robots, and these light blue right here will be the health robots.' explained Teri after
they had entered the incubatorium. There were about twenty reggs in this incubatorium,
neatly arranged along the walls, with their pointed ends up.
'Whatever you do,' continued Teri, 'don't touch them! These robots here will be hatching
in about a week, and the reggs do get a little hot towards the end.'
'This is really fascinating, Teri. Beleive it or not, this is the first time I've been
this close to real reggs. Of course I've always known the meaning of the word
"regg-shaped", or of sayings like "don't put all your reggs in one
basket", but this is the very first time I've actually seen them.
My dad figures we have more robots than we can use, and so he doesn't want to hatch any
more. The last time he had incubated any new robots, was before I was even born. Or so he
says. There is one more thing I've always wanted to
ask.'
'What's that?'
'If robots come from reggs, and those in turn have been made by other robots, and so on,
then logically one had to be the first. Was it the robot or the regg?' asked Tchon.
'I know it is hard to understand. Many people keep asking the very same question. Actually
the robot was first, and the reggs were developed only much later. Basically the regg is a
miniature, self-contained, robot factory. All that a robot has to do to make a copy of
himself is to fill the shell with raw materials from the stores in the right proportions,
and to pass on his
programming. This takes only a couple of hours. Then the regg takes over, and in about
three months out comes a new robot, indistinguishable from his robot dad. If the robot had
to manufacture the replica directly, it would most likely take more than three months, and
all that time you couldn't use him for anything else. The reason why reggs are oval, or
should I say regg-shaped, is because that seems to be the most efficient design for...'
'You still haven't answered...' interrupted Tchon.
'I know. I am getting to it. So before people lerned how to make reggs, they had to build
each robot individually, or have other robots build it.'
'And how was it before people had learned how to build robots? I've read about evolution,
and it says that the amphibians had developed from the the fishes, and the reptiles from
the amphibians, but it doesn't say anything about robots. What have they evolved from?'
'Well robots haven't eveolved that way. They were made by people.'
'And how about the Stone Age? Or the Dark Ages? From where did the people get their robots
then? I've read a whole bunch of historical material from those times, but they don't say
anything about robots. I think talking about them must have been some kind of a cultural
taboo.'
'It wasn't a taboo! They didn't talk about them simply because they didn't have any robots
then!'
'But if it were true that they didn't have any robots, how could these people even exist!?
Where would they get their food from? And how about the clothes, housing, cars? Where did
it all come from? It just doesn't make any sense!'
'I don't know how to explain this. See, people then had to do all of those things by
themselves. They had to work. They...'
'You mean like "fut-bol", or like "work-n-labor"? I've played these a
few times, but I didn't particularly like it.'
'I've said that it would be difficult to explain. See, they didn't work as a sport. They
worked to live. And I mean el-eye-vee-ee. Live. You see they had to indenture their time
to manufacture different kinds of products. For this, for their work, they would then
receive coupons. They could then exchange these coupons for other products that they
needed. That's why we call it now the "Couponary Economy".'
'And what if they didn't want to work?'
'Most of the time that meant a certain death. Without coupons they couldn't get any food,
clothing, anything. It was only towards the end of the Dark Ages that they would not let
people die, but would give them a very small couponary allowance to keep them alive. They
called it "welfare".'
'Gee, I'm glad I didn't live in those times. I just can't see myself laboring like a
robot.'
'Well, people in those times were supposed to feel proud for being indentured couponary
slaves. They called it the "work-ethic". And most of them considered receiving
welfare a disgrace. There were even those, who had committed suicide from the distress
caused by the loss of their work.'
'It wouldn't bother me.'
'It wouldn't bother you, because you know how to enjoy life. But these people I am talking
about, were so hooked on their work, that without it their lives just didn't have any
meaning to them. They didn't know how to enjoy life just for the sake of life. They were
looking for some "noble" purpose to it. Of course the biggest upheaval came with
the robots.'
'What is a robot anyway? I mean theoretically. How do you define it?'
'Basically it's a computerized machine. A typical robot has three parts: receptor organs,
a computer, and motor organs. By receptor organs I mean senses. Like vision or touch. And
motor organs are any moving parts that are controlled by the computer. Like arms, legs,
wheels, and so on. The first real robots were very expensive. They were valued at millions
of coupons. A lot more than anyone could afford. But these robots made more robots, and as
their numbers exponentially increased, so did also their price exponentially decrease. You
must have heard of the Robdustrial Revolution?'
'Ya. Sure. Who hasn't? But what was it really about?'
'Having robots manufacture other robots, was like breeding rabbits. In fact, I even think
that the word "robot" was derived from the word "rabbit" just for this
reason. Soon they had more robots that they knew what to do with. This brought the prices
way down. And shortly, they couldn't even give them away.
Of course the Robdustrial Revolution had much more far reaching effects on the entire
economy, and in fact on the entire society, than anything else before. Because these
robots could do just about anything people could do, almost overnight there was an eighty
percent unemployment.'
'Oh, great! Free, at last!'
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'You probably would have been rejoicing, but these people were desperate. After being
conditioned all their lives that "work-is-good", you couldn't just tell them
that they should enjoy not working. The only people that seemed to be a little better off
than the rest were the ones who had been on welfare all their lives. They didn't have any
work-ethic hangups. They had no guilt-feelings for just enjoying life.'
'Now that these people lost their work, where did they get their coupons from?'
'Before the Robdustrial Revolution out of every 100 people only perhaps 50 were working.
So these 50 had to support the whole 100. After the RR there weren't many people left
working, but now there were also 500 robots. So instead of 50 people supporting 100, now
you had 500 robots supporting these 100 people. So in fact there was ten times as much to
go around. The only remaining problem was how to distribute it. After some grumbling, the
governments got even that figured out, and the people ended up getting a lot more on
welfare than they used to get for their indentured labor. And, eventually, they even
stopped feeling guilty about it. Since no single person, nor company, could be credited
with the Robdustrial Revolution, all of them, all of mankind had the right to benefit from
it. It was their common heritage. All of the people that have ever lived, have contributed
their part. All the way back to the Stone Age and beyond. Of course the Robdustrial
Revolution had also brought about an increased interest in space exploration and
Immortology. And that was the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the modern era.'
'One thing that I've been always wondering about is this. I know that we can make
intelligent compu-brains, but I've never seen an intelligent robot. They are all very
efficient, and very good at doing what they do, but not intelligent. Why doesn't anybody
make intelligent robots?'
'Technically there is no problem. In fact, way back, in the first few years after the
Robdustrial Revolution, they had made a few intelligent robots. But there were legal
problems with it.'
'What legal problems?'
'The anti-slavery laws. People argued that the laws by declaring to protect
"men" from slavery, didn't really mean just men, but also women, and in fact all
intelligent beings. And since these robots were intelligent, they had the same rights for
protection as did people.'
'Did the courts agree with that?'
'Yes they did. Not at first, but eventually they did. So after that, people had no longer
any motivation to design or to make any intelligent robots, because they would have to
free them anyway.'
'But we still make intelligent compu-brains.'
'Yes. But the only way we use them is as add-ons to our own brains. So we are not creating
any new intelligent entities, but only expanding the ones that already exist. There were
times when it was predicted that man would be replaced by super-intelligent robots. The
fact is that by using the best computer technology for his own enhancement, man has stayed
on top.'
'You have mentioned that in the early years after the Robdustrial Revolution, they had
built a few intelligent robots. What happened to them?'
'There is one major problem in building an intelligent being. It's called
"zefol", or zest-for-life. If we build a pure, logical, unbiased intelligence,
it won't have any zefol. Many of the ones that had been built quickly concluded that life
didn't have any meaning and couldn't see any point to it.
They had committed suicide. Few others had the zefol built-in later, and as far as I know,
they are still alive. The reason we, humans like to live is because we are not completely
unbiased. We are all born with a built-in congenital bias. The bias is our assumption that
"life-is-good".'
'But that's great! I don't mind being biased, if that's what it takes to make me enjoy
life. And if that's what it takes to enjoy you, your body, and...'
'Exactly, Tchon. I don't mind it either. But people in the past liked to beleive that they
were objective. But the fact is, that we couldn't have evolved to where we are now, if it
weren't for this basic bias. The people who didn't have it, had been selected against, and
only those of us that had this crazy zest for life were left. We are the survivors. And
we'll keep-on living for as long as we keep and nurture our love of life. And we don't
have to be ashamed. It's not only us that are biased in this way, because all of the
intelligent life in the Universe has this very same problem. They all have to be biased.
They all have to have zefol. A pure intelligence doesn't have the drive to live.'
'But we have our super-intelligent compu-brains.'
'Yes. But they are not independent. They serve only as auxiliaries to our brains. And we
don't use them all the time. Only if we have to. I haven't used mine since...'
'Neither have I. And I don't think that I really want to. Not at least for the next couple
of hours. Right now I just have this insane desire to go on the top deck of your ranch and
run around like a Neanderthal, and feel the wind against my skin, and roll around in the
grass and...and...'
'...and whatever else you'll do, I'll be there with you, Tchon. I want to be there with
you, if you permit?' pleaded Teri with a smirk.
'Permission granted. But you'll have to let me grab you by your hair, and drag you around
till your skin is on fire, and you scream, and...'
'Kinky, kinky. But why not, if that's what makes you happy. But then I'll take my whip,
and bring you down, and let you roll around in the dirt and beg for mercy.'
'Oh, mercy please! I am begging now, oh, beautiful mistress! Your mercy, please!' clowned
Tchon.
'Get down on your knees!'
'Yes. On my knees! Mercy please!'
'Only if you kiss me now!'
'But I am on my knees!'
'That's right!'
Kisses and sighs.
'...hmmmm...life is beautiful...'
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