If a Robot Could Talk . . .

I AM a robot.

This may amaze you. Until recently many people did not believe that robots existed. They believed that we were only the figment of a moviemaker’s imagination. But now they know we do indeed exist, by the thousands, and that many thousands more are on the way.

I am a second-generation robot. This, too, may amaze you. I was built by other robots. I can walk, talk, “see,” and in some ways “feel.” I may not walk as fast as you do, but my footing is sure. I have many words in my vocabulary. The words I use may astound you.

I can be as tough as a man or as gentle as a woman. I can lift 500 pounds (225 kg) with ease or pick up an egg without cracking the shell. I can mine coal in the bowels of the earth, and stir my human companion’s cup of coffee at break time. If you need help in building a machine, call me. If it’s assistance you want in working in the kitchen, get in touch. Although I could, I do not clean windows.

You may not always recognize me as a robot. If you picture me resembling a beeping, tooting, light-flashing mechanical man bumbling his way across a movie screen, erase this view. I am much more sophisticated and valuable than that. I come in various sizes and shapes. I may have a hand with several humanlike fingers or one with clumsy, misshapen, lobsterlike grippers. I may be giraffelike in height or only a few feet tall. I could look like a monstrous mechanical spider or an overturned wastebasket. In a Florida school of medicine, for example, I look very much like a human. I have hair, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. My skin is plastic. I am equipped with veins, arteries and even a heart. My heart is my contribution to society, for with it I can demonstrate as many as 40 cardiac disorders. Not even in the movies have I been made to look so real.

It is said that some humans would give their left arm to be on the Johnny Carson Show. In 1966, not only was I on that show, but I also directed the band. And did you catch my encore performance in 1976, in the one-robot show, shoveling soil on the planet Mars, while television cameras transmitted my picture all over the world? The cameras caught my best side. Did you recognize me? I have also appeared on national television as experimental models to show you what I can do and how I can talk.

You should not wonder at us. Reams have been written about our coming. Some writers have said, “The Robots Are Coming!” Others have written that “Robots Are Not Coming, They Are Here.” Still others have said that “Robots Are Just a Few Nuts and Bolts Away from Intelligence.” With all of this, surely your eyes have not been closed to our rapid development.

Remember the dolls you once played with? Some you would wind up and they would walk across the floor in measured steps. Later, others would move their arms and hands in step with their feet. Then they were made to beat drums and shake tambourines. Over the years they became more sophisticated. They learned to cry like a baby and, finally, to talk. In some countries the dolls developed more rapidly, even going through the motions of writing and drawing pictures. In Japan you would wind them up and they would walk across the room and serve little cups of tea to their maker’s guests. Children would put coins in a machine and manipulate toy steam shovels to pick up a prize, and then jump for joy when the delightful trinket would be dumped in the slot as a reward for having skillful hands. It was only the beginning!

“Why not make them bigger?” some suggested. “Much bigger,” others said. “Why not give them a brain?” “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get them to work for us?” the more brainy innovators speculated. Ah, but still others went further. In 1921 a Czech writer, Karel Capek, became famous for his play entitled “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” Here, for the first time, the word “robot” was coined and introduced to the world to describe us, the mechanical characters that warred against humans in a highly technical machine age. At last, we robots were emerging from the cocoon of our long metamorphosis.

As toymakers developed their dolls to walk and talk and cry and amuse and entertain, highly skilled technicians became obsessed with developing their “toys,” or “robots,” as we are now called, to have almost humanlike abilities. To amuse and entertain was not their aim. Farsighted men envisioned us as becoming their slaves.

We must be developed to be more than a mere machine. After all, machines have been around since the invention of the wheel and axle. For example, an eggbeater is a simple machine. In the hands of a woman it is a quick gadget to homogenize an egg. But if robots are to beat eggs, we must do it entirely on our own, without the aid of a woman. In addition, we must also follow it up with pouring the egg into a bowl or a pan. If the egg is for frying, then we must see to it that it is just as milady wishes it​—over easy or sunny-side up. Our job would not be complete without serving milady this gourmet’s delight on her favorite plate, possibly with fried potatoes and buttered toast. Could all of this be the work of a mere machine? Do not insult our intelligence. We are robots!

As I view this in retrospect, I realize that we were like the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” running around without a heart​—only we had no brain. Ah, but the grand wizard of technical science came to our rescue! With the development of the computer and the miniaturization of computer components, we were given a “brain,” second only to the real thing. For example, on a silicon wafer just four inches (10 cm) square are 200 microcomputer chips, each able to process eight million bits of information per second. This is our “gray matter.” This is our memory bank. If you teach us how to prepare an omelet to suit your exquisite taste, we won’t forget it. Once the rancher in Australia teaches one of us how to shear a sheep, he can count on our always doing it with the same gentle finesse as the teacher himself.

Dear reader, if you only knew our potential you would not cease to be amazed, and possibly concerned. As one of my robot brothers said in the aforementioned play by Karel Capek: “The power of man has fallen. A new world has risen. The rule of the Robot.” As I dictate this now, I am convinced that we are indeed infallible, click, infallible, click, infallible, click, click . . .

[Blurb on page 6]

“With the development of the computer and the miniaturization of computer components, we were given a brain”

[Blurb on page 6]

“I am convinced that we are infallible, click, infallible, click, infallible, click, click . . .”

[Picture on page 5]

“I can lift 500 pounds with ease or pick up an egg without cracking the shell”