The Lost Worlds of 2001

12. Man and Robot
"Bruno," asked the robot, "What is life?"

Dr. Bruno Forster, director of the Division of Mobile Adaptive Machines, carefully removed his pipe in the interests of better communication. Socrates still misunderstood about two percent of spoken words; with that pipe, the figure went up to five.

"Sub-program three three zero," he said carefully. "What is the purpose of the universe? Don't bother your pretty little head with such problems. End three three zero."

Socrates was silent, thinking this over. Sometime later in the day, if he understood his orders, he would repeat the message to whichever of the lab staff had initiated that sequence.

It was a joke, of course. By trying out such tricks, one often discovered unexpected possibilities, and unforeseen limitations, in Autonomous Mobile Explorer 5-usually known as Socrates or, alternatively, "That damn pile of junk." But to Forster, it was also something more than a joke; and his staff knew it.

One day, he was sure, there would be robots that would ask such questions-spontaneously, without prompting. And a little later, there would be robots that could answer them.

"Sub-program two five one," Bruno enunciated carefully. "Correction, recognition matrix for Senator Floyd. Erase height five feet eleven; insert height six feet one."

That should cover it, unless some other practical joker had been at the robot's memory. There had been one occasion when Socrates had welcomed a party of directors' wives with a passionate plea for a twenty-hour week and holidays with pay, and had ended by throwing accusations of brutality at his designer, whom he had repeatedly referred to as Dr. Bruno Frankenstein. It had been most convincing; some of the ladies were still looking suspiciously at Bruno when they left.

The door opened. Stepping lightly, gracefully, Socrates moved to meet the delegation.

"Good morning, Senator Floyd; welcome to General Robotics Division of Adaptive Machines. My name is Socrates; I would like to show you some of our latest work."

The senator and his colleagues were clearly impressed; they had seen photographs of Socrates and his predecessors, but nothing quite prepared one for the steel and crystal grace of the moving, talking reality. Though the robot was roughly the size and shape of a man, there were few of those disquieting echoes of the human body which make the metal monsters of horror movies either ludicrous or repulsive. Socrates possessed an inherent mechanical beauty that had to be accepted on its own terms.

The legs, rising from wide circular pads, were intricate assemblies of sliding shock absorbers, universal joints, and tensioning springs, held in a light framework of metal bars. They flexed and yielded at each step with a fascinating rhythm, as if they possessed a life of their own.

Above the hips-it was impossible to avoid some anthropomorphic terms-Socrates' body was a plain cylinder, covered with access hatches for his racks of electronic gear. His arms were slimmer and more delicate versions of the legs; the right one ended in a simple, three-fingered hand, capable of complete and continuous rotation, while the left terminated in a sort of multipurpose tool combining, among other useful elements, a corkscrew and beer can opener. Socrates seemed well equipped for most emergencies.

The upper part of his body was crowned not by a head, but by an open framework carrying an assorted collection of sensors. A single TV camera gave all-round vision, through four wide- angled lenses aimed at each point of the compass. Unlike a man, Socrates needed no flexible neck; he could see in every direction simultaneously.

"I am designed," he explained, as he walked with a curious rocking motion toward the Medical Section, "for all types of space operation, and can function independently or under central control. I have enough built-in intelligence to deal with ordinary obstacles, and to evaluate simple emergency situations. My current assignment is supervisor on Project Morpheus."

"He's got your accent," said Representative Joseph Wilkins to Bruno, rather suspiciously.

"That's correct," the engineer answered, "but it's not a recording. Though my voice was the mode, he generates the words himself. The grammar and construction are all on his own-and sometimes they're better than mine."

"And just how intelligent is he?"

"It's impossible to make a direct comparison. In some ways, he's no more intelligent than a bright monkey. But he can learn almost without limit, and he'll never get tired or bored. That's why we'll be able to use him as a back-up for human crews, on really long space missions."

"Ah yes, this Morpheus idea. I'm interested, but it gives me the creeps."

"Well, here it is. Now you can judge for yourself."

The robot had led the party into a large, bare room dominated by a full-scale mockup of a space capsule. A cylinder twenty feet long and ten feet high, with an airlock at one end, it was surrounded by pumps, electronic gear, recording equipment, and TV monitors. There were no windows, but the whole of the interior could be watched on a series of TV screens. One pair of these showed somewhat disquieting pictures-closeups of two unconscious men. Their eyes were closed, metal caps were fitted over their shaven heads, electrodes and pick-up devices were attached to their bodies, and they did not even appear to be breathing.

"Our sleeping beauties," said Bruno to Representative Wilkins. (And why, he wondered to himself with some annoyance, did he always lower his voice? Even if they were awake, they certainly couldn't hear him.) "Whitehead on the left, Kaminski on the right."

"How long now?" asked Wilkins, whispering in return.

"One hundred and forty-two days-but Socrates will tell you all about it."

The robot paused at the airlock entrance, and glanced around, uncannily like a human speaker sizing up an audience. That, thought Bruno, was not a programmed reaction, Socrates had either copied it or invented it himself. He was always doing things like this, as his learning circuits worked through their almost infinite number of permutations. Sometimes the reaction was wholly inappropriate and had to be blanked out; sometimes it was an amusing idiosyncrasy, like the apparently pointless little dance Socrates often performed when reactivated after a long shutdown; and occasionally it was useful. The robot's education was proceeding continuously, and so was that of its makers.

"This," began Socrates, "is Project Morpheus. Here we have two astronauts who, by a combination of drugs and electronarcosis, can be kept in a state of hibernation for prolonged periods. Their food and oxygen intake is thus cut ninety percent, greatly simplifying the supply problem. Equally important, this technique almost eliminates the psychological stresses produced when a group of men spend many months in confined quarters."

"What does he know about psychological stresses!" murmured Wilkins.

"You'd be surprised," Bruno answered glumly, thinking of several near-human tantrums that Socrates had thrown in the early days of his development.

"This technique," continued the robot, "is being developed for possible missions to the outer planets, which would involve very long flight times. During such flights, a robot like myself could run the ship and attend to the crew. It would automatically awaken them at the end of the journey, or if any emergency developed. If you will watch through the monitors, I will perform my daily check."

Socrates walked to the airlock entrance, and there conducted a ritual which clearly fascinated all the congressmen. With his bifurcated right hand, he twisted off the multi-purpose tool at the end of his left arm, and replaced it by a more normal, five-fingered hand that was virtually a large, padded paw. The operation was as quick as changing the lens on a camera, with it, Socrates had switched from general handyman to nurse.

The robot walked into the airlock, and a moment later appeared on the TV monitors that showed the inside of the capsule. He moved slowly down the central aisle, plugging a test probe into various instrument panels as he walked past them. His movements were swift and certain, like a trained human who knew his job perfectly.

He came to the sleeping men, leaned over them, and very gently checked the adjustment of their helmets and the location of their biosensors. There was something at once sinister and touching about this encounter between quasi-conscious machine and wholly unconscious humans all the spectators showed their involuntary tenseness. Even Bruno, who had watched this a hundred times before, felt apprehension mingle with his pride as chief designer and project engineer.

As Socrates, satisfied that all was well, straightened up and started to walk back toward the airlock, Representative McBurney of New York breathed a sigh of relief, and spoke for most of his colleagues when he said: "I don't think I'd care to go to sleep for a few months, with only a robot nursemaid to look after me. Are you sure it's safe?"

Bruno had hoped that someone would ask that.

"We've taken all imaginable precautions," he answered. "Every movement that Socrates makes is monitored from outside. If anything goes wrong, we'll push the stop button-but no one has had to do that yet. And let me show you something."

He walked to a microphone set in the wall of the capsule, threw a switch, and ordered: "Socrates-check operating mode."

At once the robot's voice boomed from a speaker.

"I am on independent mode."

Bruno turned to the visitors.

"That means he's operating on his own, not under external command. He's not a slave, but an individual. Now please watch this."

He breathed a silent prayer, then ordered: "Switch all oxygen systems off-repeat, off.''

Socrates stood for a moment in an attitude of paralyzed indecision, making no attempt to move. Then, after a pause that probably lasted only a second but seemed much longer, he answered: "Order rejected. Law-one violation."

Bruno gave a sigh of relief; the circuits weren't foolproof yet, and he had been taking a chance.

"Continue independent program," he said. Then he flashed a smile of satisfaction at the congressmen. "You see-he's well trained. He knew that cutting off the oxygen would endanger his charges, and that would violate the First Law of Robotics."

"The First Law?"

"Yes-we have them pinned up somewhere-ah, over there."

A large and rather grimy notice, obviously the work of an amateur artist, was hanging from the wall of the lab. Printed on it were the following words:

THE LAWS OF ROBOTICS

(1)A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

(2)A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

(3 )A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

ISAAC ASIMOV (1920-)

Against each law was a little sketch. The First Law showed a diabolical metal monster cleaving a startled human in two with a battleaxe, while uttering the words: "Dr. Frankenstein, I presume." The second law was illustrated by a weeping lady robot, carrying a smaller replica of herself, obediently trudging out into the snow as directed by an irate Bruno Forster. And the third sketch showed an obviously insane and partly dismantled robot in the act of committing suicide with screwdriver and monkey wrench.

When the congressmen had finished laughing at these, Bruno explained: "We haven't got as far as the Third Law yet, and there may even be times when it's hard to decide if an act violates Laws One or Two. Obviously, a robot policeman would have to have different instructions from a robot nurse. But on the whole, these rules are a pretty sound guide."

"Isaac Asimov?" said Representative McBurney, "Didn't he give evidence to our committee, a couple of years ago?"

"I'll say he did-he was the lively old boy who wanted to build a high-pressure chemistry lab to study the life reactions that might take place on the giant planets. He got fifteen million out of us by the time he'd finished."

As they walked back to the capsule, Representative Wilkins waved toward it and said: "I'm still not completely convinced that this sort of thing is really necessary."

"It's not, at the moment," Bruno agreed. "But all our space journeys so far have been very short. Mars and Venus are only a few months away and as for the moon- why, you practically trip over it before you've started) Beyond Mars, though, the Solar System gets so much bigger. The journey to Jupiter takes at least a year, one way-which is why they're still arguing about sending men there. This-" he gestured toward the space capsule-"is how we may be able to get Project Jupiter off the ground. Hibernation will open up all the planets to manned exploration. And it may do much more than that, ultimately."

"What do you mean?" Senator Floyd, rather sharply.

"The stars, of course," answered Bruno, warming up to one of his favorite subjects. "We've found no intelligent life on the other planets of our own sun, so we'll have to look farther afield. How exciting it will be, to meet creatures wiser than us, yet perhaps using wholly different thought processes! We believe our systems of logic-and the ones we build into robots like Socrates-are universal but we can't be sure. The answers to that, and to a lot of other questions, lie out in the stars."

"But most of the scientists who've been up before our committee," said Floyd, "believe that flight to the stars will always be impossible, because of the enormous distances. They say that any trip, with propulsion systems that we can imagine, will take thousands of years."

"What if it does?" answered Bruno. "The solution's right here. We're not sure if simple hibernation stops the aging process, but we're fairly certain that deep-freezing does-and there are groups working on that, at Bethesda and San Antonio. I can imagine a ship starting on a ten- thousand-year voyage, with robots like Socrates in charge until the time comes to thaw out the crew."

Senator Floyd seemed to be thinking this over; he appeared to have forgotten the demonstration that had been so carefully arranged for his benefit. For the first time Bruno realized that the Senator, whom he knew rather well, had been very preoccupied during his visit to the lab; he was not his usual inquisitive self. Or he had not been until this moment; now something seemed to have triggered him off.

"Let me get this straight," he continued. "You think that flight to the stars-not just to the planets-is possible, and that robots could be built that would operate for thousands of years?"

"Certainly."

"What about-millions of years?"

That's a damned odd question, thought Bruno, what the devil is the old boy driving at?

"I certainly wouldn't guarantee a million-year robot with our present materials and technologies," he answered cautiously. "But I can imagine a virtually immortal automaton, if its thinking circuits were properly encapsulated. A crystal-a diamond, for example-lasts a long, long time; and we've already started building memories into crystals."

"This is all very fascinating," interrupted Representative McBurney of New York, "but I'm not a robot, and it's past lunchtime." He pointed to Socrates, who had now emerged from the capsule and, his programmed demonstration completed, stood waiting further orders. "He may be satisfied with a few minutes plugged into a wall socket, but I want something more substantial."

"Eating food," said Bruno with a grin, "is a terribly inefficient and messy way of acquiring energy. Some of my friends in Biotechnology are trying to bypass it."

"Thanks for warning us-that's one project we won't support. I prefer the human body the way it is; and while we're on the subject, we do have another fundamental advantage over robots."

"And what's that?"

"We can be manufactured by unskilled labor."

Bruno dutifully joined in the laughter, though he had heard that particular joke a hundred times before and was just a little tired of it. Besides, what did it prove?

To Bruno, as to many of his colleagues, the machines with which he was working were a new species, free from the limitations, taints, and stresses of organic evolution. They were still primitive, but they would learn. Already they could handle problems of a complexity far beyond the scope of the human brain. Soon they would be designing their own successors, striving for goals which Homo sapiens might never comprehend.

Yes, it was true that-for a while-men would be able to outbreed robots, but far more important was the fact that one day robots would outthink men.

When that day came, Bruno hoped that they would still be on good terms with their creators.