Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

A wary look entered DeLong's eyes. Plainly he had no idea where Andrew was heading with all this, and it was the natural caution of a lawyer who did not quite understand yet the troublesome new direction in which an important client seemed to be veering.

"How unusual that must have seemed, Andrew," he said, in a flat, remote way.

"Unusual, yes. But not displeasing. Not displeasing at all, Simon."

"Yes. I'm sure that's so. How interesting, Andrew."

Andrew said sharply, "Well, now I'm back on Earth and I'm a robot again. Not even a second-class citizen-not a citizen at all, Simon. Nothing. I don't care for it. If I can be treated as a human being while I'm on the Moon, why not here?"

Without varying his careful, cautious tone DeLong said, "But you are treated as a human being here, my dear Andrew! You have a fine home and title to it is vested in your name. You are the head of a great research laboratory. Your income is so huge it staggers the mind, and no one would question your right to it. When you come here to the offices of Feingold and Charney, the senior partner himself is at your beck and call, as you see. In every de facto way you have long since won acceptance for yourself as a human being, on Earth and on the Moon, by humans and by robots. What more can you want?"

"To be a human being de facto isn't enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to have the legal status and rights of one. I want to be a human being de jure. "

"Ah," DeLong said. He looked extremely uncomfortable. " Ah. I see."

"Do you, Simon?"

"Of course. Don't you think I know the whole background of the Andrew Martin story? Years ago, Paul Charney spent hours going over your files with me-showing your step-by-step evolution, beginning as a metallic robot of the-NDR series, was it?-and going on to the transformation into your android identity. And of course I've been apprised of each new upgrading of your present body. Then the details of the legal evolution as well as the physical-the winning of your freedom, and the other civil rights that followed. I'd be a fool, Andrew, if I didn't realize that it's been your goal from the start to turn yourself into a human being."

"Perhaps not from the start, Simon. I think there was a long period when I was content simply to be a superior robot-a period when I denied even to myself any awareness of the full capabilities of my brain. But I deny it no longer. I'm the equal of any human being in any ability you could name, and superior to most. I want the full legal status that I'm entitled to."

"Entitled?"

"Entitled, yes."

DeLong pursed his lips, toyed nervously with one earlobe, ran his hand down the middle of his scalp where a swath of thick black hair had been mowed away.

"Entitled," he said again, after a moment or two. "Now that's another matter altogether, Andrew. We have to face the undeniable fact that, however much you may be like a human being in intelligence and capabilities and even appearance, nevertheless you simply are not a human being."

"In what way not?" Andrew demanded. "I have the shape of a human being and bodily organs equivalent to some of those that a prosthetized human being has. I have the mental ability of a human being-a highly intelligent one. I have contributed artistically, literarily, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?"

DeLong flushed. "Forgive me, Andrew: but I have to remind you that you are not part of the human gene pool. You are outside it entirely. You resemble a human being but in fact you are something else, something-artificial."

"Granted, Simon. And the people who are walking around with bodies full of prosthetic devices? Devices which, incidentally, I invented for them? Are those people not artificial at least in part?"

"In part, yes."

"Well, I'm human in part."

DeLong's eyes flashed. "Which part, Andrew?"

"Here," said Andrew. He pointed to his head. "And here." He tapped a finger against his chest. "My mind. My heart. I may be artificial, alien, inhuman so far as your strict genetic definition goes. But I'm human in every way that counts. And I can be recognized as such legally. In the old days when there were a hundred separate countries on the Earth and each one had its own complicated rules of citizenship, it was, even so, possible for a Frenchman to become English or a Japanese to become a Brazilian, simply by going through a set of legal procedures. There was nothing genetically Brazilian about the Japanese, but he became Brazilian all the same, once the law had recognized him as such. The same can be done for me. I can become a naturalized human the way people once became naturalized as citizens of countries not their own."

"You've devoted a lot of thought to all of this, haven't you, Andrew?"

"Yes. I have."

"Very ingenious. Very, very ingenious. A naturalized human being! -and what about the Three Laws, then?"

"What about them?"

"They're an innate part of your positronic brain. I need hardly remind you that they put you in a condition of permanent subservience to humans that's beyond the power of any court of law to remedy. The Three Laws can't be edited out of you, can they, Andrew?"

"True enough."

"Then they'll have to remain, won't they? And they will continue to require you to obey all humans, if necessary to lay down your life for them, to refrain from doing them any sort of harm. You may somehow be able to get yourself declared human, but you'll still be governed by built-in operating rules that no human being has ever been subject to."

Andrew nodded. " And the Japanese who became Brazilians still had skin of the Japanese color and eyelids of the Japanese type and all of the other special racial characteristics that Oriental people have and the European-descended inhabitants of Brazil do not. But under Brazilian law they were Brazilians even so. And under human law I will be human, even though I still have the Three Laws structure built into me."

"But the very presence of that structure within your brain may be deemed to disqualify you from-"

"No," Andrew said. "Why should it? The First Law simply says I mustn't injure any human being or allow one to come to harm through my inaction. Aren't you bound by the same restriction? Isn't every civilized person? The only difference is that I have no choice but to be law-abiding, whereas other human beings can opt to behave in an uncivilized way if they're willing to take their chances with the police. And then the Second Law: it requires me to obey humans, yes. But they aren't required to give me orders, and if I have full human status it might well be deemed a breach of civility for anyone to put me in a position where through my own innate makeup I would be obliged to do something against my will. That would be taking advantage of my handicap, so to speak. The fact that I have the handicap doesn't matter. There are plenty of handicapped human beings and nobody would say that they aren't human. And as for the Third Law, which prevents me from acting self-destructively, I would hardly say that that is much of a burden for a sane person to bear. And so you see, Simon-"

"Yes. Yes, Andrew, I do see." DeLong was chuckling now. "All right. You've beaten me down and I give in. You're as human as anyone needs to be: you deserve to have that confirmed in some legal way."

"Well, then, if Feingold and Charney will set about the process of-"

"Not so fast, please, Andrew. You've handed me a very tall order. Human prejudice hasn't vanished overnight, you know. There'll be tremendous opposition to any attempt we might make to get you declared human."

"I would expect so. But we've defeated tremendous opposition before, going back to the time when George Charney and his son Paul went out and won me my freedom."