David Weber - Bolo!

“I believe you are correct that there are additional reasons, Maneka,” he said. “And I believe there are also reasons why your Academy instructors did not explain those other reasons to you. One reason for their failure to fully explicate, I suspect, is that I have observed that humans are sometimes uncomfortable exposing deep-seated emotions to one another.”

Both of Maneka’s eyebrows rose at the Bolo’s last sentence, but she simply lay back in the couch, waiting.

“Despite Major Fredericks’ comments to you,” Benjy continued seriously, “there is a slight but significant statistical enhancement in the combat effectiveness of Bolos operating with human commanders on board as compared to Bolos operating purely autonomously in Battle Reflex Mode.”

“Is there really?” Maneka couldn’t keep the doubt out of her voice. “I mean, they told us that in third-year Tactics, but I never really believed it. Or that it was still true, at any rate. To be honest, I thought they were telling us that so we wouldn’t feel as useless as a screen door on an airlock. You’re telling me they really meant it?”

“Indeed. Reflect that the Major did not tell you to resign command to me. She told you not to ‘second-guess’ me. If you consider that carefully, I think you will recognize that it is no more than the advice she would have given you if you had been dealing with a human subordinate who was simply more experienced, knowledgeable, and informed at that moment than you were. In essence, she was advising you, as a new junior officer, not to ‘joggle the elbow’ of an experienced noncommissioned officer at a moment when decisions have become time-critical.”

“Well, I suppose so,” Maneka said slowly. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that you both think and react faster than any human possibly could. So how can the presence of a human commander enhance your performance in combat? Surely it constitutes an additional layer of ‘grit,’ doesn’t it?”

“In the heat of a complicated tactical situation, it undoubtedly does-or would, if the commander in question has not learned when to intervene and when to allow the Bolo full autonomy. But humans, whatever the limitation of their perceptions, retain even today a better intuitive information processing capability than Bolos have ever possessed. Bolos think linearly, Maneka—we simply think very, very quickly by human standards. We process information, calculate probabilities, and select actions and responses on the basis of those calculations. But humans, and especially those passed by the screening processes the Brigade utilizes, have a superior ability to discount portions of the probability matrix at a glance. Bolos, even in hyper-heuristic mode, cannot do that. We must consider all probabilities and examine all logic trees in order to determine which may be safely discounted or ignored. A human may be wrong when he ‘instinctively’ isolates the appropriate probabilities upon which to concentrate, but he often makes the decision-right or wrong-more rapidly than even a Bolo can do the same thing.

“What a Bolo is capable of doing that a human is not is evaluating that decision. An experienced commander and his Bolo are constantly engaged in a joint examination and evaluation of the tactical environment. The commander’s function is to provide general direction, to isolate the objective and to adjust and prioritize that objective. It is the Bolo’s function, within the framework of that general direction, to formulate and execute tactics to accomplish their purpose. And it is that partnership which accounts for the combat enhancement to which I referred a moment ago.”

“I believe you’re telling me the truth, Benjy, but that still seems difficult to believe.”

“Perhaps because you, like many humans, are better able to recognize and comprehend the capabilities of a Bolo than you are to recognize and accept your own gifts,” Benjy said almost gently. “Nonetheless, it is true, and the correlation between human command and enhanced combat performance can be clearly tracked over the history of the Brigade. Admittedly, the enhancement was most pronounced in the earlier days of the Brigade. Through the emergence of the Mark XXV, it was very noticeable, which is not surprising in light of the limitations and constraints imposed upon Bolo self-awareness and autonomy up to that time. From the date of the deletion of the inhibitory software of the Mark XXV two Standard Centuries ago, the degree of enhancement has declined, of course. That, in fact, was one reason the Brigade acceded to the pressure in favor of the independent deployment of unmanned Mark XXV Bolos for some years.

“That, however, was as much a civil government-inspired economy measure, adopted in light of the considerable expense of training Bolo commanders, as a tactical innovation, and it was never fully accepted within the Brigade, for several reasons. One of them, as subsequent analysis clearly confirmed, was that even a fully autonomous Bolo was less capable in combat when not paired with a human commander, which is why the practice was discontinued with the Mark XXVI. That same capability advantage remains statistically differentiable even today, although the capabilities of increasingly advanced psychotronic circuitry and software have improved to a point at which the speed with which Bolos process information, even linearly, has very largely overtaken the human ability to process it intuitively.

“However, with the introduction of direct Bolo-human neural interfacing in the Mark XXXII, the enhancement level has gone up once more, and very sharply. While I obviously have no personal experience of the capability, it would appear from my analysis of the battle reports which have been disseminated that the direct linkage between an organic human brain and a Bolo’s psychotronics allows the human’s intuitive processes to function at very nearly Bolo data-processing levels and speed. It is, in fact, that advantage over the capabilities of my own psychotronics which truly relegates Bolos of my generation to obsolescence.”

Maneka felt a sudden irrational flush of irritation whose strength surprised her. She didn’t care about what newer models of Bolo might be capable of! She was Benjy’s commander, and hearing him calmly state that anything rendered him “obsolescent” infuriated her.

Obsolescence, she thought. What a filthy concept!

She knew her reaction was irrational. That it partook of the Operator Identification Syndrome the Academy instructors had so earnestly warned their students against. Yet there’d always been a stubborn part of her which remained emotionally convinced that “obsolescent” was a label invented by humans to justify discarding intelligent machines-people-who deserved far better from the humanity they had served so well.

“In addition to its overt effect on combat effectiveness, however,” Benjy continued, apparently oblivious to her sudden emotional spike, “I believe there is another, uniquely human reason for the practice of pairing human commanders and Bolos and committing them to combat together. Put most simply, it is a sense of obligation.”

“Obligation?”

“Indeed. Maneka, do not make the mistake of assuming that your own emotional reaction, your own sense of bonding with the Bolos with whom you serve, is unique to you. It has, throughout the history of the Brigade, been a major concern, not least because of the fashion in which it has so often caused Bolo commanders to hesitate to commit their Bolos against overwhelming Enemy firepower. Ultimately, Bolos are expendable, yet it is often easier for a Bolo’s commander to consider himself expendable than it is for him to consider his Bolo in the same fashion. This is the reason your Academy instructors warned you about the dangers of OIS.