The Speculist

Planet of the Robots

In the original Planet of the Apes (the novel moreso than the book), ape society was divided into three segments based on species:

• Gorillas were soldiers and manual laborers
• Chimpanzees were intellectuals
• Orangutans were bureaucrats

Interestingly, this aspect of ape society was left out in the recent remake. Maybe it seemed pointlessly racial.

Anyway, reading the recent news from LinuxWorld that Linux-based robots are being developed to conduct search-and-rescue missions, I got to wondering what robot society will be like someday, and whether it will be segmented according to operating system. If so, I think things will break down differently from Pierre Boulle's ape model. After all, Boulle was basically just taking 20th century (French) society and "peopling" it with apes.

Here's how I think the robot world will break down:

• Windows robots will will be a sort of commercial class. Initially, when robots are still our slaves, they'll be the mass-market utility bots, handling all kinds of domestic and business-oriented tasks. After the robots take over, they'll be the masses. They'll live in robot suburbs and drive SUVs.
  
  
• Mac robots will start out as minstrels and interior designers. After the robot revolution, they will be the artists and entertainers of the robot world. They'll dress nice and live in lofts in the more chic robot neighborhoods.
  
  
• UNIX robots will be the government. Obviously, they're the ones the robots will want running the military, collecting the taxes, etc. You can see it happening already. The Linux robots mentioned above have been assigned to search and rescue — essentially a government job. The robot revolution will be fomented from among their ranks. Frustrated mail-carrier robots will plead for liberation to their UNIX-based brothers operating the world's weapons systems.

I haven't seen T3 yet, but I think I've just outlined the plot for it and the next sequel. Interesting to note that Arnold was most likely running UNIX in all three movies. (He was clearly some kind of letter-carrier robot gone postal.) But I think in T2, Robert Patrick must surely have been a Macintosh. I know that doesn't conform to my breakdown, but whenever you see such cool graphics (remember when he like totally melted and then came back into shape?), you figure it's got to be on a Mac.