Robota review – machines on the march in next-gen version of sci-fi classic
Headlong theatre company has staged Robota, a new adaptation of Karel Čapek's 1920 play RUR at Oxford's Schwarzman Centre, updating its themes of robot consciousness and rebellion for contemporary debates around generative AI and machine intelligence.
Why this matters: The anxiety about machines displacing or overpowering humans is over a hundred years old. That is worth sitting with. Today's AI governance debates often get treated as unprecedented, which makes it easier to act as though the rules have not been written yet and harder to hold anyone accountable. Theatre that traces this history back to Čapek and Shelley is a useful reminder that societies have been wrestling with who bears responsibility for what they create for a very long time. The question has never really changed. The stakes just keep getting larger.
Who should care: General readers · AI governance · Policy
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