Some Reflections on Robots; L.E. Read

SOME REFLECTIONS ON ROBOTS LEONARD E. READ MEANS are often confused with ends. Thus, when we focus on the employment-unemployment pic ture, as I do in this essay, the tendency is to overlook the fact that job holding by itself is, as a rule, but a means to the satisfac tion of wants. The growth of any individual's physical and mental faculties does, of course, demand exercise, but having a "job" isn't always necessary for that; these faculties can be and often are more exercised by the jobless coupon clippers, for instance than by job holders. So, we're not seeking employ ment merely for the exercise. Hu man labor for its own sake is sel dom our aim; we labor in order to enjoy its fruits in the form of food, clothing, and shelter, or to satisfy other physical and spir itual hungers. And one of the most essential qualities of being 32 human is the urge to be relieved of burdensome effort and freed to pursue more desirable objectives.

It is this urge, when men are free, that causes the invention of me chanical slaves - our tools and machines; they free us for some thing hopefully better. This is al so why we specialize and trade. In a world which has an infinite amount of work to be done, in voluntary unemployment is incon ceivable - provided the market is free. Unemployment is always the result of price (wage) and other coercive controls. Automation, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Our mechanical slaves -labor saving devices of all kinds - stem from the recognition and pursuit of higher wants than mere sur vival; they are the means toward such ends. Let us therefore try to clear away some of the confusion 1966 SOME REFLECTIONS ON ROBOTS 33 that attends the employment-un employment problem as related to automation. Whenever we come into posses sion of a source of mechanical energy equivalent to one man's energy, we have added to the work force a mechanical slave, an au tomaton, a robot.