R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life by Karel Capek

R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life by Karel Capek

A new translation of Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R.—which famously coined the term “robot”—and a collection of essays reflecting on the play’s legacy from scientists and scholars who work in artificial life and robotics. Karel Čapek's “R.U.R.” and the Vision of Artificial Life offers a new, highly faithful translation by Štěpán Šimek of Czech novelist, playwright, and critic Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, as well as twenty essays from contemporary writers on the 1920 play. R.U.R. is perhaps best known for first coining the term “robot” (in Czech, robota means serfdom or arduous drudgery). The twenty essays in this new English edition, beautifully edited by Jitka Čejková, are selected from Robot 100, an edited collection in Czech with perspectives from 100 contemporary voices that was published in 2020 to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the play. Čapek’s robots were autonomous beings, but biological, not mechanical, made of chemically synthesized soft matter resembling living tissue, like the synthetic humans in Blade Runner, Westworld, or Ex Machina. The contributors to the collection—scientists and other scholars—explore the legacy of the play and its connections to the current state of research in artificial life, or ALife. Throughout the book, it is impossible to ignore Čapek’s prescience, as his century-old science fiction play raises contemporary questions with respect to robotics, synthetic biology, technology, artificial life, and artificial intelligence, anticipating many of the formidable challenges we face today. Contributors Jitka Čejková, Miguel Aguilera, Iñigo R. Arandia, Josh Bongard, Julyan Cartwright, Seth Bullock, Dominique Chen, Gusz Eiben, Tom Froese, Carlos Gershenson, Inman Harvey, Jana Horáková, Takashi Ikegami, Sina Khajehabdollahi, George Musser, Geoff Nitschke, Julie Nováková, Antoine Pasquali, Hemma Philamore, Lana Sinapayen, Hiroki Sayama, Nathaniel Virgo, Olaf Witkowski

Karel Capek (1890-1938) is generally considered the greatest Czech author of the first half of this century. He was Czechoslovakia's leading novelist, playwright, story writer, and columnist, and the spirit of its short-lived democracy. His plays appeared on Broadway soon after their debut in Prague, and his books were translated into many languages. Capek expressed himself in the form of accessible and highly enjoyable writing.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262544504
ISBN 10	0262544504
Title	R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life
Author	Karel Capek
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2024-01-16
Number of pages	312
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable