What Do Robots Do All Day? A kids' book from the future

BERG's Matt Jones hazards a guess at the future of work in this hypothetical future Richard Scarry book-cover.

Richard Scarry’s "What Do Robots Do All Day?"

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Copyfight • Funny • futurism • happy mutants • robots

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Henry Pootel

aka “Gizzy Town”
mack

Without the supporting text, I read this as a trenchant commentary on the sad, mechanical life of wage slaves. Beep beep – whirrrr – clickBEEP.
bkad

Ok, I don’t get it. Are there supposed to be robots on the cover? Is this a commentary that building houses, painting signs, and pushing baby carriages will someday be done by robots? Is this good, bad? Is it clever?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Es-See/100003058581326 Es See

OMG someone typed a new title on an already existing book! Wow you guys sure are working hard finding news out there. I’m sorry, typing 6 words on someone elses art does not speculate on anything. Oh and nice way to spring-board your garbage onto the internet while stepping on the back of an ACTUALLY talented and VERY dead artist…
- ZikZak
  
  Well, I thought it was clever and at least briefly thought-provoking. Also it didn’t make me angry. Guess there’s no accounting for taste.
- faithnomore
  
  OMG someone actually took the time to pointlessly bitch in the comments section when they could have just as easily chosen to skip the offending post and do actual productive activities instead!
  
  Also, how precisely does one become VERY dead (isn’t dead already a superlative?)
  - Henry Pootel
    
    OMG someone actually took the time to pointlessly bitch in the comments section when they could have just as easily chosen to skip the offending post and do actual productive activities instead!
    Next?
    - p96
      
      OMG it’s pointless bitching all the way down.
      or
      OMG the Internets are made of BITCHING!
- hymenopterid
  
  Wait, you mean this isn’t an original work? I feel so disillusioned.
- John Jones
  
  This person didn’t type six words…only changed ONE word. At least ‘shop some characters, too. Otherwise, you are calling all the hardworking people in the book (firefighters, bakers, farmers, teachers) robots, trivializing their work. Might be funny if you are a one-percenter, sure.
hymenopterid

Was machen die Roboter?
skabob

Goldbug is a robot??!?
jes5199

maybe the point is that there are no robots on the cover? What do robots do all day because we have no idea where to find them?
Editz

Where’s Wald-0?
http://www.facebook.com/dwight.friesen Dwight David Friesen

Are “friends” electric?
Walter Dexter

I momentarily thought there was an actual “fan-fic” book someone had done in the style of Richard Scary and got kind of excited.

Now I see that they just retitled an existing book, no doubt in an attempt to be edgy or clever or something. So I’m a little angry.
Smash Martian

In the Mysterious Future, robots will live full, rich and independent lives of their own but for some reason remake themselves as anthropomorphized piggies, cats, dogs & bunnies.

This leads me to 2 conclusions.

1, Skynet was programmed by a Furry.

2, The human race is being turned into some sort of edible slurry to power our cutesy robotic overlords, as demonstrated by the ButcherBot.
http://www.facebook.com/jgeerds Joergen Geerds

What a delightful coincidence: the main character of http://www.thesellingthemovie.com/ is called Richard Scarry (and makes a reference to it in the trailer). The Selling is made by the same people who brought us the robotic version of Huck’ Finn.
sam1148

I like the pig in the butcher shop, turning his fellow pigs into tasty sausages.
- http://optic.livejournal.com/ Optic
  
  Also (in other Busytown stuff), though the worm drives an apple car, the rabbit a carrot car, and the mice a cheese car, the pigs drive a sausage car. You’re a sick man, Richard Scarry.
- taintofevil
  
  In one of the Poppleton books, the librarian is a chicken, and a few pages later the pig and the llama are enjoying chicken soup.
Vanwall Green

Ah, but what’s the fondly Fahrenheit in Busytown?
Eric Hunting

My favorite alternative book cover is Richard Scarry’s Big Book of Illegal Immigrants;

http://x0f.xanga.com/629b013410c3227992423/b19662394.jpg

And for those who don’t get the robot connection, this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owtbkbKhBsI