Ryan Jacobs is a senior editorial fellow for Mother Jones in San Francisco. His work has also appeared in the Bay Citizen, Sierra magazine, the Point Reyes Light, The Chicago Reporter, and others. During his short reporting career, his coverage has ranged from the discovery of a potentially new species of phytoplankton to the scene of a quintuple homicide.
In Kevin Drum's latest feature, he imagines a bleak future where robots begin taking all of our jobs. Though he predicts this will happen about three decades from now, the concept obviously isn't new. The word "robot" first appeared in a 1920s Czech play (see below), which concludes with human destruction. The plot line started to seem more realistic when robots began performing complex industrial tasks. By 1961, a giant robot arm called Unimate took a welding job on the General Motors factory floor. Throughout the last century, robots—both imaginary and real—have fascinated us with their skills, quirks, and eerie human-like qualities. The timeline below highlights some of the most memorable machine moments and personalities.
The word robot first appeared in 1921 when Czech playwright Karel Capek's drama R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) premiered in Prague. The story follows the employees of a factory producing cheap and efficient robotic labor. While Capek is widely credited for the word's invention, he attempted to correct the record in a 1933 article for the Czech newspaper Lidove noviny:
It was like this: the idea for the play came to said author in a single, unguarded moment. And while it was still warm he rushed immediately to his brother Josef, the painter, who was standing before an easel and painting away at a canvas till it rustled.
"Listen, Josef," the author began, "I think I have an idea for a play." "What kind," the painter mumbled (he really did mumble, because at the moment he was holding a brush in his mouth). The author told him as briefly as he could. "Then write it," the painter remarked, without taking the brush from his mouth or halting work on the canvas. The indifference was quite insulting.
"But," the author said, "I don't know what to call these artificial workers. I could call them Labori, but that strikes me as a bit bookish."
"Then call them Robots," the painter muttered, brush in mouth, and went on painting. And that's how it was. Thus was the word Robot born; let this acknowledge its true creator.
The Czech word "robota" is roughly translated as servitude or drudgery. Tragically, the robots go far beyond their servant role, eliminating every human on Earth except the factory's old architect, Mr. Alquist. With the building manuscripts torched and his mind going, Alquist hopes the machines can figure out how to reproduce themselves and live on as "the shadow of man."
1927 - Maria
In a utopian city in the future, workers toil below ground to keep things running smoothly above. With a potential worker uprising looming, the city's founder instructs his lackey scientist to construct a robot that looks like one of the workers, Maria, so it can crush the rebellion. The metallic star of German filmmaker Fritz Lang's famous silent film Metropolis inspired many other movie depictions of robots, including C-3PO.
1942 - Three Laws of Robotics
Prolific science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov penned the Three Laws of Robotics in his 1942 short story “Runaround." The rules demanded machine obedience and non-violence, tenets that his fictional robots and many others have since puzzled over in countless books, films, and essays. Here, Asimov gives a brief breakdown:
1948 - Elmer and Elsie
The British neurologist and robotics expert William Grey Walter fashioned a pair of the first autonomous machines capable of complex behavior in 1948. Nicknamed Elmer and Elsie and constructed with old alarm clocks, the tortoise-sized bots' moves were dictated by light and touch sensors. They were particularly fond of women's legs, often drawn toward the reflective nylons.
1961 - Unimate
The first industrial robot Unimate, a giant 4,000 pound mechanic arm, took its place in the assembly line at General Motors in 1961. Mostly limited to die-casting and welding, Unimate was the first hint of an impending encroachment of machines on the manufacturing realm.
Set in the futuristic dreamland of 2062, “The Jetsons” home is dutifully cleaned by their robot maid Rosie. In 2011, Keith Wagstaff at Timewondered why it had taken so long to manufacture a real Rosie. Wagstaff notes that artificial intelligence just isn't far along enough to complete complex physical tasks without some human assistance, and configuring your environment just so a robot can do chores seems like a time suck. But as processing power continues to increase exponentially, our Rosie might be here sooner than you'd think.
1968 - HAL 9000
HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) 9000 depicts the evil side of artificial intelligence in Stanley Kubric’s 1968 cult classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. In charge of guiding the spaceship Discovery One on its voyage to Jupiter and adhering to the crew’s orders, HAL famously defies astronaut David Bowman’s request to open the pod bay doors. "I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me," HAL says, "and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen." Check out this eerie exchange below:
1970 - Shakey
Developed at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), Shakey emerged as the first robot capable of planning out how to execute complex tasks. In 1970, Life magazine ordained it the "first electronic person."
R2-D2 and C-3PO stole the show in George Lucas' Star Wars: A New Hope. The pair of droids was so popular that they were later cast in an anti-smoking PSA. For a compilation of scenes set to Bill Withers' "Just The Two of Us," look no further:
1978 - Marvin the Paranoid Android
Due to the vast intelligence of Marvin's planet-sized brain (approximately 50,000 times more intelligent than a human), he suffers from dark depression and boredom. Marvin can easily solve "all of the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except his own, three times over…" The character was invented by British humorist Douglas Adams for the BBC radio program "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" and later explored in the popular book series and 2005 film. For an introduction to his melancholy, check out the compilation from the recent movie below:
1983 - Tanbo R-1 and Tanbo R-2
Chinese restaurant Two Panda Deli in Pasadena, California, recruited a pair of Japanese robot waiters, Tanbo R-1 and Tanbo R-2 (for $20,000 each), to deliver Chow mein to customers and bust out disco moves. Police radio interference compelled them to splatter orange chicken and whirl furiously around in circles. Complex customer requests were also often met with the terse reply: "That’s not my problem."
In The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a cyborg killing machine from the future programmed to go back in time, find, and kill Sarah Conner in 1984 Los Angeles. The original trailer:
1986 - Johnny 5
The 1980s classic Short Circuit veered away from the robot-as-murderer plot, and focused on the more delicate side of the machine. After a dramatic lightning strike, experimental military robot Number 5 gains real emotions and intelligence, escapes from his lab, claims the name Johnny 5, and, with the help of a new friend, avoids a burdensome reprogramming. Here, Johnny 5 learns about the meaning of death:
1996 - ABE
The Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE), a deep-sea-diving scientific vessel used to locate, map, and better understand hydrothermal vents and volcanoes, was launched on its first expedition. Its travels along the ocean floor produced data that has helped scientists explain the development of the Earth's crust. The ship was lost off the coast of Chile in 2010.
Robotics company iRobot began testing its Packbot, which was eventually used to search for survivors in the 2001 wreckage of the World Trade Centers and Pentagon. The robot was also deployed to defuse road-side bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 3,500 are currently assisting US soldiers. To learn more about battlefield robots, check out our recent story here.
A Packbot in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks iRobot
2000 - da Vinci Surgical System
The FDA granted approval to Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System in 2000. During surgeries, a doctor uses a combination of foot pedals and joysticks to move the operating equipment, which can make very precise incisions. It is commonly used for hysterectomies and prostate removals. The da Vinci system performed approximately 450,000 procedures in 2012.
2002 - Roomba
After perfecting bomb disposal, iRobot naturally moved onto household cleaning. The company introduced the roving automated vacuum cleaner Roomba in time for the 2002 Christmas season. People like it so much, they dance (in the commercials, at least):
2008 - Wall-E
After a massive human exodus from Earth, Pixar’s Wall-E traverses the badlands cleaning up the garbage left behind. It's a tremendous job for such a small bot:
2011 - Watson
IBM supercomputer Watson embarrassed Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter by taking home the most cash during their three-day matchup. Watson had quite a run, and even got to say, "'Chicks Dig Me.'"
2012 - Google's driverless car
After Nevada DMV officials went for a joyride on desert highways and down the Las Vegas strip, the state became the first to issue a driver’s license to a car, instead of a human. Armed with video cameras, radar sensors, lasers, and a computer system, the Toyota Prius was developed by Stanford artificial intelligence expert and Google Vice President Sebastian Thrun. Driverless vehicles are expected to hit the public market by the 2020s.
2012 - Pet-Proto
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and robotics company Boston Dynamics programmed Pet-Proto, an autonomous humanoid robot capable of jumping onto and off of ledges, carefully avoiding holes in the ground, and climbing stairs in a laboratory environment.
2012 - LS3
DARPA and Boston Dynamics also successfully tested the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), a warthog-like automaton designed to lug up to 400 pounds of army equipment over war-torn terrain. It responds to verbal commands and can pursue a unit's leader.
We're not quite there yet.20th Cenury Fox/Entertainment Pictures/ZUMAPRESS.com
"We are not talking about things that will look like an army of Terminators," Steve Goose, a spokesman for the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, tells me. "Stealth bombers and armored vehicles—not Terminators." Goose, the director of Human Rights Watch's arms division, has been working with activists and other experts to demand an international ban on robotic military weapons capable of eliminating targets without the aid of human interaction or intervention, i.e., killer robots.
The bluntly titled campaign, which at sounds like something from a Michael Bay flick or Austin Powers, involves nine organizations, including the International Committee for Robot Arms Control. The campaign is spearheading a preemptive push against efforts to develop and potentially deploy fully autonomous killer robots—a form of hi-tech weaponry that doesn't actually exist yet.
"I'm not against autonomous robots—my vacuum is an autonomous robot," says Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield and chair of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (and a fixture on British television). "We are simply calling for a prohibition on the kill function on such robots. A robot doesn't have moral agency, and can't be held accountable for crimes. There's no way to punish a robot."
Bill Seitz, a Republican state senator from Ohio, recently told the Wall Street Journal that his state's renewable energy and energy efficiency standards are reminiscent of "Joseph Stalin's five-year plan."
Seitz, who is also on the board of the shadowy corporate-government allegiance known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), made this charmingly ahistorical claim just a week after inviting the climate-change-denying Heartland Institute to testify against the standard before the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee. He has taken it upon himself to determine whether Ohio should amend or repeal its clean energy law, which requires utilities to institute energy efficiency measures and to draw at least 12.5 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025.
The Ohio legislature approved its clean energy standard almost unanimously in 2008. Since then, wind and solar companies have created 8,000 new jobs, and efficiency programs have netted rate payers $1 billion in savings, according to the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ohio Public Utilities Commission. But in late February, Seitz introduced legislation that aims to overhaul the law.
Seitz maintains that he has launched the review because the current policies were based on the assumption that wind and solar prices would go down faster than they have over the past five years. He says the state has already deployed the "low-hanging fruit" energy-saving measures, and utilities and their industrial customers are reticent to implement the more expensive technologies that might be necessary to reach the goals set in 2008. "Nobody is for more carbon emissions than you need to have, but at the same time the question is, well, what does it cost?" Seitz told Mother Jones in an interview.
The senator's record and alliances are probably some indication of the direction he'll take his review process. In 2011, Seitz cosponsored a bill to repeal the renewable energy requirement entirely. He also sits on the board of ALEC, a public policy group that brings together corporate interests and conservative lawmakers to push industry-friendly bills in state legislatures, and coauthored the group's model renewable energy standard repeal bill known as the "Electricity Freedom Act." Another ALEC member, the Ohio-based American Electric Power Company Inc. (which stands to lose money due to the law's efficiency standards), was the third largest donor to his 2012 campaign, according to campaign finance data. Other big utilities, including FirstEnergy Corp. and Duke Energy, have been consistent supporters of Seitz.
Renewable energy advocates are not optimistic about Seitz's "review" of the renewable energy standard. "For Senator Seitz to create an appearance of a fair process given his close alliance with ALEC and its powerful interests is disingenuous," said Steve Frenkel, the Midwestern director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Seitz, on the other hand, doesn't think his campaign donations have any influence on his decision-making. "I'm term-limited. I could give a damn," he said, noting that he's "done" when his term ends in 2016.
Despite Seitz's allusions to Soviet centralized planning, recent polling shows that more than 65 percent of Ohio voters support the renewable energy benchmarks, and a majority of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for power from clean sources. "Ohioans know that their economy and their environment are benefiting from investing in clean energy technologies," Frenkel said. "And Senator Seitz is just out of step with the people of Ohio in recognizing the important clean energy transition that the state's already making."
Drillers inject high-pressure fluids into a hydraulic fracturing well, making slight fissures in the shale that release natural gas. The resulting briny wastewater flows back up to the surface, where it is transported by truck or pipeline to nearby injection wells. The liquid is then pumped down the injection wells to a layer of deep, porous rock, often sandstone. Once there, it can flow in every direction, including into and around faults. Added pressure and lubrication can cause normally stable faults to slip, unleashing earthquakes.
Wastewater left over from fracking wells eventually ends up deep underground, where it can cause earthquakes. Wikipedia
In November 2011, a destructive 5.7-magnitude earthquake rocked the grasslands outside the small town of Prague, Oklahoma. The shaking leveled 14 homes, shut down schools for repairs, and was felt across 17 states. It also troubled seismologists, who'd never expected an event so large to hit an area that was supposed to be seismically safe.
According to the results of a new study published online yesterday in the journal Geology, the temblor was potentially linked to the underground injection of wastewater from local oil operations. In fact, the fault that triggered the event ruptured just about 200 meters from active injection wells. Changes in water volumes deep underground may have reduced the stress on the rock, allowing the fault to slip.
The underground disposal of wastewater has skyrocketed due to the recent uptick in hydrofracking operations across the country. Other studies have linked wastewater injection wells to earthquakes in otherwise seismically quiet areas of Arkansas, Texas, Ohio, and Colorado. The Oklahoma quake, however, was the most powerful.
For the current issue of Mother Jones, contributing writer Michael Behar followed Katie Keranen, the lead author of the Geology study, into the fields of the Sooner State for an elegant look at the science behind the link between earthquakes and the oil and fracking industries. Behar also interviewed seismologists and government officials who are increasingly concerned that loose regulations on wastewater injection could cause the next big one in a region unprepared for seismic activity. And he details the shadowy ties between industry and science that may complicate meaningful regulatory change.
