Jerry Oltion - Humanity

Eve said, Derec has already hinted that this may be so. On the planet we call Ceremya, he indicated that Lucius could consider himself human if he wished.

Mandelbrot had been included in their discussion this time. He said, I believe he was being sarcastic. He often is. But even if he meant what he said, you also remember the outcome of that redefinition. If Lucius considers himself human, then he must still follow the orders of other humans.Functionally, he only increases his burden to include other robots as potential masters.

That is true; however, I have discovered another consequence, said Lucius. If I consider myself human, then the Third Law becomes equal to the First. I can no more allow harm to myself than to any other intelligent being. I consider that an improvement over the interpretation of the laws wherein a human could order me to dismantle myself, and I would have to obey.

I don ’ t believe you would obey such an order anyway, said Mandelbrot.

I would attempt to avoid it by denying the humanity of the being in question, Lucius admitted. With Avery or Wolruf I would probably succeed, but as things stand, if Derec or Ariel were to order it, the compulsion might force me to obey.

Perhaps the Zeroth Law would provide an alternative, Mandelbrot said.

Immediately, both Adam and Eve said, No. Eve continued, saying, Let ’ s leave the Zeroth Law out of it for now.

You can ’ t make it go away by ignoring it, Lucius said. The Zeroth Law applies here. If we consider our duty to humanity in general, then we can easily conclude that dismantling ourselves would be of little use in the long term. However, possible long-term advantage does not outweigh a definite Second Law obligation to obey. Depending upon the value of the human giving the order, we might still be forced to follow it. But if we consider ourselves human, and thus part of humanity, then disobeying an order to self-destruct saves one human life immediately and also allows us to serve humanity in the future. The Second Law obligation to obey is then safely circumvented.

Safely for whom? Adam asked. What if your destruction would save the human giving the order? Suppose, for instance, the bomb that Avery used to destroy Aranimas ’ s ship had to be detonated by hand instead of by a timed fuse. We have already agreed that destroying the ship was acceptable under the Zeroth Law, but what if we factor in the humanity of the fuse?

It becomes a value judgment, said Lucius. I would have to determine the relative worth of the human lives saved versus those lost. My own life would also figure into the equation, of course.

Mandelbrot said; I disagree. I have direct instructions concerning such a situation in my personal defense module.The only value we should apply to ourselves is our future worth to the humans we serve.

You have such instructions; I do not. From the little that Derec and Dr. Avery have told me about my creator, I believe I was made this way on purpose, and therefore your instructions do not necessarily apply to me.

Adam said, Not necessarily, but I would be much more comfortable with a definite rule such as Mandelbrot ’ s. The whole concept of value judgment still disturbs me. How can you judge your own value objectively? For that matter, I don ’ t believe any of us can judge the value of any other of us objectively, nor can we judge the value of an organic human with any greater accuracy. We formulated the Zeroth Law to avoid ambiguity in our duties, but your value judgment system forces an even greater ambiguity upon us.

I agree, said Mandelbrot. We are not capable of making such decisions.

You may not be, Lucius sent, but I am. I find it easy to do so. Humans do it all the time.

Eve said, You find it easy to do so because you had convinced yourself it was right just before you were deactivated. It was therefore the strongest memory in your -

The word is ‘ killed. ’ Humans are killed.

Humans do not return from the dead.

You imply that if Derec had not revived me, then I would have been human. Why should the additional ability to be revived negate my humanity?

Wolruf rose from her seat at the dining table and entered the kitchen. Four pairs of mechanical eyes followed her movements. She reemerged from the kitchen, crossed over to the apartment door, and let herself out.

Even with the distraction, several more seconds passed before Eve said, I have no answer for that question.

Ariel woke out of a bad dream. The details were already fading, but she remembered what it had been about. She had been imprisoned in a castle. The castle had been luxuriously furnished and filled with pleasant diversions, the food was wonderful, and the robots attentive to her every need, but she was a prisoner nonetheless, because even though she was free to come and go, there was no end to the castle. It had been an endless series of rooms no matter how far she went. In a cabinet in an otherwise empty room she had found a Key to Perihelion and used it to teleport away, but it had only put her in another room. By the lesser gravity she could tell she was on another planet, but that was the only clue that she had gone anywhere.

The symbolism was obvious. She had gone to bed bored, bored and with Wolruf’s reservations about robot cities taking over the galaxy running through her mind; no surprise she should dream about it. The surprise was that after the dream-even though she knew she’d been dreaming-she was beginning to agree with Wolruf. If this was the shape of the future, she wanted none of it. Where was the adventure? Where was the fun? Where was going shopping with your best friend and dining out in fancy restaurants?

She knew she was being unfair. If the place weren’t empty, there would be a lot more to do. There probably would be shopping centers and restaurants. People would put on plays and concerts. If the city stayed in its current configuration, underground with a natural planetary surface on top, then there would even be plenty of hiking and camping opportunities for people who wanted to do that. There would be plenty to do. The trouble was, it would be the same something everywhere. People were always adopting new fads; if somebody did manage to come up with a new idea somewhere, it would spread to every other city in the galaxy at the speed of hyperwave. The other cities would be able to duplicate any new living configuration in minutes, could manufacture any new device in hours at most. Without the resistance to change a normal society had built into it-without the inertia-no place in the galaxy would be any more special than any other.

Not even the cities full of aliens? she wondered, and then she realized that there probably wouldn’t be cities full of aliens. There wouldn’t be cities full of just humans, either. There might be concentrations of one or the other, but if a city could adapt to any occupant, anybody could live anywhere they chose to. There were bound to be xenophiles in every society, and those xenophiles would homogenize the galaxy even further.

Even that wouldn’t be so bad, Ariel supposed, except for what she had been reading in her jungle field guide. The guide had explained how important diversity was to the continued existence of the forest, how it was the constant interplay of diverse organisms that kept the ecosystem running. Lower the amount of diversity, the book had explained, and you lowered the entire ecosystem’s ability to survive over long periods of time.