DR. GALL. For industrial reasons, Miss Glory. Sometimes a Robot does damage to himself because it doesn’t hurt him. He puts his hand into the machine-- (_Describes with gesture_) --breaks his finger-- (_Describes with gesture_) --smashes his head. It’s all the same to him. We must provide them with _pain_. That’s an automatic _protection_ against damage. HELENA. Will they be happier when they feel pain? DR. GALL. On the contrary; but they will be more perfect from a technical point of view. HELENA. Why don’t you create a soul for them? DR. GALL. That’s not in our power. FABRY. That’s not in our interest. BUSMAN. That would increase the cost of production. Hang it all, my dear young lady, we turn them out at such a cheap rate--a hundred and fifty dollars each, fully dressed, and fifteen years ago they cost ten thousand. Five years ago we used to buy the _clothes_ for them. Today we have our own weaving mill, and now we even _export_ cloth five times cheaper than other factories. What do you pay a yard for cloth, Miss Glory? HELENA. (_Looking at DOMIN_) I don’t really know. I’ve forgotten. BUSMAN. Good gracious, and you want to found a Humanity League. (_MEN chuckle._) It only costs a third now, Miss Glory. All prices are today a third of what they were and they’ll fall still lower, lower, like that. HELENA. I don’t understand. BUSMAN. Why, bless you, Miss Glory, it means that the cost of _labor_ has fallen. A Robot, food and all, costs three-quarters of a cent per hour. (_Leans forward_) That’s mighty important, you know. All factories will go pop like chestnuts if they don’t at once buy Robots to lower the cost of production. HELENA. And get rid of all their workmen? BUSMAN. Of course. But in the meantime we’ve dumped five hundred thousand _tropical_ Robots down on the Argentine pampas to grow corn. Would you mind telling me how much you pay a pound for bread? HELENA. I’ve no idea. (_ALL smile._) BUSMAN. Well, I’ll tell you. It now costs two cents in good old Europe. A pound of bread for two cents, and the _Humanity League_-- (_Designates HELENA_) --knows nothing about it. (_To MEN_) Miss Glory, you don’t realize that even _that’s_ too expensive. (_All MEN chuckle._) Why, in five years’ time I’ll wager-- HELENA. What? BUSMAN. That the cost of everything will be a tenth of what it is today. Why, in five years we’ll be up to our ears in corn and--everything else. ALQUIST. Yes, and all the workers throughout the world will be unemployed. DOMIN. (_Seriously. Rises_) Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much _corn_, so much _cloth_, so much everything that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everybody will live only to _perfect_ himself. HELENA. Will he?