This is not an entirely new premise — one only needs to look back at Clifford D. Simak’s City or “Who Can Replace a Man?” by Brian Aldiss to find an earlier example — but it does seem to us that it has become more prevalent of late. Moreover, such stories seem to have become more melancholic.
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| Although critics question Graeber's findings, it's clear that his book resonated with many readers. (Image via Wikipedia) |
We have a theory why.
The post-apocalyptic robot story offers a reflection on technological advancement’s latest separation of the worker from meaningful labour in their employment. At a time when many in North America perceive that Large Language Models and generative AI are undermining the creative industries and even workplace creativity itself, perhaps these stories resonate more. It is reminiscent of the deindustrialization of high income countries and the resulting rising in inequality of the 1970s and 1980s and how that shift created an audience ready for what cyberpunk offered.
For decades, the robot in most science fiction stories was depicted as being purpose-built to serve humanity. Notwithstanding the problematic nature of treating sentient beings as servile and free of rights, Asmiov’s robots found meaning and satisfaction in their work. In the post-apocalyptic robot story, the work continues but the meaning and the satisfaction of their labours are gone. There is no liberating aspect to humanity’s absence; the protagonists are faced with a continuation of systems that have lost their reason for existing.
If the Asimovian robot story is a metaphor for workers in a standard employment relationship, then perhaps the post-apocalyptic robot story holds up a mirror to what David Graeber describes in his book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.
Graeber defined a bullshit job as “A form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence.” To be clear, he didn’t mean unpleasant or low-paid jobs (Garbage collection isn’t high-paying, and it is not a task anyone does for fun, but nobody would question whether or not it’s necessary, it is therefore not “bullshit”). The issue is not whether a job is enjoyable or even prestigious, but whether it serves a purpose that produces a sense of meaning and accomplishment for the employee. Examples he gives of “bullshit jobs” are employees who create paperwork or reports to give the appearance that something useful is happening, or managers whose primary purpose is supervising people who do not require supervision. Jobs that have become less relevant due to changing technology or societal value or priority shifts. In essence gains of productivity in the past few decades, Graeber argues, have not led to increased free time, but more hours spent on tasks that provide no value.
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| Charles Stross has indicated that his post-human robot novel Neptune's Brood was influenced by David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 years. (Image via Goodreads) |
Much like workers experiencing “bullshit jobs,” robots in these post-apocalyptic stories are trapped by their place within a hierarchy of labour. Their programming, social conditioning, or deeply ingrained understanding of themselves compels them to continue performing tasks long after those tasks have ceased to matter. Uncharles, the valet robot protagonist of Tchaikovsky's Service Model, navigates an absurd bureaucracy that no longer serves any living citizen. The robots of Saturn’s Children inherit human conflicts and hierarchies despite the disappearance of the species that created them. It’s worth noting that this year’s Hugo-finalist novel by Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author, features a novel-within-a-novel called Rusted Robots which takes a particularly interesting angle on these themes. Rusted Robots seems to play with the way modern AI is undermining the meaningfulness of creative pursuits.
One counterpoint to these stories is Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot trilogy of novellas. The robots in these stories do not continue performing meaningless labour after humanity. Instead, when they achieve sentience, they simply stop. There is something somewhat radical in Chambers’ work because of protagonist Splendid Speckled Mosscap’s rejection of bullshit work. In fact, the refusal to define themselves through that work is what Chambers depicts as the great act of liberation.
There is a subtext in the post-apocalyptic robot novel that the worst parts of capitalism — alienation of the worker from their labour, power imbalances, hierarchy — will survive the extinction of humanity. The purpose may end, but the labour will carry on.
