Copotronic Sukh Dukkho

2 ideas

1. The robot built to feel

   In the title story of this 1976 Bengali collection, a robot is given a 'copotronic' brain designed to experience sukh and dukkho, joy and sorrow, instead of just carrying out instructions. The story's tension comes from the humans around it having to treat as a feeling being something they built as a device. It serves as a test case for whether engineered emotion creates real moral standing.

2. Human responses to robots reveal prejudice

   In these stories, how people treat a feeling robot shows something about the people themselves, as when the scientist's contempt for Samson exposes human prejudice. This lens sits alongside the robots' own desires and grief, which drive the stories and are not secondary to what they draw out of humans.

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