Most of the stories we read in class this week all had to do various commentary on hard labor and how it works in futuristic societies, as well as the class function associated with these labor roles. In Isaac Asimov's short story "Reason" as well as Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains," there's an interesting assumption that upon the design and building of artificial intelligence, it will automatically assume a lower position under humans and work for us.
"Reason" definitely plays on this when "Cutie", the world's first self-sufficient and capable of thinking robot, cannot reason how two humans (Doctors Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan) were able to create a machine that's smarter and more efficient than they are. The only reason the robot eventually does work is because it dubs a converter as "The Master" and says how "The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually he replaced them with robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to take the place of the last humans" (166, Asimov). 'Cutie' believes himself to be a higher class than the humans and therefore better than him. In "There Will Come Soft Rains", a story about an intelligent house still doing its chores after the apocalypse has supposedly decimated humanity, and the story talks of how the house does all the work, even with little robot mice who "thudded against chairs, whirling their mustache runners, kneading the rug nap and sucking gently at the hidden dust." (236, Bradbury). The artificial intelligence does all the manual labor while the humans go about to day jobs, school or menial stuff like gardening. The authors are all imagining the robots to do work for them, no questions asked. This is in accordance with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, stated in the short story "Runaround", the second of which being "A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law." Asimov specifically believes robots should be a class below us, tending to the whim of human beings, but in a sense QT-1 is right. Why should robots submit to humans when, in essence, they are better than us requiring no sleep, sustenance, and are infinitely smarter with the ability to learn and retain knowledge at a rapid rate. It brings up a question of ethics, because since robots can think and feel for themselves, should they be subjected to such low standards and not live up to their full potential? I personally see a future where robots, if and when they have the ability to think like humans, co-exist, rather than be submitted to such menial duties, only because there is no reason to not treat robots the same, if they can think and do things for themselves.
Asimov, Isaac. "Runaround" I, Robot. Gnome Press, 1950
Asimov, Isaac. "Reason". 1941, Web.
Bradbury, Ray. "There Will Come Soft Rains.' 1950, Web.
