R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life

R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life

R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life

Karel Čapek

edited by Jitka Čejková

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

© 2023 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used to train artificial intelligence systems or reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This publication has been supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided comments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential for establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.

This book was set in ITC Stone and Avenir by New Best-set Typesetters Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Čapek, Karel, 1890–1938, author. | Čejková, Jitka, editor. | Šimek, Štěpán S., translator.

Title: R.U.R. and the vision of artificial life / Karel Čapek ; edited by Jitka Čejková ; translated by Štěpán S. Šimek.

Other titles: R. U. R. English

Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022059065 (print) | LCCN 2022059066 (ebook) | ISBN 9780262544504 (paperback) | ISBN 9780262371896 (epub) | ISBN 9780262371902 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Robots—Drama. | Čapek, Karel, 1890–1938. R.U.R. | Robots in literature. | Artificial intelligence. | Artificial life. | Robotics. | LCGFT: Drama. | Literary criticism. | Essays.

Classification: LCC PG5038.C3 R213 2023 (print) | LCC PG5038.C3 (ebook) | DDC 891.8/6252—dc23/eng/20230621

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059065

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Contents

Introduction

Jitka Čejková

R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)

Karel Čapek, translated by Štěpán S. Šimek

Translator’s Note

Essays

1 Robots and the Precocious Birth of Synthetic Biology

Julyan Cartwright

2 Another Method with the Potential to Develop Life

Nathaniel Virgo

3 Humans and Machines: Differences and Similarities

Carlos Gershenson

4 R.U.R. and the Robot Revolution: Intelligence and Labor, Society and Autonomy

Inman Harvey

5 It Wasn’t Wrong to Dream: The Paradise or Hell of Our Jobless Future

Julie Nováková

6 R.U.R.: A Shrewd Plutocrat, a Genius Engineer, and an Anti-Sue Walk into a Bar

Lana Sinapayen

7 Artificial Panpsychism

George Musser

8 What Is the Secret of Life? The Mind-Body Problem in Čapek’s R.U.R.

Tom Froese

9 The Robot

Jana Horáková

10 Is the Soul Synonymous with Consciousness?

Sina Khajehabdollahi

11 Science without Conscience Is the Soul’s Perdition

Antoine Pasquali

12 Karel Čapek: The Visionary of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life

Hiroki Sayama

13 Rossum’s Universal Xenobots

Josh Bongard

14 Why Are No More Children Being Born?

Hemma Philamore

15 Love in the Time of Roomba

Seth Bullock

16 The Lesson of Affection from the Weak Robots

Dominique Chen

17 Generative Ethics in ARTIFICIAL LIFE

Takashi Ikegami

18 From R.U.R. to Robot Evolution

Geoff Nitschke and Gusz Eiben

19 Robots at the Edge of Chaos and the Phase Transitions of Life

Miguel Aguilera and Iñigo R. Arandia

20 Robotic Life beyond Earth

Olaf Witkowski

Afterword: The Author of the Robots Defends Himself

Karel Čapek

Contributors

Illustration Credits

Notes

Index

Introduction

Jitka Čejková

Nature discovered only one method of producing and arranging living matter. There is, however, another, simpler, more malleable, and quicker method, one that nature has never made use of. This other method, which also has the potential to develop life, is the one I discovered today.

Any scientist, especially one who works in the artificial life field, would love to make such a groundbreaking discovery, to be the first in the world to share these wonderful words on social media and publish the results in prestigious scientific journals. Unfortunately, another method to create life has not yet been found, and these notes were written in a laboratory book by the fictional mad scientist Rossum from Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R., subtitled Rossum’s Universal Robots.

Karel Čapek (January 9, 1890–December 25, 1938) was a Czechoslovak writer, playwright, and journalist. I don’t believe he ever had an ambition to be one of the firsts in the world, but in the end he was. With his brother Josef he invented a new word—robot—and he was the first to use this word for an artificial human, formed from chemically synthesized living matter. In Czech, R.U.R. was published in November 1920 and premiered on January 25, 1921 in the National Theatre in Prague. The play was first performed in English by the New York Theatre Guild on October 9, 1922. It was a great success—by 1923 R.U.R. had been translated into thirty languages. And the word robot remained untranslated in most of these.

Soon the word robot started to be used for all sorts of things, and Karel Čapek, instead of being happy at its fame, was upset and frustrated. He protested against the idea of robots in the form of electromechanical monsters that fly airplanes or destroy the world by trampling. His robots were not made of sheet metal and cogwheels; they were not a celebration of mechanical engineering! In a column in the newspaper Lidové noviny in June 1935 (in translation as the afterword to this book), he emphasized that when writing R.U.R. he was thinking instead of modern chemistry. Although it was the chemistry of the time, without concepts like DNA or RNA, his statements were quite timeless (as is all of R.U.R.). He laid stress on the idea that one day we will be able to produce, by artificial means, a living cell in a test tube. That we will be able to create a new kind of matter by chemical synthesis, one that behaves like living material; an organic substance, different from what living cells are made of; something like an alternative basis for life, a material substrate in which life could have evolved, had it not, from the beginning, taken the path it did. He emphasized that we do not have to suppose that all the different possibilities of creation have been exhausted on our planet. His texts were such a brilliant ode to artificial life!

However, in Čapek’s lifetime there was no developed scientific field of artificial life (commonly abbreviated as ALife). This emerged several decades later. It is generally accepted that the modern field of ALife was established at a workshop held in Los Alamos in 1987 by Christopher G. Langton. The field focuses mainly on the creation of synthetic life on computers or in the laboratory, in order to study, simulate, and understand living systems. Originally the field was a conglomerate of researchers from various disciplines including computer science, physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and philosophy, who were exploring topics and issues far outside of their own disciplines’ mainstreams, often topics of foundational and interdisciplinary character. These renegade scientists had problems finding colleagues, conferences, and journals in which to disseminate their research and to exchange ideas. For this rich and diverse set of people, ALife became a new home, a big tent, unifying them especially in two main conferences (the International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, and later also the European Conference on Artificial Life, with meetings in alternating years) and one scientific journal (MIT Press’s Artificial Life).

Today, artificial life researchers meet annually at conferences simply titled ALife. I have attended many of them, and always it thrills me to see what kinds of topics are presented and how many views on a specific problem are offered during the discussions. The common characteristic of all researchers in the ALife community is their open mind. It really is a radically interdisciplinary field that cannot be defined either as pure science or engineering.¹ It involves both, employing experimental and theoretical approaches, and the research is fundamental and mainly curiosity-driven. Practical applications come as by-products, but they are not the goal. There are so many basic questions that we are still unable to answer, such as What is life?, How did life originate?, What is consciousness? and more. Many of these questions are related not only to science but also to philosophy. And what has always fascinated me most was how many of these contemporary questions were already heard in Čapek’s century-old science fiction play.

And therefore I often introduced and praised Čapek’s R.U.R. in my talks at conferences, but also in scientific papers, in normal conversation, everywhere! Not only because I wanted to call attention to all of the fascinating open questions related to artificial life that Čapek outlined, but also to point out that the original robots were made from artificial flesh and bones, which was always surprising information for many people. Moreover, I wanted to remind the world of the Czech giant, Karel Čapek, who was nominated seven times for the Nobel Prize in literature. Of course, I also like his other works. Since childhood I have loved his books Nine Fairy Tales and Dashenka, or the Life of a Puppy. Later I read The Makropulos Affair, The Mother, The White Disease, War with the Newts, Krakatit, The Gardener’s Year, and others. Some of these works also raise issues related to artificial life (especially War with the Newts), but Rossum’s Universal Robots has become my favorite since I started my doctoral studies in the Chemical Robotics Laboratory of Professor František Štěpánek at my alma mater, the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague.

In fact, the chemical robots in the form of microparticles that we designed and investigated, and that had properties similar to living cells, were much closer to Čapek’s original ideas than any other robots today (a blob of some colloidal pulp that not even a dog would eat, as one of his characters puts it). Currently, in my laboratory I examine droplets of decanol in the environment of sodium decanoate (an organic phase almost immiscible with water in the form of a droplet located on the surface of an aqueous surfactant solution). These droplets are unique in that they somehow resemble the behavior of living organisms. For example, just as living cells or small animals can move in an oriented manner in an environment of chemical substances—in other words, they can move chemotactically (chase food or run away from poisonous substances)—so my droplets can follow the addition of salts or hydroxides in a very similar way.² Thanks to chemotaxis, they can even find their way out of a maze! Just as living cells change their shape and create various protrusions on their surface, so also decanol droplets are able to change their shape under certain conditions and create all kinds of tentacle-like structures.³ We also recently discovered that amazing interactions occur in groups of many droplets, when the droplets cluster or, on the contrary, repel each other, so that their dance creations on glass slides or in Petri dishes resemble the collective behavior of animal populations like flocks.⁴ Bottom line, I started to call these droplets liquid robots!⁵ Just as Rossum’s robots were artificial human beings that only looked like humans and could imitate only certain characteristics and behaviors of humans, so liquid robots, as artificial cells, only partially imitate the behavior of their living counterparts.

As I mentioned above, R.U.R. was published in 1920. As the year 2020 approached, I felt that we must mark the centenary of this timeless work and celebrate the word robot in some way. Some of my ideas were never realized, and some were only partially realized due to the COVID pandemic (we organized the ALife 2021 conference as an online-only event, rather than hosting it in Prague as we wanted). The project I really took seriously was to prepare a book on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the word robot. This book would contain Čapek’s original play along with present-day views on this century-old story.

And thus the book Robot 100: Sto rozumů was released by our University of Chemistry and Technology Prague in November 2020, exactly 100 years after Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots. It contained the contributions of 100 people, mostly scientists, but also writers, journalists, radio and television presenters, musicians, athletes, and artists. R.U.R. is a timeless work, in which we can find many topics that scientists deal with even today, whether the synthesis of artificial cells, tissues, and organs, issues of evolution and reproduction, or the ability to imitate the behavior of human beings and show at least signs of intelligence or consciousness. R.U.R. also outlines social problems related to globalization, the distribution of power and wealth, religion, and the position of women in society. Every contributor could find an example of how R.U.R. raises some still unanswered questions of their field.

The feedback of readers and the positive reviews encouraged me to publish an English edition. I was pleased that the MIT Press was interested in publishing my book. The key problem, as I had already seen in feedback from contributors, was the English translations of Čapek’s play. Probably the most widely used English translation of R.U.R. is the very first one from 1923 by Paul Selver. However, it is not a very successful translation, and Čapek himself was not satisfied with it. Not only did Selver leave out some passages, but he even completely canceled the character of the robot Damon. Also, while Čapek’s original consists of a prologue and three acts, in translations we often encounter three acts and a final epilogue. Foreign authors often wrote about Rossum junior as a son because he is referred to as young Rossum, but in the Czech original it is clearly stated that he was the nephew of the older Rossum. Another difference was Domin’s request for Helena Glory’s hand—while in the Czech original he only places both hands on her shoulders, in Selver’s translation he even kisses her. Inconsistencies in the translations were mostly easily solvable trifles, but sometimes they complicated the content of the entire essay.

It was clear that if we published Robot 100 in English, it would require a completely new translation. I am happy that Professor Štěpán Šimek agreed to translate the first edition of Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots for this book. I was so happy when I obtained his comments to the translation: This is a straight translation in terms of the original. By that I mean, that unlike some other translations that I’m familiar with, I have not made any cuts, that I have translated every word and line, and that I haven’t changed anything from the original. While the play has some obvious dramaturgical flaws, I have not tried to correct those in the translation. I believe that cuts, rearrangements, dramaturgical clarifications, and stuff like that are the job of the potential director and/or dramaturg, not the translator, unless the translator is asked to create an adaptation of the original. In other words, this is a Translation, not an Adaptation. And I was amazed when I read the new translation. It is excellent and it fulfills my expectations. Thanks to Štěpán Šimek’s work, this book offers English-speaking readers a truly faithful translation of Čapek’s R.U.R.

It was obvious that if we published book Robot 100 in English in 2023, it would require a new title, because there is no centenary this year. We also decided not to include the contributions of all one hundred of the contributing authors in our print edition, but to select mainly those related to artificial life, and to publish the rest online. Finally, we have chosen the title R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life for the book that you have in your hands right now. This title perfectly reflects what the readers will find within—the century-old play R.U.R in a completely new and modern translation by Štěpán Šimek, and twenty essays on how Čapek’s brilliant play has the prescient power to illustrate current directions and issues in artificial life research and beyond.

R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)

Karel Čapek

translated by Štěpán S. Šimek

Characters

HARRYDOMIN Chief Executive Officer, Rossum’s Universal Robots Company (R.U.R.). In his mid to late thirties, tall, clean-shaven.

FABRY Chief Technology Officer (R.U.R.). Earnest-looking and delicate, pale, also clean-shaven.

DR.GALL Director of the Office of Physiological Research and Development (R.U.R.). Small and lively, tanned with a black moustache.

DR.HALLEMEIER Director of the Office of Psychology and Education of Robots. A large and loud redhead with a crew cut and a moustache.

BUSMAN Chief Financial Officer (R.U.R). Fat, bald, and nearsighted.

ALQUIST Director of Physical Plant and New Construction. Older than the others, shabbily dressed, with long graying hair and full beard.

HELENAGLORY The Daughter of President Glory, later, Harry Domin’s wife. Young and stylishly dressed.

NANA Helena’s old nurse

MARIUS A male Robot

SULLA A female Robot

RADIUS A male Robot

DAMON A male Robot

PRIMUS A male Robot

HELENA A female Robot

OTHERROBOTS

The ROBOTS are dressed just like real humans in the Prologue. Their movements and inflections are choppy, their faces are expressionless, and they stare emotionlessly. In the rest of the play, they wear linen shirts tied by a belt above their hips, and a large brass number attached to their chests.

Prologue

The executive office of Rossum’s Universal Robots factory. At the right is the main entrance. Large windows in the back through which we see a seemingly never-ending row of industrial buildings. Other executive offices on the left.

DOMIN is sitting in an office chair at a large executive-style desk. On the desk are a desk lamp, a telephone, paperweights, a box of letters, etc.; on the wall on the left hang large naval and railroad maps, a large calendar, and a clock showing just before noon; pinned on the wall on the right are various print ads: "The Cheapest Labor—Rossum’s Robots, Tropical Robots—the latest invention. $150 apiece, Buy your own personal Robot, Want to produce cheaper? Buy Rossum’s Robots." There are other maps, ship schedules, a table with the latest currency exchange rates, etc. In contrast to the eclectic wall decorations are an expensive Turkish rug on a parquet floor; on the right a round coffee table, a small sofa, leather armchairs, and a bookshelf filled not with books, but rather with bottles of wine and spirits. On the left is a safe. A young woman, SULLA, is typing on a typewriter next to DOMIN’s desk.

DOMIN [dictates]: . . . that we don’t assume responsibility for goods damaged in transit. We called your captain’s attention to the fact that the vessel was unsuitable for the transportation of Robots, and therefore we are not liable for the loss of the cargo. Signed—on behalf of Rossum’s Universal Robots— Done?

SULLA: Yes, sir.

DOMIN: Next sheet. E. B. Huysum Agency, New York. Date. This is to confirm your order of five thousand Robots. Since you are sending your own vessel, we request that you load the ship with a cargo of coal briquettes for R.U.R. as an advanced payment for your order. Signed . . . Done?

SULLA [finishing typing]: Yes, sir.

DOMIN: Next. To Friedrichswerke, Hamburg. Date. This is to confirm your order of fifteen thousand Robots . . . [The phone rings. DOMIN picks it up.] Central Office, Domin speaking . . . Yes . . . Certainly . . . Yes, of course, just as usual . . . Absolutely, let them know . . . Very well. [He hangs up.] Where were we?

SULLA: This is to confirm your order of fifteen thousand R.

DOMIN [lost in thought]: Fifteen thousand R . . . Fifteen thousand R.

[MARIUS enters.]

MARIUS: Sir, there is a lady waiting . . .

DOMIN: Who is it?

MARIUS: I do not know, sir. [He hands him a calling card.]

DOMIN [reading the card]: President Glory . . . Let her in.

MARIUS [opening the door]: This way, madam.

[HELENA GLORY enters. MARIUS leaves.]

DOMIN [getting up]: Come in please.

HELENA: General Director Domin, I presume?

DOMIN: At your service.

HELENA: I’ve come with . . .

DOMIN: . . . President Glory’s calling card in your hand. No need to explain.

HELENA: President Glory is my father. I am Helena Glory.

DOMIN: Miss Glory, it’s an extraordinary honor to . . . to . . .

HELENA: . . . to not show you the door . . . ?

DOMIN: . . . to welcome the daughter of a great president. Please, sit down. Sulla, you may leave.

[SULLA leaves.]

DOMIN [sits down]: Well, what can I do for you, Miss Glory?

HELENA: I’d like to . . .

DOMIN: . . . see our industrial production of humans. Just like every other visitor. Of course, with pleasure.

HELENA: I thought it was forbidden . . .

DOMIN: . . . to tour the factory. Yes, absolutely. But then again, everybody comes here armed with somebody’s calling card or other, Miss Glory.

HELENA: And you show it to everyone?

DOMIN: Only some of it. The manufacture of artificial humans, miss, is an industrial secret.

HELENA: You can’t imagine how . . .

DOMIN: . . . incredibly interesting this is for me. It’s all Old Europe is talking about.

HELENA: Why don’t you let me finish?

DOMIN: Please forgive me. Did you want to say something different by any chance?

HELENA: I just wanted to ask . . .

DOMIN: . . . if I could make an exception and let you see our factory. But of course, Miss Glory.

HELENA: How did you know what I wanted to ask?

DOMIN: Everyone asks that. [Getting up.] As a special honor, Miss Glory, we’ll show you more than to the others, if . . .

HELENA: Thank you.

DOMIN: . . . if you promise never to divulge, not to anybody, even the smallest . . .

HELENA [stands up and takes his hand]: You have my word.

DOMIN: Thank you. Would you mind lifting your veil?

HELENA: Ah, of course, you need to see . . . I’m sorry.

DOMIN: I beg your pardon?

HELENA: You may want to let go of my hand.

DOMIN: [lets go of her hand]: Please forgive me.

HELENA [lifting her veil]: I see. You want to make sure I’m not a spy. How suspicious you are!

DOMIN [enchanted by what he sees]: Hmm . . . Of course . . . we . . . well, so be it . . .

HELENA: Don’t you trust me?

DOMIN: Exceedingly, Miss Hele . . . pardon me, Miss Glory. Exceedingly pleased, indeed . . . Did you have a good crossing?

HELENA: Yes. Why . . .

DOMIN: Because . . . what I mean to say is . . . that you’re still very young.

HELENA: Well, are we going to see the factory now?

DOMIN: Absolutely. Twenty-two, I guess. Am I correct?

HELENA: Twenty-two what?

DOMIN: Years old.

HELENA: Twenty-one. Why do you want to know?

DOMIN: Because . . . since . . . [with excitement] You’ll stay for a while, won’t you?

HELENA: Depends on what you show me in the factory.

DOMIN: That damned factory! But of course, Miss Glory, you’ll see everything. Are you interested in the history of the invention?

HELENA: Oh yes, please. [She sits down.]

DOMIN: Well then. [He sits on the desk, and rapturously watching HELENA, quickly reels off.] It was in the year 1920, when the old Rossum, a great physiologist, but then still a young scholar, departed for this remote island in order to study marine organisms, period. As part of his research, he undertook to replicate a living material, called protoplasm, by the process of chemical synthesis until, by chance, he discovered a matter that behaved exactly like living material, even though its chemical composition was markedly different, and that was in the year 1932, exactly four hundred and forty years after the discovery of America, oof.

HELENA: Did you memorize that?

DOMIN: I did. Physiology, Miss Glory, is not exactly my strength. Should I go on?

HELENA: I don’t mind.

DOMIN [triumphantly]: And it was then, miss, when old Rossum wrote the following note in the margin of his chemical equations notebook: Nature discovered only one method of arranging living matter. There is, however, another, simpler, more malleable, and quicker method, one that nature has never made use of. This other method, which also has the potential to develop life, is the one I discovered today. You have to imagine, miss, that he wrote those great words while contemplating a blob of some colloidal pulp that not even a dog would eat. Imagine him sitting over a test tube and already seeing the whole tree of life growing out of it, and every animal, starting with some rotifer and ending with a human being, emerging from it. Ending with a human being! A human made of a different material than us. That, Miss Glory, that was a tremendous moment.

HELENA: And then?

DOMIN: Then? Then the question was how to get that life out of the tube, how to accelerate the development and create some of the organs, bones, nerves, and what have you, and to make all kinds of substances, such as catalysts, enzymes, hormones, and so on . . . in short . . . do you understand it?

HELENA: N . . . no, I don’t. I mean, maybe some of it.

DOMIN: Well, I personally don’t understand any of it. But you know, by using all of those little concoctions of his, he could have made anything he wanted. He could have made, I don’t know, a jellyfish with the brain of a Socrates, or a fifty-yard-long earthworm. But since he didn’t have a funny bone in his body, he obsessed about making regular vertebrates, or maybe even a human. That artificial living material of his had an insane will to live; it tolerated everything—he could stitch it and mix it together in any way he wanted. Which is something that you could never do with a naturally occurring protein. So, he went to work.

HELENA: To do what?

DOMIN: To imitate nature. First, he tried to make an artificial dog. It cost him years of work, and all that came out of it was a sort of stunted calf-like creature that croaked only a few days later. I’ll show it to you in our museum. And then,