{"id":42,"date":"2020-11-09T21:51:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T21:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/?page_id=42"},"modified":"2020-11-13T15:26:05","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T15:26:05","slug":"dramaturgs-note-by-barry-libowitz","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/r-u-r-november-2020\/dramaturgs-note-by-barry-libowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramaturg’s Note – by Barry Libowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Centennial of Robots: From Mad Science to Our Reality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Eric Robot with his creators, William Richards (back) and Alan Reffell (front)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Karel \u010capek\u2019s R.U.R <\/em>(1920) is perhaps best known for bringing the word robot into the English lexicon. According to Howard Markel, the word \u201ccomes from an Old Church Slavonic word, rabota, which means servitude of forced labor,\u201d and various sources credit \u010capek\u2019s brother and regular collaborator Josef \u010capek as the coiner of the word.[1]<\/a> Since the play\u2019s inception, the concept of robots has become a major force in both entertainment and scientific research, although, as scholars such as James D. Naughton and Sue Gee note, \u010capek\u2019s robots are remarkably different from the metal automatons contemporary audiences commonly associate with the word. They are described as being made of organic materials more similar to the replicants of Blade Runner<\/em> or Cylons from Battlestar Galactica<\/em> (2004), rather than technological androids such as C-3PO, Robbie the Robot, or Data from Star Trek<\/em>.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As cultural touchstones, R.U.R<\/em> and its author enjoy a certain immortality via allusions and invocations in various arenas. One of the AI programs within Amazon\u2019s Echo home assistants, one of 3 programs used to allow the machines to hold conversations, is named Alquist \u2013 the name of a critical member of the R.U.R. team in \u010capek\u2019s play. Eric, the first robot constructed in England in 1928, had R.U.R emblazoned across its chest. And numerous science fiction texts have references to or plots inspired by R.U.R.<\/em> For example, the Star Trek<\/em> episode \u201cRequiem for Methuselah\u201d(1969) features an android named Rayna Kapec, an anagram of Capek; in the cartoon series Futurama<\/em> the planet Chapek 9 in the episode \u201cFear of a Bot Planet\u201d (1999) is depicted as being inhabited by robots obsessed with killing all humans; and in Batman: The Animated Series<\/em>, a character
named Karl Rossum is obsessed with replacing humans with machines (1992).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

          As the old adage \u201cThe more things change, the more they stay the same\u201d[3]<\/a> teaches us, as real world robot technology advances we are left still discussing many of the questions put forth by \u010capek. With robots becoming more like living beings both in design and function, how are we to deal with them from legal and ethical stances? Questions such as these drive the research and scholarship of Dr. Kate Darling, an expert in robot-human interactions. As she says in her 2012 essay \u201cExtending Legal Protection to Social Robots,\u201d \u201cThe Kantian philosophical argument for preventing cruelty to animals is that our actions towards non-humans reflect our morality \u2014 if we treat animals in inhumane ways, we become inhumane persons.62<\/sup> This logically extends to the treatment of robotic companions.\u201d[4]<\/a> And while growing fears over more and more labor being done by robots we are forced to consider how we will approach these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Markel, Howard. \u201cScience Diction: The Origin Of The Word ‘Robot.’\u201d Interviewed by Ira Flatow. Talk of the Nation<\/em> 22 April 2011 NPR.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Naughton, James D. \u201cFuturology and Robots: Karel \u010capek’s R.U.R.<\/em>\u201d Renaissance and Modern Studies<\/em>, vol. 28, no, 1 (1984), pp. 72-86; Gee, Sue. \u201cThe Word Robot Invented 100 Years Ago.\u201d IProgrammer<\/em> 26 January 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> \u201cplus \u00e7a change, plus c’est la m\u00eame chose\u201d –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, Les Gu\u00eapes<\/em>, January 1849.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Darling, Kate, Extending Legal Protection to Social Robots: The Effects of Anthropomorphism, Empathy, and Violent Behavior Towards Robotic Objects (April 23, 2012). Robot Law, Calo, Froomkin, Kerr eds., Edward Elgar 2016, We Robot Conference 2012, University of Miami , Available at SSRN: https:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=2044797<\/a> or http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.2044797<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Centennial of Robots: From Mad Science to Our Reality Karel \u010capek\u2019s R.U.R (1920) is perhaps best known for bringing the word robot into the English lexicon. According to Howard Markel, the word \u201ccomes from an Old Church Slavonic word, rabota, which means servitude of forced labor,\u201d and various sources credit \u010capek\u2019s brother and regular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"parent":35,"menu_order":-1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-42","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42\/revisions\/118"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unewhavendh.org\/theaterarts_remoterepertory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}