Robot Visions

Hortense gasped and her eyes bulged in fury. “Then he had a good reason to do so. I’ll still have your robot destroyed.”

“Go ahead, Hortense. Unless you’re wining to ruin your robot’s efficiency by trying to reprogram him to lie, he win bear witness to just what preceded the kick and so, of course, with pleasure, win I.”

Hortense left the next morning, carrying the pale-faced LeRoy with her (it turned out he had broken a toe-nothing he didn’t deserve) and an endlessly wordless DeLancey.

Gracie wrung her hands and implored them to stay, but I watched them leave without emotion. No, that’s a lie. I watched them leave with lots of emotion, an pleasant.

Later, I said to Rodney, when Gracie was not present, “I’m sorry, Rodney. That was a horrible Christmas, an because we tried to have it without you. We’ll never do that again, I promise.”

“Thank you, Sir,” said Rodney. “I must admit that there were times these two days when I earnestly wished the laws of robotics did not exist.”

I gri

I admit that Rodney was greatly tried, but a robot can’t wish the laws of robotics did not exist. He can’t, no matter what the circumstances.

If I report this, Rodney will undoubtedly be scrapped, and if we’re issued a new robot as recompense, Gracie will simply never forgive me. Never! No robot, however new, however talented, can possibly replace Rodney in her affection.

In fact, I’ll never forgive myself. Quite apart from my own liking for Rodney, I couldn’t bear to give Hortense the satisfaction.

But if I do nothing, I live with a robot capable of wishing the laws of robotics did not exist. From wishing they did not exist to acting as if they did not exist is just a step. At what moment will he take that step and in what form will he show that he has done so?

What do I do? What do I do?

Essays

Robots I Have Known

Mechanical men, or, to use Capek’s now universally-accepted term, robots, are a subject to which the modern science-fiction writer has turned again and again. There is no uninvented invention, with the possible exception of the spaceship, that is so clearly pictured in the minds of so many: a sinister form, large, metallic, vaguely human, moving like a machine and speaking with no emotion.

The key word in the description is “sinister” and therein lies a tragedy, for no science-fiction theme wore out its welcome as quickly as did the robot. Only one robot-plot seemed available to the average author: the mechanical man that proved a menace, the creature that turned against its creator, the robot that became a threat to humanity. And almost all stories of this sort were heavily surcharged, either explicitly or implicitly, with the weary moral that “there are some things mankind must never seek to learn.”

This sad situation has, since 1940, been largely ameliorated. Stories about robots abound; a newer viewpoint, more mechanistic and less moralistic, has developed. For this development, some people (notably Mr. Groff Conklin in the introduction to his science-fiction anthology entitled “Science-Fiction Thinking Machines,” published in 1954) have seen fit to attach at least partial credit to a series of robot stories I wrote begi

My own viewpoint was that robots were story material, not as blasphemous imitations of life, but merely as advanced machines. A machine does not “turn against its creator” if it is properly designed. When a machine, such as a power-saw, seems to do so by occasionally lopping off a limb, this regrettable tendency towards evil is combated by the installation of safety devices. Analogous safety devices would, it seemed obvious, be developed in the case of robots. And the most logical place for such safety devices would seem to be in the circuit-patterns of the robotic “brain.”

Let me pause to explain that in science-fiction, we do not quarrel intensively concerning the actual engineering of the robotic “brain.” Some mechanical device is assumed which in a volume that approximates that of the human brain must contain all the circuits necessary to allow the robot a range of perception-and-response reasonably equivalent to that of a human being. How that can be done without the use of mechanical units the size of a protein molecule or, at the very least, the size of a brain cell, is not explained. Some authors may talk about transistors and printed circuits. Most say nothing at all. My own pet trick is to refer, somewhat mystically, to “positronic brains,” leaving it to the ingenuity of the reader to decide what positrons have to do with it and to his good-will to continue reading after having failed to reach a decision.

In any case, as I wrote my series of robot stories, the safety devices gradually crystallized in my mind as “The Three Laws of Robotics. “ These three laws were first explicitly stated in “Runaround. “ As finally perfected, the Three Laws read as follows.

First Law-A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law-A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law-A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These laws are firmly built into the robotic brain, or at least the circuit equivalents are. Naturally, I don’t describe the circuit equivalents. In fact, I never discuss the engineering of the robots for the very good reason that I am colossally ignorant of the practical aspects of robotics.

The First Law, as you can readily see, immediately eliminates that old, tired plot which I will not offend you by referring to any further.

Although, at first flush, it may appear that to set up such restrictive rules must hamper the creative imagination, it has turned out that the Laws of Robotics have served as a rich source of plot material. They have proved anything but a mental road-block.

An example would be the story “Runaround” to which I have already referred. The robot in that story, an expensive and experimental model, is designed for operation on the sunside of the planet Mercury. The Third Law has been built into him more strongly than usual for obvious economic reasons. He has been sent out by his human employers, as the story begins, to obtain some liquid selenium for some vital and necessary repairs. (Liquid selenium lies about in puddles in the heat of Mercury’s sunward side, I will ask you to believe.)

Unfortunately, the robot was given his order casually so that the Second Law circuit set up was weaker than usual. Still more unfortunately, the selenium pool to which the robot was sent was near a site of volcanic activity, as a result of which there were sizable concentrations of carbon monoxide in the area. At the temperature of Mercury’s sunside, I surmised that carbon monoxide would react fairly quickly with iron to form volatile iron carbonyls so that the robot’s more delicate joints might be badly damaged. The further the robot penetrates into this area, the greater the danger to his existence and the more intensive is the Third Law effect driving him away. The Second Law, however, ordinarily the superior, drives him onward. At a certain point, the unusually weak Second Law potential and the unusually strong Third Law potential reach a balance and the robot can neither advance nor retreat. He can only circle the selenium pool on the equipotential locus that makes a rough circle about the site.