Project Golem

Objective: Introduce automation in primitive economy to study impact.

* * *

"Amazing magical men, gentlemen! They never eat, never tire, and always do what they’re told! Perfect workers, cheap at twice the price!"

Flamboyant, saturnine, gilt robes a-glimmer, this seller of men cut a curious figure in the fair-day crowd, an impression enhanced with theatrical gestures and an affected tone. Stranger yet was his stock in trade: moving pottery men covered in finely etched sigils, standing in a rough fence against the curious crowd. None had seen him arrive, yet here he was: bigger than life and impossible to ignore.

"I present you the ideal employee! You have but to show them a task once and they've mastered it. Can you say as much for your apprentices? Even your most skilled journeymen? You, sir: Why are you still considering those louts when my magical men are available?"

"I don't pay apprentices," scoffed the silversmith. "They pay me, and handsomely, for the privilege of learning my art. Why should I forego my profits?"

"Why indeed?" he agreed. "Why should you spend your hard-earned coin — on housing, clothing, feeding? Don't pretend to me your apprentices don't eat! Aye; eat for two, and slow to learn! My magical men—"

“I heard as they was dangerous!” said a farmer.

The salesman laughed. “Not these! The only order they won’t follow is one to hurt a person.” This he demonstrated until even the hard-headed farmer was content.

“Can they hoop staves?" asked a cooper.

"Certainly! Just show them how. They can shape, trim, nail, and shrink on hoops without gloves!" The cooper was interested until he heard the price; then he laughed and walked away.

One of the master blacksmiths stepped up. "I'll test one," he said.

The salesman beamed. "Of course! What could be fairer?"

He lined up his workers and they marched in parade step to the smithy, a vast establishment just off the square. Every forge blazed, and hammers rang in deafening cacophony.

"Show them what to do, just once," said the salesman.

"Hrm. Right," said the master. He pointed to a larger forge, where two apprentices worked the mighty bellows and no fewer than five journeymen were crafting tools.

"This is the perfect fire. Pump faster and it gets hotter, which you can read in the color; slower and it cools," he began, and demonstrated the art of the smith: from bar steel through heating, hammering, welding, cutting, and tempering, and how the techniques came together.

Then, at the salesman's prompting, the smith ordered, "Cold chisels. Make a dozen."

A pottery man snapped to action, and swiftly the tools were forged: soft shafts first, then tempered points, and finally the weld. As advertised, the worker never paused, and the end product was twelve identical cold chisels. The master smith examined them and pronounced himself satisfied. "How much for two... ah... workers?"

After, sales were brisk. By noon, the flamboyant salesman had sold his entire stock. The next morning he silently left town, never to return. No one saw him go.

* * *

The magical men were indeed as wondrous as promised, soon paying for themselves. The least able among the workers were sent home; they were angry, but got no sympathy from their fellows, who for years had picked up their slack. Some left town for good and were not missed. Everyone prospered, rich and poor alike.

All went well the first year, until mischance resulted in the destruction of one of the smith's pottery men. A hammer's head worked itself loose, flying through the air directly at the magical worker. It shattered into splinters, revealing innards of flashing lights and twisted wire that soon melted into goo. "As well it hadn't been a real person," said a journeymen; but the master smith couldn't stop thinking of his lost profits.

The next day he went out to find a replacement, but none of the other craftsmen were willing to sell, not at any price. He asked after the salesman, but none had seen him at this year's hiring fair.

Night had fallen when the master returned to his smithy. Fires were banked and tools racked. Even the magical worker was still after dark (the neighbors had complained). He walked over and scowled. At last he grumbled, "I wish we could make more of you!" and turned away.

He heard a scraping noise and stopped. He turned back to find the clay man staring at him intently, as though it had something it wanted to say. The smith scowled, thinking hard — and then, eyes widening in excitement, asked, "C-can you make more? Tell me you know how!"

The pottery man nodded.

* * *

The next day, the master smith, eyes a-glitter with greed, bought a potter's shop and kiln. Before the week was out he was producing magic workmen by the dozen and selling them at half price. He immediately fired all his workers; soon, so did every other craftsman. Farmers hitched them to their plows and the wealthy replaced their human servants — no more of those inconvenient half-days!

But a curious thing happened: As the smith grew richer, his custom fell off, and so did that of his neighbors. The streets filled with idle laborers, and soon with beggars. He thought little of this — every change is followed by a time of adjustment, and after all he was rich.

Alas! Then came the day when a hundred recently unemployed miners, furious, marched into town bearing picks and shovels and hunting clay men — which despite desperately shouted orders could not defend themselves. Seeing how easily they shattered, the rest of the town joined in. By nightfall not one of the magical pottery workers survived. The smith had been beaten and robbed; his premises were wrecked, and he was penniless, a ruined and broken man.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he cried piteously.

* * *

Project Report: Outcome negative. Advise precautions before next trial.