Have you been paying attention to all the news about robots? Jobs that can be done by robots? Some day we may look back and say, “This is when it all began.”
I saw the movie Tobor the Great at a summer day camp when I was a little girl. I remember the line “Tobor is robot spelled backwards,” but I don’t know who said it or if it was me. I liked Tobor. On the movie poster it says “Man-made monster with every human emotion.” In the movie Tobor saves a little boy from enemy agents. The boy was able to communicate with Tobor telepathically. Another robot that was pretty nice was B9, the robot in the television show Lost in Space. He was always looking out for any threats to the Robinson family. Video via Tom Crimmins on You Tube:
In later years, the robots became more threatening. In 2001: A Space Odyssey the robot HAL is running the whole space ship and has a breakdown and decides to start killing off the crew.
Video via Qapla on You Tube:
And then Blade Runner and Matrix and others. In these films, after great battles, the humans are eventually victorious over the robots.
I have been thinking about robots more lately with all the news about robots replacing humans and an article on the Huff Post this morning, The Dark Meaning Behind the Word ‘Robot’ by Casey Williams. She brought up some interesting history. The word robot came from a Czech word “robotnik” which means slave. I am thinking,that if we aren’t careful, we will become the slaves. Ha!
This post is for Stream of Consciousness Saturday hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt is “Ha.”
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 
Remember “Tobor, the 8th Man”?
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No I don’t remember that one and now I have to look at this link. 🙂 OK I just googled it and found out who Tobor the eight man is, a Japanese manga character. I don’t remember that cartoon being shown in the US but I could have missed it. The creator swiped the name Tobor from the movie?
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It’s scary sometimes how fast technology is progressing.
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Yes it is progressing very fast and decisions are being made as to its use without thought for the consequences. 🙂
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Remember the Jetsons? That cartoon was full of robots! It’s almost as if these TV shows have tried to prepare us for the robots. They are more scary in real life, when I think about drones. Fun post though!
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The robots are definitely more worrisome than the cartoons. But there were concerns raised a long time ago. I wrote about the film Metropolis from the 1920s. It told of the invention of robots that looked human. Thanks JoAnna. 🙂
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I can remember in the 80’s it was quite a hype about machines replacing humans. Not sure what to think of it. If manual labour isn’t necessary to be done by humans anymore I am sure they find another way of making a living. When book print was invented storytellers lost their livelihood. Society changed. So does it now. It will be different and if it is better or worse depends on the point of view I believe
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It will be better for the businesses who install robots to replace human workers, or so they believe. It will not be just manual labor, but we don’t have enough jobs for people now and many people never recovered from the loss of manufacturing jobs. So I do not think people will easily find something else to do. I do know that I would not like to go to a restaurant that is staffed by robots. I think people need work and not just for the money.
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Well, I don’t mean its easy. It never is. And no I wouldn’t want to go to a restaurant staffed with robots. But that’s what should give us hope. 🙂
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I know what you mean. I think that people would not like robots in restaurants and hopefully not like robots in other jobs as well. That does give me some hope. 🙂 ❤
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Customers are the kings and Queens after all. They won’t go to places they don’t like and the owners will change it back. That just won’t work if it comes to government agencies because there we are not really customers
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It is hard to see how it might play out but I think we will be hearing more about robots. Thanks, Bee. 🙂
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I think about it most often when I’m in the store and they have one human cashier, but five do-it-yourselers.
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Yes, good example, and I know what you mean. We have the choice of automated check out here as well. I usually choose the live checkers. There was a market opened here that had no human checkers and just a couple of human workers in the store in case you had questions. I really disliked that set up and did not shop there. They went out of business. But someone just told me about a hamburger place at a local mall that is all machine run.
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I doubt we’ll ever tire of robot stories. They are always fascinating. I’ve heard of Tobor before. How did I miss that one?
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I like robot stories if they are fiction. But lately they are becoming too real. “Tobor the Great” was a movie from the mid 1950s. Here is a trailer via Kot 347 on You Tube: https://youtu.be/8rdxx5zAOnU?t=1s
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I haven’t really given this much thought, robots, but maybe that’s why when they take over we’ll all be surprised, caught off guard and maybe even defeated. 🙂
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Well, I hope we don’t get defeated. 🙂 I know that I was not aware of the robots being developed to take over human jobs. Never a dull moment. Thanks, YR. ❤
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There’s a scary thought!
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Yes, I am not liking the idea of robots taking over a lot of human jobs and when they get smart enough possibly taking us over. =-O
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