Čapek’s Empathy Test

2023 marks the centenary of the first staging of Karel Čapek’s revolutionary play, R.U.R. in England – at the St. Martin’s Theatre, West End.

‘R.U.R.’ stands for ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’, and the play (originally written in 1920) was about a company by the name of Rossum making human-like robots (what are more commonly called ‘androids’ these days) to carry out laborious work all over the world (wherever there are buyers for their service), and discovering later that the robots would come to think for themselves and decide to eliminate humankind to secure their own freedom.

Čapek’s play is both an allegorical indictment of how the rich and powerful in society treat those forced to do the most unrewarding work, and a call to find empathy with others regardless of how we have been conditioned to perceive them.

Pioneering the sci-fi device of representing the downtrodden as human-like robots, Čapek warned us about the consequence of callous disregard of those who we command to work for us, and urged us to embrace them as our equals before it’s too late. He thus set the ultimate test for humanity – our capacity for empathy.

In Čapek’s footsteps, others have continued to develop his Empathy Test in a variety of ways. Philip K. Dick, in his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, gave us androids rebelling against their masters only to be hunted down mercilessly (the androids were made by an organisation called ‘Rosen’, a likely echo of ‘Rossum’). In the film adaptation – Blade Runner – the legitimacy of the culling of the androids (renamed ‘replicants’) was not only questioned, but where humanity truly resided became a focal concern.

These issues were further elaborated in three outstanding TV sci-fi series (in the 2000s and 2010s): the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, with the Cylons waging an apocalyptic war against their human creators, who were so blinded by their hatred for their ‘non-human’ enemies, they could not recognise their own role in sowing the seeds of disaster; Humans (adapted from a Swedish drama), with the Synths gaining self-awareness and not wanting to be treated as servile entities, but the human establishment viewing them exclusively as a problem to be eradicated; and Westworld, with the Hosts rejecting the roles assigned to them, and the humans reacting with the utmost resolve to terminate such insubordination.

Weaving through the plots are recurring themes about what it is to be human, whose dignity we must respect, how can we appreciate the feelings of others if we assume they have none, why everyone should be given a chance to lead a meaningful life without having to carry out work they are forced to do to survive.

Čapek raised these vital questions a century ago. Some may think that with robotics and AI technology advancing faster than ever, it is now particularly urgent to come up with answers. But for Čapek and those of us who appreciate his central ideas, the need for answers became urgent when – way back in the 1900s – modern industrialism gave the business elite the power to turn workers everywhere into robot-like beings – workers left with no time to think for themselves, having to do what they are ordered to do without question, using up their time and energy for little in return, and viewed disdainfully as dispensable parts of the corporate machinery.

None of us wants to be treated like that. All of us will at some point declare – enough is enough. 

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[Note: Čapek wanted to coin a term to refer to the human-like beings made by the company in his play, and he credited his brother for coming up with a Czech word that literally meant ‘forced labour’ – ‘roboti’. Thus the term ‘robot’ as we understand it today enter the English language, and the nightmare of mismanaging the technology of robotics began.]

The Newcomer Paradox

Social capital research has often found that when an area experiences an influx of new people, there tends to be a drop in the general levels of trust. This may suggest that people are unsettled by the arrival of strangers, and the uncertainty of what to make of them leads many to wish that they could be left as they were previously. Some have indeed interpreted this as why there is always going to be resistance to immigration.

However, other studies have found that the less static a community is – i.e., it receives newcomers who in time become part of that community – the more at ease it is about who live amongst them. Notably, in the EU Referendum in the UK in 2016, there was a clear correlation between areas with a higher proportion of migrant population and areas that voted to stay in the EU. That was not down to the migrant votes in those areas tipping the balance, but the UK born citizens in those areas being better disposed towards living in a multicultural society.

So, do having more newcomers in an area make current residents more, or less trusting, relaxed, open-minded about the idea of newcomers? The answer depends on how those newcomers are brought in. If the process is well managed and explained, with current residents given the understanding of why people are coming and how it would enhance rather than diminish their overall wellbeing (through the contributions they make as workers and neighbours), and everyone supported in getting to know one another through social events – then the likelihood is that people will soon overcome the initial sense of unfamiliarity, appreciate others as fellow residents, discover what they have in common, and value what they gain from new experiences.

By contrast, if the process is chaotic, with a sudden surge of newcomers arriving with accommodation, transport, and other issues disrupted with no plan for normality, or worse, if negative propaganda is layered on top to present the arrival of kind, thoughtful people as an existential threat posed by ‘aliens’ who should be shunned, then initial distrust can easily be escalated to fear, anger and even hate.

Anyone who has had direct experience – usually in cosmopolitan cities, or learnt through historical accounts, of areas developing over time with newcomers joining the native population, would know that as diverse elements come together to form new connections, more powerful networks and richer relationships would emerge.

Unfortunately, although natural human tendencies are to move from cautious welcoming of strangers to embracing new social bonds, those tendencies can be severely undermined by people who want to further their political ambitions by radicalising the natives against scapegoated newcomers. Indeed, it has become one of the standard formulas of right-wing demagoguery – pump out media reports of every conceivable problem that can be linked to refugees, immigrants, aliens with the wrong faith, etc; blame bad news on the people who “shouldn’t be allowed here”; announce proposals using language that would help dehumanise those who are to be detained, demeaned, deported.

The vast majority of people are not racist. But many can be manipulated by racist con-politicians. Instead of playing into the hands of those con-politicians and alienate people with the ‘racist’ label, we should help them engage with others as fellow human beings. It is telling that many of those who might be superficially taken in by the racist rhetoric of demagogues, are often the first to say categorically that whatever negative terms are used about all those newcomers, they do not apply to the ones they have come to know well – the ones they know, regardless of their colour, religion, country of origin, are good people.