Robots; R. Shannon

Russell Shannon ROBOTS ALONG many modern assembly lines, agile arms reach deftly out to solder metal parts, hang heavy doors on slowly moving auto frames, and ac complish a myriad of other tasks re quired to fabricate an automobile. One can readily imagine Henry Ford looking proudly on, observing with a smile that the process he began nearly 80 years ago still flourishes. But, of course, one element has radically changed. Those arms per forming intricate assembly opera tions are not all human; more and more they are mechanical. Steel has replaced sinew; electricity substi tutes for blood. Where once men and women toiled and perspired, gleam ing robots now hum and whirr. Managers may rejoice that their robots don't take coffeebreaks, strike, or go on vacation, but others take a different view. They lament the plight of workers whose jobs have all been "lost." High and rising unProfessor Shannon teaches in the Economics De partment, Clemson University.

282 employment rates seem to demon strate that many loyal workers are being ruthlessly replaced. So people start to wonder, as the machinery is oiled and dusted, who will feed and clothe American work ers and their families? Just as we've already done with women, blacks, and other smaller groups, will it now become necessary for us to institute an affirmative action program to as sure equal employment opportuni ties for human beings? President Mitterrand of France addressed concerns about technolog ical displacement at last year's eco nomic summit at Versailles. And Hobart Rowen, economics writer for the Washington Post, has stressed the "need for governments to playa ma jor role in integrating new technol ogy with the working population and society in general."l For those who worry that robots may ultimately eliminate our chance to work, it is worth noting that the word "robot" itself became popROBOTS! 283 ular largely due to a ·play called -"R. U. R." (for Rossum's Universal Robots) written in 1920 by the Czech playwright Karel Capek. And "ro bota" is the Czech word meaning work. 2 In the play, Rossum's robots which are rather more human than their current counterparts-become overproduced to the point that they rise up to overthrow human civili zation. During the last act, the man agers of the robot factory, contem plating their plight, manifest their motives.

One character, the clerk of the plant, blames science and engineer ing. But they are benign, inanimate tools, as incapable of purposive, ma licious designs as assembly-line equipment. The underlying fault, the clerk suggests, is surely human greed. "We're all, all guilty," he cries. "For our own aggrandisement, for profit ... "3 In this charge he echoes Karl Marx, who saw the lure of profit as a fatal peril. Such profit-which Marx called "surplus" and which he believed rightfully belonged to workers-was spent by capitalists to acquire more and more equipment. It would inev itably be used, Marx forecast, to re place labor, so it engendered a grow ing "reserve army of unemployed" which spelled capitalism's doom.4 Not anticipating a robot rebellion, Marx predicted that the exploited, alien ated, and unemployed workers would rise up to overthrow the capitalist system. Of course, Marx, while perhaps partly perceptive about the purpose of profits, was largely a flop as a prophet. Certainly, today we do have increasing numbers of machines. But we also have more and more jobs, as shown not only by the general growth of population but also by women's spectacularly increased participa tion in the labor force.5 Whatever its defects, the pursuit of profit by "greedy" entrepreneurs has de monstrably not been detrimental to the overall level of employment.

In fact, another character in Ca pek's drama takes a dramatically different view. The managing direc tor of the robot plant asks: "Do you suppose that the manager controls the output? It's the demand that controls the output. The whole world wanted to have its Robots. Good Lord, we just rode along on this avalanche of demand ... "6 The manager sees producers such as himself simply as servants. True enough, profit may be their personal goal and gain, but don't they earn it by satisfying the expressed desires of society? If they are guilty of any thing, isn't it that they are just re sponding to the wishes of their cus tomers? This is what Adam Smith meant back in 1776 when he said an "invisible hand" causes each pro ducer "to promote an end which was no part of his intention."7 284 THE FREEMAN May In an equally perceptive but less publicized remark Smith wrote in Wealth of Nations, "It is not the multitude of ale-houses that occa sions a general disposition to drunk enness among the common people; but that disposition arising from other causes necessarily gives em ployment to a multitude of ale houses."8 One may well question the social desirability of having people purchase ale or robots-or hand guns or abortions, for that matter.

But one must also grant that, just as it takes "two to tango," it takes both buyer and seller to make a volun tary transaction. The motive of the seller is but one element. Concert pianists and brain surgeons may be wracked by greed, while pot ped dlers may believe they provide hu manity noble services. We should neither condemn nor applaud an act based on the seller's motives alone. Relieffrom Drudgery In fact, so far as robots are con cerned, the motives of both produc ers and purchasers may be very high, indeed. Though it was Adam Smith himself who touted the virtues of as sembly-line production, he also rec ognized specialization's drawbacks. Toward the end of Wealth ofNations he laments that "the man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations ... generally becomes as stupid and as ignorant as it is pos sible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender senti ment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of pri vate life."9 Seen from this perspective, robots become a boon. They are relieving us from unwelcome work. Women are no longer slaves to their households nor men to their machines. That is the beneficent view of a central character in Capek's play. "It was not an evil dream," he says, "to shatter the servitude of labor. Of the dreadful and humiliating labor that man had to undergo. The unclean and murderous drudgery."l0 Who can argue with that? Any person who would abolish robots to assure work suggests implicitly that we would also be better off without vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and toasters!

Or without lathes, ladders, and li notype machines. It is also enlightening to recall that, after all, robots aren't free. Their prices run well into the thou sands of dollars. What justifies their cost to producers? Labor's cost has risen, so workers have now become relatively even more expensive. Why did that occur? Obviously, workers now find more and more that they can escape as sembly-line drudgery and move to 1983 ROBOTS! 285 more meaningful and remunerative work. They are no longer tied to jobs that induce "torpor" in their minds. So employers discover they must pay more to retain their workers-or else resort to robots. There is, of course, the possibility that the use of robots may induce some technological unemployment. But John Maynard Keynes, in his essay on "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," predicted in 1930 that such unemployment would be "only a temporary phase of mal adjustment."ll He foresaw that, in the end, the new machines would so en hance our productive capacity that mankind would eventually solve the fundamental economic problem of scarcity. Then, Keynes said, people would have to worry only about how to use their leisure. Keynes clearly did not foresee the advent of video games!

Perhaps Keynes took too blithe a view. But the characters in Capek's play, along with the arguments of Smith, Marx and Keynes, all make one fact abundantly clear. The atti tude we take toward our metal workers depends very much on our mental framework. Rather than at tack robots for making work impos sible, why not welcome them for making it unnecessary? Instead of being doomed to engage in endless drudgery, men and women have be come increasingly free to cultivate their artistic talents and enjoy more and more of what we call the "finer things in life." The assembly line that Henry Ford inaugurated may have undergone a radical change. But the end result of its process is basically the same. It is a machine which replaces both horse power and human power. Rather than rickshaws, we ride in Reliants and Renaults. Instead of Conestoga wagons, we cruise in Ca pris and Caprices. Next time you're driving to your job in an air-condi tioned, automated office, or rolling along the highway toward a week end at the beach, think about that! ® -FOOTNOTESIHobart Rowen, "We Need to Deal with Tech nology," Greenville News, June 10, 1982, p. 4A.

2Robert W. Corrigan (ed.), Masterpieces ofthe Modern Central European Theater (New York: Collier Books, 1967), p. 217. 3Karl Capek, "R. U. R" in Corrigan, p. 276. 4Karl Marx, Capital (New York: Modern Li brary, n.d.), Chapter XXV, esp. pp. 689ff. 5Civilian employment as a percent of our to tal noninstitutional population rose from 54 56 percent in the period 1950-1960 to 59.3 per cent in 1979. Economic Report of the President (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Of fice, 1981), p. 267. 6Capek, p. 279. 7Adam Smith,An Inquiryinto the Natureand Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 423. 8Ibid., p. 343. 9Ibid., pp.734-35. lOCapek,p. 274. llJohn Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibil ities for Our Grandchildren," reprinted in Es says in Persuasion (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963), p. 364.