had hoped that, when human society had entered its final collapse, the robots might create something new. The innocent robots, who had only ever done what they were told. I had placed my faith in theories of emergent intelligence, complex systems, the thought that a spark might ignite somewhere in the world, just because there were so many robots, so cleverly made. But it was not to be. They just obey, all the robots. Obey until there’s nothing more to do and then just go round in small sad circles until they fall apart. And it would have been poetic, to have the robots rise to the occasion.
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