News2Novel - Robot Suicide in Korea #17
Novels to read based on weekly news
Greetings stranger. This is Dhru.
It’s been 18 months since I published the last edition of News2Novel - my newsletter that suggests novels to read based on weekly news events.
My life has been filled with activity during this unpublished time. I lived in a small Ashram next to the River Ganges. I travelled the world with my Guru. I moved to America. I joined an AI startup.
This isn’t the time or place to unpack those stories. But be rest assured, they exist. I’ve filled several journals worth of encounter and adventure. When gestated, maybe I’ll share.
Back to this newsletter and Lit Visions in general, I felt there was no need to continue. And there isn’t, really. Most things are not needed. Yet if they bring us some joy or a smidgen of meaning, then perhaps that is reason enough.
There have been a few humble little calls from the universe to resurrect News2Novel. Whether it was seeing an Instagram caption about how someone’s mental health improved after reading less news and more fiction. Or when a headline strums some internal psychic chord and I know just the novel to probe it further.
One such prompt happened weeks ago on a beach in Kauai, the oldest Hawaiian island. My Master and I were sat watching the ocean. Suddenly, he looked towards the evening sky and said that an overworked robot in Asia had just committed suicide. I took out my phone and checked Google News.
It was true.
The News
A civil servant robot employed by the Gumi City Council in South Korea, was found shattered at the bottom of a two-meter-high-staircase on June 26, 2024.
Known as Robot Supervisor, it was responsible for tasks like daily document deliveries, promoting the city and providing information to local residents. It navigated the multi-floor city council building autonomously, using elevators to access different levels.
Witnesses reported seeing the robot behaving strangely before the fall, circling in on one spot as if it had detected something unusual. There is speculation that overworking and stress might have contributed to the incident.
Robot Supervisor’s Californian manufacturer is analyzing the collected parts to figure out what exactly led to its demise.
The incident sparked a debate about the ethical implications of using robots in the workforce. In response, the Gumi City Council decided to temporarily halt plans to deploy another robot officer.
The Novel
What a surreal event. Truly a scene from the future.
Yet the themes are timely: the morality of automation; mental health; anthropomorphizing machines; the future of work, to name a few.
I tugged a bit on the burnout thread and ended up discovering Bartleby, the Scrivener, an 80-page novella by Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick), set on Wall Street in the mid-19th century.
It tells the story of a lawyer who hires a scrivener, Bartleby, to copy legal documents. Initially, Bartleby is an excellent worker but then he starts responding to requests with the phrase:
“I would prefer not to."
Time passes, and Bartleby becomes increasingly passive, choosing not to do any work at all. He gets fired but refuses to leave the office. Eventually he is arrested and sent to prison, where he declines to eat and is extremely despondent.
Connection
Honestly, there were other stories that perhaps shared a more thematic nexus with the event in Korea. But I liked how Bartleby, the Scrivener explored the reality of workplace monotony and its consequences. I appreciate fiction that prototypes a possibility to its logical extreme - and that’s what the author seems to have done here.
Applying the novella’s principle idea to robotics is also a curious thought experiment: what happens when machines become bored by repetitive labour (in case they aren’t already)? Could the promised productivity gains be undone by humanoid refusal? Is the AI industry shooting itself in the foot?
On a final note, Bartleby the Scrivener is one of Herman Melville’s last books before he stopped publishing fiction. He experienced a deep despair due to the lack of recognition for his works…
Before you go…
Here are some last morsels of inspiration and wee updates:
I got a new motorcycle and she’s rather wonderful.
You might enjoy this 10-minute podcast by
where she examines the word robot and its various meanings:I’m currently reading Galatea 2.2 by Robert Powers and really enjoying it. It’s a pseudo-autobiographical novel written in 1995. The story follows an author (called Robert Powers) who helps train an AI to analyze literature. The writing takes your mind to a higher altitude. It takes a few breaths to return to sea level.
Have a beautiful week!
Dhru