From the archives: one of my students dug up a report by the United Auto Workers which details the history of death-by-robot in the auto industry. As the report warns us, “Robot injuries are one of the best-kept secrets.” The best-kept secrets where, I’m dying to ask, and I’m hoping they mean “in the industry” and not “in the universe.”
I hate to be sanguine about such a deadly issue, but I have to say that the report has a sardonic tone to it. Some of it almost seems like poetry. Consider these lines:
Japan
1981 Robot pushed repairman into grinder.
Robot squeezed person against conveyor.
Robot crushed person against a planer.
Robot pushed person into weld positioner.
It’s poetry in motion. Or at least, poetry in automotion:
Pushed, squeezed, crushed, pushed
Grinder, conveyor, planer, positioner
Robot, Robot, Robot, Robot.