Universal Robots

The play begins in a factory that manufactures artificial people (called robots) from synthetic organic matter. They are living creatures of artificial flesh and blood rather than machines and are closer to the later idea of androids. Happy to work for humans at first, the robots eventually rebel, and the human race becomes extinct.

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science-fiction drama that was first presented in Czech in 1921. It introduced the term "robot", which is derived from a Czech word meaning "worker," to international vocabulary. The action opens in a factory that has successfully produced thousands of robots, who are essentially mindless drones. An idealistic humanitarian activist launches a plan to imbue some of the robots with human traits. The robots which have been humanized then assume leadership over the other robots and seek to organize them in a revolution to take over the world.

This is a comprehensive and thought-provoking exploration of the nature of machine understanding, its evaluation, and its implications. The book proposes a new framework, the Multifaceted Understanding Test Tool (MUTT), for assessing machine understanding across multiple dimensions, from language comprehension and logical reasoning to social intelligence and metacognition. Through a combination of philosophical analysis, technical exposition, and narrative thought experiments, the book delves into the frontiers of machine understanding, raising fundamental questions about the cognitive ...