Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

"That's ancient history. The world doesn't have enough human workers to fill all the available jobs as it is, and everybody knows it."

"Nevertheless, the labor people will always jump in to prevent any kind of innovation that might further the concept of robot rights. If robots become free entities, they might be able to claim job seniority-union membership-all kinds of things of that sort."

"Ridiculous."

"Yes, I know, Mrs. Charney. But they are filing a petition of intervention, all the same. And they are not the only ones who are."

"Who else?" said Little Miss in an ominous voice.

"The United States Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation," Feingold said.

"They are?"

"Is it so surprising? They are the world's sole manufacturers of robots, Mrs. Charney. Robots are their main product. Their product, let it be said, with some stress on that word-and products are inanimate things. The U.S.R.M.M. people are disturbed at the idea that anyone might come to consider robots to be anything more than that. If Andrew's petition succeeds in gaining freedom for robots, U.S.R.M.M. probably fears, then it may succeed in gaining other rights for them as well-civil rights, human rights. So of course they will want to fight against that. Just as a manufacturer of shovels and pick-axes regards its products as mere inanimate tools, not as persons, Mrs. Charney, and would be likely to oppose any legal ruling that gave its shovels and pick-axes any sort of civil rights which might lead the shovels and pick-axes to attempt to control the way they are manufactured, warehoused, and sold."

"Nonsense. Absolute nonsense!" Little Miss cried, with a ferocity in her tone that was worthy of Sir.

"I agree," Stanley Feingold said diplomatically. "But the interventions have been filed, all the same. And there are others besides these two. We also find ourselves faced with objections from-"

"Never mind," said Little Miss. "I don't want to hear the rest of the list. Just go in there and refute every single stupid argument that these reactionaries put forth."

"You know I'll do my best, Mrs. Charney," Feingold said.

But there wasn't a great deal of confidence in the lawyer's tone.

The next development came just a week before the trial. Little Miss called Feingold and said, "Stanley, we've just received notice that television crews will be coming to my father's house on Monday to set up the special wiring for the hearing."

"Yes, of course, Mrs. Charney. It's quite routine."

"Is the hearing going to be held at my father's house?"

"Andrew's deposition will be taken there, yes."

"And the rest of the trial?"

"It isn't a trial, exactly, Mrs. Charney."

"The rest of the proceedings, then. Where will they take place? In Judge Kramer's courtroom?"

"The usual procedure," Feingold said, "is for each concerned party involved in the action to participate electronically. The judge will receive all the inputs in his chambers."

"No one goes to court in person any more?"

"Rarely, Mrs. Charney. Very rarely."

"But it does still happen?"

"As I said, very rarely. The world is so decentralized now, people have spread out over such great distances-it's so much easier to do these things electronically."

"I want this done in a courtroom."

Feingold gave her a quizzical look. "Is there any special reason why-"

"Yes. I want the judge to be able to see Andrew face to face, to listen to his actual voice, to form a close-range opinion of his character. I don't want him to think of Andrew as some sort of impersonal machine whose voice and image are coming to him over telephone lines. Besides which, I very much don't want my father to have to put up with the stress and turmoil of technical crews invading his privacy to wire his house for whatever kind of transmission is necessary."

Feingold nodded. He looked troubled. "In order to assure a courtroom hearing at this late date, Mrs. Charney, I would have to file a writ of-"

"File it, then."

"The intervening parties will certainly object to the extra expense and inconvenience involved."

"Let them stay home from the hearings, then. I wouldn't want them put to the slightest inconvenience, not for all the world. But Andrew and I intend to be in that courtroom."

"Andrew and you, Mrs. Charney?"

"Did you think I was going to stay home that day?"

And so it came to pass that the appropriate writ was filed, and the intervening parties grumbled but could raise no sustainable objection-for it was still anyone's right to have his day in court, electronic testimony being by no means mandatory-and on the appointed day Andrew and Little Miss at last presented themselves at the surprisingly modest chambers of Judge Kramer of the Fourth Circuit of the Regional Court for the long-awaited hearing on the petition that was, for purely technical reasons, listed on the docket as Martin vs. Martin.

Stanley Feingold accompanied them. The courtroom-located in a tired-looking old building that might have gone back to Twentieth Century times-was surprisingly small and unglamorous, a modest little room with a plain desk at one end for the judge, a few uncomfortable chairs for those rare people who insisted on appearing in person, and an alcove that contained the electronic playback devices.

The only other human beings present were Judge Kramer himself-unexpectedly youthful, dark-haired, with quick glinting eyes-and a lawyer named James Van Buren, who represented all the intervening parties gathered into a single class. The various intervening parties themselves were not present. Their interventions would be shown on the screen. There was nothing they could do to overturn the writ Feingold had secured, but they had no desire to make the trip to court themselves. Almost no one ever did. So they had waived their right to be physically present in the courtroom and had filed the usual electronic briefs.

The positions of the intervenors were set forth first. There were no surprises in them.

The spokesman for the Regional Labor Federation did not place much explicit stress on the prospect for greater competition between humans and robots for jobs, if Andrew were granted his freedom. He took a broader, loftier way of raising the issue:

"Throughout all of history, since the first ape-like men chipped the edges of pebbles into the chisels and scrapers and hammers that were the first tools, we have realized that we are a species whose destiny it is to control our environment and to enhance our control of it through mechanical means. But gradually, as the complexity and capability of our tools have increased, we have surrendered much of our own independence-have become dependent on our own tools, that is, in a way that has weakened our power to cope with circumstances without them. And now, finally, we have invented a tool so capable, so adept at so many functions, that it seems to have an almost human intelligence. I speak of the robot, of course. Certainly we admire the ingenuity of our roboticists, we applaud the astonishing versatility of their products. But today we are confronted with a new and frightening possibility, which is that we have actually created our own successors, that we have built a machine that does not know it is a machine, that demands to be recognized as an autonomous individual with the rights and privileges of a human beingand which, by virtue of its inherent mechanical superiority, its physical durability and strength, its cunningly designed positronic brain, its bodily near-immortality, might indeed, once it has attained those rights and privileges, begin to regard itself as our master! How ironic! To have built a tool so good that it takes command of its builders! To be supplanted by our own machinery-to be made obsolete by it, to be relegated to the scrapheap of evolution-"