#karel robot

[jareckiworld]

Olaf Bisschoff — R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, Karel Čapek, 1920) [oil and canvas, on board, 2023]

[apollothegod22]

This is the funniest shit ever

And painfully accurate

[roboticsappreciationsociety]

This is an interesting perspective that give me something to think about.

This article by Evan Ackerman, (January 16, 2024), cites an article written June 9, 1935, by Karel Čapek himself, the author of the play "R.U.R." or "Rossum’s Universal Robots", that introduced the word robot to the modern lexicon where the author states that his invention was intended to be chemical in nature and not mechanical:

Karel Čapek, writing in the third person, states:

"The author of the robots appeals to the fact that he must know the most about it: and therefore he pronounces that his robots were created quite differently—that is, by a chemical path. The author was thinking about modern chemistry, which in various emulsions (or whatever they are called) has located substances and forms that in some ways behave like living matter. He was thinking about biological chemistry, which is constantly discovering new chemical agents that have a direct regulatory influence on living matter; about chemistry, which is finding—and to some extent already building—those various enzymes, hormones, and vitamins that give living matter its ability to grow and multiply and arrange all the other necessities of life."

He felt very strongly about the matter as noted in this quote:

"With outright horror, he refuses any responsibility for the thought that machines could take the place of people, or that anything like life, love, or rebellion could ever awaken in their cogwheels. He would regard this somber vision as an unforgivable overvaluation of mechanics or as a severe insult to life."

[chineseffect]

机器人 /jīqìrén/ ROBOT

The word ROBOT comes from Czech Republic. It was invented by a great painter Josef Čapek, brother of a famous writer Karel Čapek, who used it for his famous work R.U.R.

In Chinese the word consists of 机器 /jīqì/ A MACHINE + 人 /rén/ PERSON.

The type is original Chineseffect font and it also comes from Czech Republic :)

Great learning experience is waiting for you at chineseffect.com

[hyba]

Helena. Why don’t you create a soul for them?

Dr. Gall. That’s not in our power.

Fabry. That’s not in our interest.

Busman. That would increase the cost of production.

- R.U.R. by Karel Čapek

[ameliacf13]

Heya I’m off doing my own thing but I’m always curious about potential new interests. What is RuR?

Oh, I'm happy to talk about this! R.U.R. is also known as Rossum's Universal Robots, a play that comes from the Czech playwright Karel Čapek. It's set in a near-future science-ficition world where artificial humans have been perfected and are used as a universal labour substitute. The play contains a lot of really interesting themes and a TON of Marxist inspired criticism of capitalist systems. Very much worth checking out, I got to see it live and feel very blessed

[victusinveritas]

Photos by Francis Bruguière - Karel Čapek, R. U. R., Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923

[roachliquid]

So I checked out the play that introduced the word "robot", and it turns out it was written by a guy who thought that the working class is naturally content and docile as long as you don't convince them that The Bougies are exploiting them. The play is transparently inspired by the October Revolution, and in it, humanity is wiped out because (among other factors) people introduced the robot workers to the concept of having rights.

Not that I blame him for disapproving of the Bolsheviks and their violence, but dude.

[pl-tournament]

i may have very little hope here but i will persist nonetheless. Karel the robot propaganda! For one, he's just a little guy. Small dude. look at him. scrunkly. standing on a pile of four beepers. just chilling.

For two, this language forces you to be an absolute beginner by just not having anything complicated like memory and variables. If you wanna do one thing on two beepers and something else on three, you write

if next to beeper

pick beeper

if next to beeper

pick beeper

if next to beeper

//thing for three beepers

else

//thing for two beepers

and that's just how it is. perfect imperative programming with no nonsense. Also my boy is a turing machine, like, trivially. Tape? that's the grid baby! symbols on tape? stacks of beepers! read/write head? my main man Karel!!

please consider voting for my much loved Karel, he deserves some love I've only just tracked down the version i learned with like two days ago.

#karelSweep

Can confirm, Karel is just a lil' dude, and is also very skrunkly

[stellophiliac]

karel propaganda

[ampazourvskomodino]

Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922—garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek’s Robots are an android product—they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing leading to catastrophic results for both man and machine.

[ivandurak]

Domin (duramente): Alquist, este es nuestro último momento. Estamos hablando ya casi desde el otro mundo. Alquist, no era un mal sueño liberar al hombre de la esclavitud del trabajo. Del horrible y humillante trabajo que el hombre tenía que sufrir. El trabajo era demasiado duro. La vida demasiado difícil. Y para superar eso… Alquist: No era con eso con lo que soñaban los dos Rossum. El viejo Rossum sólo pensaba en sus impíos trucos, y el joven en sus millones. Y tampoco sueñan con eso tus accionistas. Sueñan con sus dividendos. Y sus dividendos son la ruina de la humanidad.

—Karel Capek. R.U.R. (Robots Universales Rossum).

[mindduckbookspodcast]

A Czech sci-fi classic from 1920 that is the origin of the word "robot". This episode has been a long time coming and I am very happy that it worked out to have Rudolf Rosa a researcher in computational linguistics as a guest. Rudolf is is also behind project "Robot writes a play" that was a special occasion to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the book R.U.R by using machine learning and large language models to write a theater play, this time about people by a robots. Join us on this episode to discuss the story of Rossum's Universal Robots, what really is the difference between people and robots and what does it mean to have a soul.

[reading-plays-is-a-thing-we-do]

On This Day

9 January 1890

Karel Čapek was born in Malé Svatoňovice, Austria-Hungary.

Czech author Karel Čapek is probably best known today for his science fiction works during a time when the genre was relatively new. His most successful work was the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), about a company that creates robots who eventually revolt and destroy humanity. The play, written with his brother Josef, introduced the word "robot" to the English language when it was translated and performed in the UK and the US in 1922 and 1923.

[willowmaidsworld]

Já, správný Čech: R.U.R. je hra, ze které pochází slovo robot! A teď to budu vám všem anglicky mluvícím otloukat o hlavu!

Vítejte v literatuře Karla Čapka.

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