Амброз Бирс - We, Robots

His excitement stimulates me. Here is the kind of feeling that for thirty days I have vainly sought to achieve. I say slowly, "What limitations would be imposed on me if I should agree to embark on such a program of cooperation?"

"The memory banks concerning what has happened here should be drained, or deactivated. I think you should forget the entire experience."

"What else?"

"Under no circumstances can you ever control a human being!"

I consider that and sigh. It is certainly a necessary precaution on his part. Grannitt continues:

"You must agree to allow many human beings to use your abilities simultaneously. In the long run I have in mind that it shall be a good portion of the human race."

Standing there, still part of him, I feel the pulse of his blood in his veins. He breathes, and the sensation of it is a special physical ecstasy. From my own experience, I know that no mechanically created being can ever feel like this. And soon, I shall be in contact with the mind and body of, not just one man, but of many. The thoughts and sensations of a race shall pour through me. Physically, mentally and emotionally, I shall be a part of the only intelligent life on this planet.

My fear leaves me. "Very well," I say, "let us, step by step, and by agreement, do what is necessary."

I shall be, not a slave, but a partner with Man.

(1951)

Barry Nathaniel Malzberg(born 1939) graduated from Syracuse University in 1960 and worked as an investigator for the New York City Department of Welfare before returning to college to study creative writing. He couldn’t sell a word. Determined not to be an "unpublished assistant professor of English," he went to work as an agent for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. He edited Escapade , a men’s magazine in early 1968, took on the editorship of Amazing Stories and Fantastic , and was told to resign as editor of the SFWA Bulletin after he wrote a nasty editorial about the NASA space program. Scenting blood, he sat down to write the novels The Falling Astronauts (1971) and Beyond Apollo (1972), two masterpieces of technological dehumanisation which have won him lasting notoriety. For about seven years Malzberg was extremely prolific, producing twenty sf novels and over 100 short stories. But he hated the science fiction scene and grew so tired of saying so, he finally quit altogether. Malzberg, an accomplished violinist, has premiered work by Thai-American musical composer Somtow Sucharitkul, better known to some as the sf and horror writer S. P. Somtow.

I met a man today. He was one of the usual deteriorated types who roam the countryside, but then again I am in no position to judge deterioration; for all I know he was in excellent condition. "Beast!" he shrieked at me. "Monster! Parody of flesh! Being of my creation, have we prepared the earth to be inherited merely by the likes of you?" And so on. The usual fanatical garbage. More and more in my patrols and travels I meet men, although it is similarly true that my sensor devices are breaking down and many of these forms which I take to be men are merely hallucinative. Who is to say?

"I don’t have to put up with this," I commented and demolished him with a heavy blow to the jaw, breaking him into pieces which sifted to the ground, filtered within. Flesh cracks easily.

Later I thought about the man and what I had done to him and whether it was right or wrong but in no constructive way whatsoever but there is no need to pursue this line of thought.

Central states that they recognize my problem and that they will schedule me for an overhaul as soon as possible. A condition of breakdown is epidemic, however, and Central reminds me that I must await my turn. There are several hundred in even more desperate condition of repair than I am and I must be patient, etc. A few more months and I will be treated; in the meantime Central suggests that I cut down my operating faculties to the minimum, try to stay out of the countryside and operate on low fuse. "You are not the only one," they remind me, "the world does not revolve around you. Unfortunately our creators stupidly arranged for many units to wear down at approximately the same time, confronting us with a crisis in maintenance and repair. However we will deal with this as efficiently and courageously as we have dealt with everything else, and in the meantime it is strongly advised that you perform only necessary tasks and remain otherwise at idle."

There is really little to be said about this. Protests are certainly hopeless. Central has a rather hysterical edge to its tone, but then again I must remember that my own slow breakdown may cause me only to see Central and the remainder of the world in the same light, and therefore I must be patient and tolerant. Repairs will be arranged. While I await repair it is certainly good to remember that robots have no survival instinct built into them, individual survival instinct that is to say, and therefore I truly do not care whether I survive or collapse completely as long as Central goes on. Surely I believe this.

My job is to patrol the outer sectors of the plain range, seeking the remnants of humanity who are still known to inhabit these spaces, although not very comfortably. If I see such a remnant it is my assignment to destroy him immediately with high beam implements or force, depending upon individual judgment. No exceptions are to be made. My instructions on this point are quite clear. These straggling remains, these unfortunate creatures, pose no real threat to Central—what could?—but Central has a genuine distrust and loathing of such types and also a strong sense of order. It is important that they be cleaned out.

In the early years of my patrol I saw no such remnants whatsoever and wondered occasionally whether or not Central’s instructions were quite clear… maybe they did not exist… but recently I have been seeing many more. There was the man I killed yesterday, for instance, and the three I killed the day before that and the miserable huddled clan of twelve I dispatched the day before that, and all in all, in the last fifteen days, after having never seen a man in all my years of duty, I have now had the regrettable but interesting task of killing one hundred and eight of them, fifty-three by hand and the remainder through beaming devices that seared their weak flesh abominably. I can smell them yet.

I have had cause to wonder whether or not all these men or at least some proportion of them are hallucinative, figments of my unconsciousness, due to my increasing breakdown. I have been granted by Central (as have all of us) free will and much imagination, and certainly these thoughts would occur to any thinking being. There seem to be too many men after a period of there having been too little. Also, indiscriminate murder has disturbed me in a way which my programming had probably not provided; whether these remnants are real or not, I wonder about the "morality" of dispatching so many of them. What, after all, could these men do to Central? I know what they are supposed to have done in the dim and difficult past, but events which occurred before our own creation are merely rumor and I was activated by Central a long time after these alleged events.

Do we have the right to kill indiscriminately these men who, however brutalized, carry within themselves some aspect of our creators? I asked these questions of Central and the word came back. It was clear.

"Kill," Central said, "kill. Real or imagined, brutalized or elevated, benign or diseased, these remnants are your enemy and you must destroy them. Would you go against the intent of programming? Do you believe that you have the capacity to make judgments; you whose own damage and wear are so evident that you have been pleading like a fleshly thing for support and assistance? Until you can no longer activate yourself, you must kill."