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The Czech Play That Gave Us the Word ‘Robot’
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago(2019)
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoPrevious discussion from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789755 And a related discussion from a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25916140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25916140
- Gravityloss 5y agohttps://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=ru&text=work&op=translate https://translate.google.com/?sl=en&tl=ru&text=work&op=trans... https://translate.google.com/?sl=pl&tl=en&text=robotnik&op=translate https://translate.google.com/?sl=pl&tl=en&text=robotnik&op=t...
- theSIRius 5y agoYes, Slavic languages have similarities. The same could be said for Germanic languages like English and German or Latin languages like Spanish and Portuguese. That doesn't change the fact that the word "robot" in the meaning of artificial human was first used in R.U.R.
- blacksqr 5y agoThe word 'robota' is also related to the German word 'arbeiter'; both suggesting 'laborer' at the most basic level, and sometimes used as a euphemism for outright slave. Thus the ironic power of the word's use in the play, the same irony that powers the motto 'Arbeit Macht Frei'.
- dejv 5y agoRobota was involuntary work for feudal lord during middle ages. The class of people required to do such work were called robotnik (in singular).
- danielam 5y ago"Robotnik" is still used in Polish to mean someone who does manual labor and the like. The pejorative "robol" translates as "prole" as in "proletarian".
- dejv 5y agoWhen Capek created word robot using robotnik as a base, the term was not used for close to 200 years. Czech translation of robotnik in Polish would be delnik.
- lioeters 5y agoThere are some interesting parallels, or common thread, in Czech culture: - The word "robot" (with its modern meaning) comes from a Czech play - Tradition of Czech animation - Tradition of puppetry All these are about "animating" in the classic sense of the word, to breathe life into something.
- myth_drannon 5y agoThe Golem of Prague as well.
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoGolem as “big”, as in some Slavic languages? Just kidding, but Golem might as well be one of the early Robot prototypes.
- asimpletune 5y agoThe words dollar and pistol are also Czech I believe.
- schoen 5y ago"Dollar" is named after a place that is now Czech, but from the German name for that place. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dollar#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dollar#Etymology
- rsj_hn 5y agoAlso “howitzer” is the English pronunciation of a Czech invention, houfnice, from the Hussite wars. They were the first to use firearms on a mass scale, arming peasants with pistols, long guns, and dragging artillery they designed in wagon carts. Was a real shocker to the medieval knights they were fighting.
- rpmisms 5y agoI actually read the play, it's very good. A "robot" is a simplified human, assembled in a factory, with no reproductive capability. There was an implied aspect of sex slavery, as well. By the end, a pseudo Adam and Eve have emerged.
- pjbeam 5y agoIt doesn't take long to read and you can find it online or get it for a couple bucks. Agree with above comment--worth a couple hours read.
- capekwasright 5y agoR.U.R is a fantastic work that unfortunately has been perpetually shrouded in obscurity, despite its outsized popular influence. I highly recommend reading it.
- blacksqr 5y agoThe excellent book Ariel Like A Harpy, an analysis of the Shelleys' Frankenstein and Prometheus Unbound, includes a chapter on R.U.R., and draws explicit lines of influence linking them.
- cleorama 5y agoIn Czech, 'robota' is an archaic word for 'work'. I remember my great-grandaunt use it when I was a kid. I think Karel Capek credited his brother Josef, poet/painter, for coining the term 'robot'.
- marton78 5y agoIt's still in use as the regular word for work in East Slavic languages
- yetihehe 5y agoIn Polish, 'robota' is casual word for 'work' and is used in normal conversations.
- bialpio 5y agoTo me it has negative connotations. I'd be way more likely to use the word "robota" (as opposed to just "praca") when I'm not too happy about what is involved.
- danielam 5y agoIt better translates as "labor" as in "manual labor", or as "toil".
- inglor_cz 5y agoIn Ostravian dialect of Czech it survives as well. "Kaj ideš?" - "Do roboty." (standard Czech would be "Kam jdeš?" - "Do práce.")
- Hoasi 5y agoKarel Čapek is a great science fiction and satirical writer. I'd recommend War with the Newts, also translated as Salamander Wars.
- thesz 5y agoI have fond memories of his short stories and wonderful kind fairy tales. I used to read them as a child, some I remember almost word for word being 50 now.
- pitspotter2 5y agoI'd assumed until recently that early robots and other forms of artificial being were friendly and regarded as a good thing in early science fiction. Now it seems they were symbols of arrogance and guilt right from the start! The cancelled Catholic intellectual E Michael Jones points out that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley may have been afflicted by guilt over the suicide of Harriet, Percy Shelley's estranged wife. Frankenstein's monster became an object that guilt. Similarly, in Aliens, the monsters represent guilt over growing sexual licence and abortion, he suggests. If true this sort of thing may explain why the monsters are typically extremely powerful, can break through steel doors, etc. One cannot escape from them just as one cannot escape from a guilty conscience. So our ideas about robots may say more about us than about robots. It would be a shame if psychological baggage were to hamper the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). It would mean that science fiction has primed us to reject the sub-creation of life merely because we project easily onto anything that resembles ourselves: even before it has come into existence.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 5y agoThere is an old story of a Prague rabbi named Loew, who made a golem of clay; an artifical servant of sorts. Needless to say, the golem, through an error of the rabbi, escaped his control and started behaving violently. Fortunately the rabbi was able to incapacitate him (it?). This story is, I think, 400 years old? It seems that humans have been distrustful about artificial beings since a long time, before they actually could have met them.
- wolverine876 5y ago> I'd assumed until recently that early robots and other forms of artificial being were friendly and regarded as a good thing See also Metropolis and many other works of art and fiction. But I don't see one speculative theory about one author of one story (from centuries ago) as significant to a serious contemporary issue. It provides no evidence of the risks and the level of risk, nor an argument about them. Dismissing Mary Shelley, even if accepted, tells us nothing about whether AI can safely drive a car, make judicial decisions, decide whether you get a loan, or drop bombs. The risk is perceived far beyond that story or older sci-fi, but widely anticipated by leading scientists and technologists of our day. What about their evidence and arguments? Nor is it hard to imagine risks with little thought. > cancelled Do we really need to inject reactionary politics into a discussion of AI? Does that further the conversation?
- asimpletune 5y agoBelieve it or not I was briefly a Czech major in college. Fantastic literature. I never quite understood why the whole connection with the word robot was always so strongly emphasized though, even then.
- rsj_hn 5y agoI think for small nations, external validation is important, and robot took off. So Czechs themselves will be quick to point that out among listing their achievements. There is much better Czech literature out there.
- poopacabra 5y agoApparently Gene Roddenberry was inspired to create Star Trek by the Czech sci-fi film Ikarie X-B1. The resemblance is there. Also there is a Czech sci-Fi film with the first known selfie stick.
- BerislavLopac 5y agoMy favourite detail about that story is the name of the inventor - I'm pretty sure that the robots are controlled by Python. ;)