He also investigates how the discourse around robots has reinforced social and economic inequalities, as well as fantasies of mass domination-chilling thoughts that the recent increase in job automation has done little to quell. He explores how robots and their many kin have not only conceptually connected but literally embodied some of the most critical questions in modern culture. In tracing the history of the idea of robots in US culture, Abnet draws on intellectual history, religion, literature, film, and television. Abnet shows to dazzling effect in The American Robot. Though we tend to think of them as products of twentieth-century technology-the word “robot” itself dates to only 1921-as a concept, they have colored US society and culture for far longer, as Dustin A. Whether a space-age cyborg, a chess-playing automaton, or simply the smartphone in our pocket, robots have long been a symbol of the fraught and fearful relationship between ourselves and our creations. Although they entered the world as pure science fiction, robots are now very much a fact of everyday life.
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