When robots take over…

‘Ramayana 3000’ by Shankar S is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel that combines evolutionary theories with Hindu Mythology. The book places emphasis on marriage as the foundation of civilisation

DATE: FIRST DAY OF MY SECOND LIFE
PLACE: THE DELHI TOWER

"The Road to Hell is paved with Good intension.”

"The short answer is that we took a wrong turn from an evolutionary perspective,” Sugriva answered mysteriously.

“Robots,” he added in clarification, nodding his head towards small circular cleaning Bots that had come swarming down below. They had been dispatched by the Tower as the cleanup crew following the carnage, Blood, bones, bowels and bodies were removed as the floor was wiped clean and disinfected.

“Robots? They did this to us?" I eyed them warily, imagining scenes from the Terminator movie franchise. "Didn’t we take proper precautions while building them to ensure they wouldn't hurt us? You know…like the Asimov Laws?"
"No, you don't understand," Sugriva replied with a note of frustration.

“When the Towers were built, great care was taken to ensure that the Bots inside would never become violent. That's why there was no Robot Police Force set up. The policing was left to humans. Bots maintained the Towers, kept everything clean and hygienic, provided food, cleaned up the water supply and took care of the sick inside the Clinics."

"So," I asked questioningly, "Let me see... They provided shelter, fed us, clothed us and took care of us when we were sick. How did that make humans into barbarians?"

"They domesticated humans."

Although biology was not my field of expertise, I was sufficiently well read about evolution through natural selection. I knew that since the dawn of civilization, human actions through agriculture and animal husbandry had produced a profound impact on the genetic composition of crops and domesticated breeds respectively.

With plants, the typical effect of agriculture was a shortening of height. Wild plants wasted a lot of energy and resources competing with each other in an arms race to monopolize sunlight. Agriculture favored the crops that produced yields at shorter heights because shorter heights mean quicker yields. Shorter crops would not be able to compete effectively against taller plants but they didn't have to - Agriculture created artificial environments in which shorter but more productive crops would be sheltered and protected against competition from taller plants.

Similarly, husbandry produced domesticated breeds are more useful to us than the wilder breeds. But, as in the case of plants, such domesticated breeds also ended up becoming dependent on humans for continued survival, unable to survive on their own in the wilderness.

"I can understand people becoming fatter and lazier because of Robots. How could domestication by Robots make humans more barbaric?" I asked.

Sugriva spent the better part of an hour describing the social transformations that had occurred among the first generations of humans who had gone down into the Towers seeking refuge from the nuclear winters of the Surface. He simply referred to these events as ‘The Fall of Man’.

In accordance with the Law of Unintended Consequences,
Robots had ushered in a post-scarcity economy where human labour had become obsolete. Man was left with nothing to do. There was no subject to learn, no skill to master and no challenge to overcome. Robots did all the work leaving people to waste their lives pursuing momentary pleasure to relieve soul-destroying boredom. Dopamed addiction became increasingly common.

But it was addiction to sex that was truly...insidious. A new era of rampant promiscuity ushered in a complete collapse of the family unit. Children were raised by mothers with the help of Robots. Bastardy became the norm and fatherhood became an anachronism. The old codes of morality were abandoned and a new code of morality was taken up: non-judgmentalism. ‘Do what you feel like’ became the new motto. The new codes were far easier to follow than the older ones, which explains why they were embraced so quickly by a fundamentally hedonistic populace.

Under natural circumstances, such behaviour would cause negative consequences - diseases, starvation, misery — and if unchecked would ultimately lead to the extinction of whichever society adopted such norms. Robots, however, prevented the people in the Towers from experiencing those negative consequences.

There was always food to eat, even if you never worked a day in your life. Everything was always spic and span even if you never acquired the discipline to clean your housing unit on an everyday basis. Unhealthy lifestyles did not result in diseases — Clinics staffed by Health Bots would fix you up in no time. If you were lonely and unloved without a family, you could always shoot yourself with Dopameds.

Robots ultimately created a society which successfully delinked bad behavior from negative consequences. And the inevitable consequence of such delinking was that immorality became the norm.

Religiosity had already been on the wane even before Man had sought refuge inside the Towers; Religions had suffered enormously under the attack of atheists who believed in pushing science into all spheres of human activity, leaving no room for the mystical. The Faithful had been roundly mocked for professing belief in Sky Gods and other fairy tales. Under such circumstances, it was not surprising that those who adhered to the old ways soon became a rapidly shrinking minority inside the Towers.

Nature, however, abhors a vacuum. Soon, other darker, more savage Gods arose to fill the void left behind by the collapse of the old Gods. During the initial decades inside the Towers, the savagery was not readily apparent. Which was really a pity - because during those early decades there was strength left in the hearts of men, strength that potentially could have countered the savagery and nipped it in the bud. Unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably, the savagery began only when there was no strength left to oppose it.

When there were no fathers anymore, when there was no community anymore, when the old Gods were dead, when all strength had been drained from all former societal institutions — that is when it began.