Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 7, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Brian U. Garrison, Micaiah Johnson, Ada Palmer (moderator)

In the arc of human invention, automatons predate paper. That means before we thought “sure would be nice to write things in a convenient and portable manner” we thought “sure would be nice to have an inhuman creation in our shape that moves.” Why have automatons been with us so long, in reality and in fiction, and what roles and purposes do they fulfill in writing and culture and philosophy?

• They are autonomous
• Automatons have physical bodies. They are are not disembodied AI
• Anglophone stories about them reflect fear of a workers’ uprising (robot uprising)
• Japanese stories are about robots not having civil rights (racism). This is the reverse of English language stories.
• In Japanese stories the laws of robotics are to empower robots, not to contain them.
• Automatons have been around in literature for a long time. In 1865 there was an American story about one that was made to look like a black man. Fear pf a workers’ (slave) uprising.
• Mechanical Turk
• An automaton for writing prayers. Is prayer an outsourceable task?
• In our world, corporations use AI so they do not have to hire people.
• Can you make ethical AI? Can you make ethical capitalism?
• Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano
• The Western origin story (Genesis) is about dominance.
• DesCartes — Consciousness
• Boundaries about who is human. Dehumanizing.
• Nature does not optimize for intelligence. Just needs the least intelligence that will do the job.
• Intelligence vs. empathy. Society values intelligence more.
• Unique vs. mass produced robots.
• Astro Boy
• A robot realizes there are other robots.
• Robots trying to understand violence.
• Algorithms of oppression — result of human attitudes.
• Plato — body vs. mind separation.
• In the middles ages a horse or pig that killed someone could be tried for murder. A dog could noty
• Gigolo Joe