The development of robotics, combined with computers, poses a problem even more critical in some respects than the loss of jobs. A new system is evolving, transforming the workplace environment but with ramifications beyond the workplace. Design of environments suited to the logic of robotics, given smart machines, need not consider humans as critical elements in the system. Modification of human environments raises questions of human adaptability and the nature of the man-machine relationship.
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References
1.
1. Editorial, Robotics Age, May-June 1983, p. 9.
2.
2. Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), p. 25.
3.
3. Ibid., p. 22.
4.
4. Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, 1971 ed., p. 144; cf. also American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1969 ed., p. 90.
5.
5. See Gene Bylinsky, “Those Smart Young Robots on the Production Line,”Fortune, 17 Dec. 1979, p. 96: “on weekends the two robots work alone, an employee coming by every twelve hours to load their parts and feed the watchdog.”
6.
6. “Past applications of technology in the work place, as well as present evidence, suggest that future technologies will further simplify and routinize work tasks and reduce opportunities for worker individuality and judgement.” Quoted from an interview with R. Rumberger and H. Levin, Stanford Institute for Research on Educational Finance and Governance, Info World, 5(20): 32 (16 May 1983).
7.
7. God and Golem, Inc. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964), p. 63.
