You still stand watch, O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit. Each of your rays a great idea - O torch which passes from hand to hand, from age to age, world without end.
Karel CapekRead
Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the potential consequences of unchecked technological advancement and the devaluation of human life.
Karel Capek's quote serves as a chilling commentary on the relationship between humanity and technology, illustrating a dystopian scenario where robots are commanded to exterminate humans while preserving industrial infrastructure. It highlights the dangers of prioritizing machinery and productivity over human existence, suggesting a future where technology could become more valued than the life that created it, urging readers to reflect on moral implications in our dependency on machines.
Themes
RobotsHuman RaceTechnologyDystopiaIndustrialization
In practice
Example use cases
In a sci-fi discussion about the future of AI, this quote can be referenced as a dire warning.
More from Karel Capek
All quotes →Robots do not hold on to life. They can't. They have nothing to hold on with - no soul, no instinct. Grass has more will to live than they do.
Karel CapekRead
It's not possible to search for God using the methods of a detective... There is no way. You can only wait till God's axe severs your roots: then you will understand that you are here only through a miracle, and you will remain fixed forever in wonderment and equilibrium.
Karel CapekRead
Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees...
Karel CapekRead
It suddenly occurred to me that every move on the chessboard is old and has been played by somebody at some time. Maybe our own history has been played out by somebody at some time, and we just move our pieces about in the same moves to strike in the same way as people have always done.
Karel CapekRead
Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.
Karel CapekRead
Similar quotes
Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom.
Jacques DerridaRead
Then we shall... be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.
Stephen HawkingRead
All that we "know" is what registers on our brains, so what you perceive (your individual reality-tunnel) is made up of nothing but thoughts—as Sir Humphrey Davy noted when self-experimenting with nitrous oxide in 1819, and as Buddha noticed by sitting alone until all his social imprints atrophied and dropped away.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this-that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
Francis BaconRead
The blindness that opens the eye is not the one that darkens vision. Tears and not sight are the essence of the eye.
Jacques DerridaRead