Амброз Бирс - We, Robots

"ADAN’s reasoning seems incontrovertible, at least insofar as it pertains to me: it was I, after all, who created him. In his theodicy I am the Creator. In point of fact, I produced that world (serial No. 47) with the aid of the ADONAI IX program and created the personoid gemmae with a modification of the program JAHVE VI. These initial entities gave rise to three hundred subsequent generations. In point of fact, I have not communicated to them—in the form of an axiom—either these data or my existence beyond the limits of their world. In point of fact, they arrived at the possibility of my existence only by inference, on the basis of conjecture and hypothesis. In point of fact, when I create intelligent beings, I do not feel myself entitled to demand of them any sort of privileges—love, gratitude, or even services of some kind or other. I can enlarge their world or reduce it, speed up its time or slow it down, alter the mode and means of their perception; I can liquidate them, divide them, multiply them, transform the very ontological foundation of their existence. I am thus omnipotent with respect to them, but, indeed, from this it does not follow that they owe me anything. As far as I am concerned, they are in no way beholden to me. It is true that I do not love them. Love does not enter into it at all, though I suppose some other experimenter might possibly entertain that feeling for his personoids. As I see it, this does not in the least change the situation—not in the least. Imagine for a moment that I attach to my BIX 310 092 an enormous auxiliary unit, which will be a ‘hereafter.’ One by one I let pass through the connecting channel and into the unit the ‘souls’ of my personoids, and there I reward those who believed in me, who rendered homage unto me, who showed me gratitude and trust, while all the others, the ‘ungodlies,’ to use the personoid vocabulary, I punish—e.g., by annihilation or else by torture. (Of eternal punishment I dare not even think—that much of a monster I am not!) My deed would undoubtedly be regarded as a piece of fantastically shameless egotism, as a low act of irrational vengeance—in sum, as the final villainy in a situation of total dominion over innocents. And these innocents will have against me the irrefutable evidence of logic, which is the aegis of their conduct. Everyone has the right, obviously, to draw from the personetic experiments such conclusions as he considers fitting. Dr. Ian Combay once said to me, in a private conversation, that I could, after all, assure the society of personoids of my existence. Now, this I most certainly shall not do. For it would have all the appearance to me of soliciting a sequel—that is, a reaction on their part. But what exactly could they do or say to me, that I would not feel the profound embarrassment, the painful sting of my position as their unfortunate Creator? The bills for the electricity consumed have to be paid quarterly, and the moment is going to come when my university superiors demand the ‘wrapping up’ of the experiment—that is, the disconnecting of the machine, or, in other words, the end of the world. That moment I intend to put off as long as humanly possible. It is the only thing of which I am capable, but it is not anything I consider praiseworthy. It is, rather, what in common parlance is generally called ‘dirty work.’ Saying this, I hope that no one will get any ideas. But if he does, well, that is his business."

(1979)

Adam Charles Roberts(born 1965) is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway College in London. The year 2000 saw him launch a twin career as a science fiction novelist (with Salt ) and critic (with Science Fiction ; a second edition was published in 2006). In 2018 he was elected Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. He has been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award three times. His latest novel is The Black Prince (2018), adapted from an original script by Anthony Burgess. In conversation with Christos Callow for the magazine Strange Horizons in 2013, Roberts explained, "I like to laugh, I like to make other people laugh, if I can. And more, it seems to me, the English novel specifically is a comic mode, which is to say, the novel in England comes out of Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens and writers who were primarily setting out to make their readers laugh. For an English writer to turn his or her back on that seems to me to miss some of the strengths of writing in this larger tradition."

A pale blue eye. ‘What is my name?’

‘You are Adam.’

He considered this. ‘Am I the first?’

The person laughed at this. Laughter. See also: chuckles, clucking, percussive exhalations iterated. See also: tears, hiccoughs, car-alarm. Click, click.

‘Am I,’ Adam asks, examining himself, his steel-blue arms, his gleaming torso, ‘a robot?’

‘Certainly.’ The person talking with Adam was a real human being, with the pulse at his neck and the rheum in his eye. An actual human, dressed in a green shirt and green trousers, both made of a complex fabric that adjusted its fit in hard-to-analyse ways, sometimes billowing out, sometimes tightening against the person’s body. ‘This is your place.’

Wavelengths bristled together like the packed line of an Elizabethan neck-ruff. The sky so full of light that it was brimming and spilling over the rim of the horizon. White and gold. Strands of grass-like myriad-trimmed fibre-optic cables.

‘Is it a garden?’

‘It’s a city too; and a plain. It’s everything.’

Adam Robot looked and saw that this was all true. His pale blue, steel -blue eyes took in the expanse of walled garden, and beyond it the dome, white as ice, and the rills of flowing water bluer than water should be, going curl by curl through fields greener than fields should be.

‘Is this real?’ Adam asked.

‘That,’ said the person, ‘is a good question. Check it out, why don’t you? Have a look around. Go anywhere you like, do anything at all. But, you see that pole?’

In the middle of the garden was an eight-metre steel pole. The sunlight made interesting blotchy diamonds of light on its surface. At the top was a blue object, a jewel: the sun washing cyan and blue-grape and sapphire colours from it.

‘I see the pole.’

‘At the top is a jewel. You are not allowed to access it.’

‘What is it?’

‘A good question. Let me tell you. You are a robot.’

‘I am.’

‘Put it this way: you have been designed down from humanity, if you see what I mean. The designers started with a human being, and then subtracted qualities until we had arrived at you.’

‘I am more durable,’ said Adam, accessing data from his inner network. ‘I am stronger.’

‘But those are negligible qualities,’ explained the human being. ‘Soul, spirit, complete self-knowledge, independence – freedom – all those qualities. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘They’re all in that jewel. Do you understand that?’

Adam considered. ‘How can they be in the jewel?’

‘They just are. I’m telling you. OK?’

‘I understand.’

‘Now. You can do what you like in this place. Explore anywhere. Do anything. Except. You are not permitted to retrieve the purple jewel from that pole. That is forbidden to you. You may not so much as touch it. Do you understand?’

‘I have a question,’ said Adam.

‘So?’

‘If this is a matter of interdiction, why not programme it into my software?’

‘A good question.’

‘If you do not wish me to examine the jewel, then you should programme that into my software and I will be unable to disobey.’