The Automatic Maid-of-All-Work — novellutmaningen -19

38. Läs en novell där något går sönder — The Automatic Maid-of-All-Work, A Possible Tale of the Near Future,  av M. L. Campbell

It was a queer-looking thing, with its long arms, for all the world like one of those old-fashioned wind-mills you see in pictures of foreign countries. It had a face like one of those twenty-four hour clocks, only there were no hands; each number was a sort of electric button. It was run by electricity, you know. The battery was inside. I didn’t understand it very well; I never could see into anything in the way of machinery; I never pretend to listen when John tells me about his inventions. The figures, as I said, were buttons, and you just had to connect them with some wires inside. There were a lot of wires, each for some kind of work which would be done at the hour indicated by the button you connected it with. This was handy, so that we would not have to get up in the morning till breakfast-time, and would be handy in lots of ways.

Och som det går sönder!

Vem M. L. Campbell, berättelsens författare" är, har jag inte lyckats luska ut — allt jag vet om novellens ursprunget är att den var publicerad i "The Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science, Art and Literature for July, 1893". Det är inte stor litteratur, och säkerligen inte avsedd att vara det, fastmer tänkt som en stunds förströelse, som ska få läsaren att dra på smilbandet. Den skrevs 35 år innan ordet robot var uppfunnet, men det är vad det rör sig om, och jag fascineras av dess beskrivning.

Woman Sweeping Her Home 

Jean François Millet

Lite längre har väl robottillverkningen kommit i dag, men för säkerhets skull fortsätter jag nog att städa (eller inte alls städa), på det traditionella sättet.