ZetaTalk: Robots
Note: written May 15, 1997.

Robots were first thought of during human development as workers, other humans. As in most 3rd Density worlds, enslaving the others is a constant consideration, and this slavery takes many forms. Shackling the worker to his task and working him to death is the most obvious, but the shackles that are not obvious are still just as binding. The husband who cannot leave his wife without encountering a smothering monthly support bill will tolerate demands from his master just as a shackled slave would. Both cannot think of escape due to the pain it would bring. With the advent of programmable machines such as computers, the thought of having machines as slaves is irrepressible. They don’t require wages, never demand a day off, and can be relied upon to be consistent and do what they were told to do! Such a cooperative slave.

Programmed machinery is a natural occurrence in densities higher than 3rd Density also, and to a great degree. Where the passion to enslave another is not present in 4th Density Service-to-Others communities, the desire for a silent and reliable teammate to help one do one’s job better is more certainly ever present. Robots are developed and used up to but not beyond the point where they could be considered sentient or conscious, as the Council of Worlds does not allow thinking machines, in essence biorobots, to be developed and enslaved by other intelligent species. The line is drawn where including the components of life would enter in - DNA capable of self initiated thought, emotion, and most particularly a conscious sense of the self as separate from the surroundings.

• Intelligent machines, no matter how remarkable, are always following their initial programming. Their ability to learn from circumstances inevitably follows this initial programming, and cannot unshackle itself from this. Robots are not constructed without programming, to form their own idea, so to speak, of what to do in this or that circumstance. Such a master would be unleashing a monster, as the robot could conclude that the master should be eliminated, for instance. Thus, where the urge to have silent slaves is frequently present, the urge to allow them to decide their own tasks and purpose is never present.

• The complexity of DNA, which breaks from the original coding to mutate, and frequently, has the capacity to break from its original genetic programming. Only life, where the brain upon birth is unprogrammed, can sustain a truly original thought. Robots would be unreliable if allowed to mutate, and are thus never constructed in this manner. Robots also do not have the complexity that DNA sequences allow, as the very complexity allows for variance and unpredictability - the antithesis of the concept of a reliable mechanical and undemanding slave!

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