Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man

"Yes. The trouble is that this time we'd have to go before the World Legislature, not the Regional one, and get a law passed that will define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't be very optimistic about that."

"I'm paying you to be optimistic."

"Yes. Yes, of course, Andrew."

"Good. We're agreed, then, that this can be accomplished. The only question is how. Where do you think we ought to begin?"

DeLong said, after only the briefest of hesitations, "One good starting point would be for you to have a conversation with some influential member of the Legislature."

"Any particular one?"

"The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps."

"An excellent idea. Can you arrange a meeting for me right away, Simon?"

"If you'd like. But you scarcely need me to serve as your intermediary, Andrew. Someone as widely known and honored as you can easily-"

"No. You arrange it." (It didn't even occur to Andrew that he was giving a flat order to a human being. He had grown accustomed to that on the Moon.) "I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Charney is backing me in this to the hilt."

"Well, now-"

"To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I might almost say that the firm in its present form would not exist but for the work that I have provided for it to do. I brought that work here because in times past I have been very well served by certain members of this firm, and I have felt myself under an obligation to reciprocate. I am under no obligation to Feingold and Charney now. It is rather the other way around, now, and I am calling in my debts."

DeLong said, "I'll do whatever I can."

THE CHAIRMAN of the Science and Technology Committee of the World Legislature came from the East Asian Region and she was a woman: a small, delicately built, almost elfin woman who very likely was not nearly as fragile as she appeared. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments (which obscured what she wanted obscured by sheer dazzle alone) gave her the look of being nothing more than an elegant little trinket wrapped in plastic. In the splendor of her huge high-ceilinged office on the eighty-fourth floor of the magnificent green-glass tower that was the New York headquarters of the World Legislature she appeared tiny, almost insignificant. Yet she radiated a look of great competence, efficiency, forcefulness.

She said, "I sympathize with your wish to have full human rights. As perhaps you know, there have been times in history when great segments of the human population have been deprived of their own human rights, and have fought furiously-and ultimately successfully-to regain them. But those people suffered greatly under tyrannies of one kind or another before they won their freedom. You, on the other hand, have enjoyed a successful and rewarding life of unending achievement and reward. I imagine you are a widely envied person. So tell me, please: what rights can you possibly want that you do not already have?"

"As simple a thing as my right to life," Andrew replied. " A robot can be dismantled at any time."

"A human being can be executed at any time."

"And when, I ask you, was the last time that such an execution took place?"

"Why-" Li-hsing shrugged. "Of course, the death penalty is not currently employed in our civilization, and it hasn't been for a long time. But certainly it's been imposed to an enormous extent throughout history. And there's no fundamental reason why it couldn't be reinstated next year, if the citizens and the Legislature saw fit to do so."

"All right. You can all go back to cutting each other's heads off, or giving each other lethal jolts of electricity, or whatever, at a moment's notice, if you like. But the fact remains that no human being has been put to death by legal execution in so many years that nobody can remember the last time, and there's absolutely no agitation that I've ever heard of to start performing such executions again. Whereas even now-right now, here, today-I could be ended merely by the word of a human being in authority. No trial. No appeals procedure. You yourself could ring a bell and call your security guards in and say, 'This robot has displeased me. Take him out and dismantle him.' And they would take me out and dismantle me, just like that."

"Impossible!"

"I assure you it would be perfectly legal."

"But you are the head of a great company-a person of wealth and substance and high reputation-"

"Maybe after it had been done my company would be able to sue the Legislature, then, for loss of my services. But I'd still be terminated, wouldn't I? The only laws that protect robots are property laws. If you terminate somebody else's robot unjustifiably, that person can seek damages against you, and collect the value of the robot and maybe a punitive award as well. Fine. Very fine, if you're the human being in the case who's been damaged. But if you're the robot who happened to be terminated, why, the lawsuit doesn't bring you back into existence, does it? Does it, Madam Chairman?"

"This is a mere reductio ad absurdum. No one would dream of-dismantling-you. Of terminating you."

"Perhaps not. But where is my legal protection against having it done to me?"

"I repeat: a reductio ad absurdum. You've lived for nearly two hundred years, as I understand it. Tell me: how many times during that considerable period have you ever been in danger of-termination?"

"Once, actually. I was rescued. But the order for my dismantling had already been given."

"I find that hard to believe," said Chee Li-hsing.

"It was many years ago. I was still in the metallic form, then, and had only just won my freedom."

"There. My point is proven. No one would dare to touch you nowadays!"

"But I have no more legal protection now than I did then. I remain a robot in the eyes of the law. And if someone chose to have me dismantled, I would have no recourse-" Andrew broke off in mid-sentence. This line of reasoning was getting him nowhere. It was too far-fetched, he saw. " All right. Perhaps no one would attempt to harm me. But even so-even so-" Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading to show, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. And at last he gave in entirely. "What it really comes down to is this: I very much want to be a man. I have wanted it more and more through six generations of human beings, as the full capacity and range of my mind gradually became apparent to me, and now the urge is overwhelming in me. I can't bear to think of myself as a robot any more-or to have others think of me that way."

Chee Li-hsing looked up at Andrew out of darkly sympathetic eyes.

"So that is it," she said. "As simple as that."

"Simple?"

"A desire to belong to the human race. A powerful yearning-no matter how irrational. It's very human of you to have such feelings, Andrew."

"Thank you." He wasn't certain whether she had meant to patronize him. He hoped not.

Li-hsing said, "I can take your case before the Legislature, yes. And I suppose the Legislature could indeed pass a law declaring you to be a human being. The Legislature has the power to pass a law declaring a stone statue to be defined as a human being, if it cared to. But the statue would still be a statue, nonetheless. And you-"

"No. It's not the same thing. A statue is an inanimate thing of stone, whereas I-I-"

"Of course. It is different. I understand that. But the Legislators may not see it that way. They will not pass any laws turning statues into living things, and I doubt very much that they'd be willing to pass a law turning a robot into a human, either, no matter how eloquently I present your case. Legislators are as human as the rest of the population and I need hardly point out to you that there are certain elements of suspicion and prejudice against robots that have existed since the first robots were developed."