Robots and Golems, Oh My!

How often have you read or heard the word robot? Do you know the legend of the Golem? How many stories have you seen where a creation turned against the person that made it? The ideas of artificial life and the question of what it means to be human have captured the imagination of science fiction and fantasy for generations, but their Czech origins are not as well known.

The Legend of the golem of prague

The most famous version of the Golem legend begins in 16th century Prague. The Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezel sought to protect the local Jewish community from antisemitic attacks. He gathered clay from the banks of the Vltava River and sculpted it into the shape of a man, then brought it to life by inserting a shem (a tablet with the name of God written on it) into its mouth. Thus, the Golem: a human-like being that protected the community was born.

Rabbi Loew would deactivate the Golem for the Sabbath, allowing the creature to rest according to Jewish custom. One day he forgot, and the Golem went on a destructive rampage through the ghetto. He was eventually able to stop the Golem by removing the shem from its mouth, shutting it off.

Karel Čapek’s robots

The word robot is actually based on the Czech word robota, meaning work (usually in the context of serfdom). The term entered the mainstream through Karel Čapek’s 1920 science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), where it was first used to refer to a man-made automaton. In the play, a scientist named Rossum invents a way to create artificial life, in the form of the humanoid “robots.” His nephew finds a way to mass produce them for profit, and soon robots are being exported globally to work for humans.

In the play, humans become increasingly dependent on robots for labor. They become lazy, and soon human birth rates begin dropping. The scientists continue to develop the robots, making them more and more intelligent and human-like. The robots become self-aware, and, in the third act, revolt against their creators and take control globally. However, for all their advancements, the robots can’t reproduce on their own: they’re dependent on humans to manufacture them. As the robots close in on the scientists, Helena burns the only formula for making new robots, destining them to eventually die out.

The robots kill all the humans in the factory, except for Alquist, the head of construction, because “he works with his hands, like a robot.” He is the sole human witness to their slow extinction. They force him to attempt to manufacture more robots, to no avail. Years later, he comes upon two robots who are willing to sacrifice themselves to save the other, proving themselves capable of love. Alquist realizes that they are the new Adam and Eve, implying that they can now reproduce, and the play ends.

making connections

The Golem and the robot both originated in Prague, but are they connected beyond this? In both stories, human attempts to create life for their own benefit go awry. It stands to reason that, due to the prevalence of the Golem legend in Prague’s culture, Čapek was influenced by the story when creating the robots. In fact, in a 1935 interview, he confirms this by saying that the robot is a “Golem in modern form.”

Beyond this connection, the two stories bring up similar ethical and philosophical implications. In both, the life created is viewed as somehow “lesser,” lacking some intrinsic quality that makes them “human.” In both, artificial life is created exclusively for servitude. In both, however, the automatons rebel against their creators in some way. The tension between the creations’ assumed inferiority and their struggles for autonomy begs the question: what does it mean to be “human,” and what does it mean to be “alive”?

golems/robots in the media

The ideas of humanity, artificial life, and the narratives of uprising in both these stories are ones that have had a profound influence on centuries of fiction. Countless familiar stories reference these tropes, either directly or indirectly.

Though the Golem of Prague is the most famous version, instructions for making a golem appear in Jewish mystic texts as early as the 12th century. The Hebrew word golem also appears once in the Old Testament, meaning “unformed substance,” referring to how God created Man out of clay (Psalms 139:16). In this understanding, a golem is a being made from an unliving substance that is then animated. This is a time-honored trope. For example, the Gingerbread man can be viewed as a type of golem!

Modern conceptions of the golem focus more on the narrative of creation/rebellion. For example, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells a story of a manufactured humanoid—stronger and larger than a man but lacking consciousness—that rebels against his creator, just like the Golem of Prague. Below are some other examples of stories that mirror this narrative. How many of them do you recognize? What other ones can you name?

• Blade Runner

• The Matrix

• Wall-E

• Marvel’s Ultron

• Terminator

• Battlestar Galactica

• Ex Machina

• Star Wars

Significance, and looking to the future

Analysis of the Golem legend asserts that its role in Judaism was to confer an exceptional status to literacy: it is through an understanding of the Hebrew alphabet that Rabbi Loew is able to animate the Golem. Similarly, when thinking about the modern conception of a robot, it is through computer code (a form of language!) that these automatons are given life.

The questions and lessons from these stories have more and more relevance in the modern day, especially when thinking about the emergence of A.I. in our society. Like the Golem of Prague, GPT and other AI programs are given “life” through the manipulation of language (programming). As in Čapek’s R.U.R, humans are becoming increasingly dependent on these technologies. When looking to the future, what lessons can we take from these stories, and how can we apply them to our own lives?

Modern stories are full of different versions of Golems and robots: the folklore and literature of the Czech republic have had a profound impact on the way we continue to think about the relationship between humanity and technology. How have these stories impacted your own life, maybe without you knowing it? What “Golems” can you find in the world around us, fictional and real? and, finally, what makes us human?