Isaac Asimov - Robot City 3 - Cyborg.pdf

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Isaac Asimov's Robot City Book 3: Cyborg
ISAAC ASIMOV'S
ROBOT
CITY
BOOK 3: CYBORG
WILLIAM F. WU
Copyright © 1987
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks for help in writing this novel are due to David M. Harris,
Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Rob Chilson, Alison Telure, my parents, Dr. William
Q. Wu and Cecile F. Wu, and Plus Five Computer Services, Inc.
This novel is dedicated to
Laura J. Lehew
who always remains very special
CYBERNETIC ORGANISM
ISAAC ASIMOV
A robot is a robot and an organism is an organism.
An organism, as we all know, is built up of cells. From the molecular
standpoint, its key molecules are nucleic acids and proteins. These float in a
watery medium, and the whole has a bony support system. It is useless to go on
with the description, since we are all familiar with organisms and since we
are examples of them ourselves.
A robot, on the other hand, is (as usually pictured in science fiction) an
object, more or less resembling a human being, constructed out of strong,
rust-resistant metal. Science fiction writers are generally chary of
describing the robotic details too closely since they are not usually
essential to the story and the writers are generally at a loss how to do so.
The impression one gets from the stories, however, is that a robot is wired,
so that it has wires through which electricity flows rather than tubes through
which blood flows. The ultimate source of power is either unnamed, or is
assumed to partake of the nature of nuclear power.
What of the robotic brain?
When I wrote my first few robot stories in 1939 and 1940, I imagined a
“positronic brain” of a spongy type of platinum-iridium alloy. It was
platinum-iridium because that is a particularly inert metal and is least
likely to undergo chemical changes. It was spongy so that it would offer an
enormous surface on which electrical patterns could be formed and un-formed.
It was “positronic” because four years before my first robot story, the
positron had been discovered as a reverse kind of electron, so that
“positronic” in place of “electronic” had a delightful science-fiction sound.
Nowadays, of course, my positronic platinum-iridium brain is hopelessly
archaic. Even ten years after its invention it became outmoded. By the end of
the 1940s, we came to realize that a robot's brain must be a kind of computer.
Indeed, if a robot were to be as complex as the robots in my most recent
novels, the robot brain-computer must be every bit as complex as the human
brain. It must be made of tiny microchips no larger than, and as complex as,
brain cells.
But now let us try to imagine something that is neither organism nor robot,
but a combination of the two. Perhaps we can think of it as an organism—robot
or “orbot.” That would clearly be a poor name, for it is only “robot” with the
first two letters transposed. To say “orgabot”, instead, is to be stuck with
a rather ugly word.
We might call it a robot-organism, or a “robotanism”, which, again, is ugly,
or “roborg”. To my ears, “roborg” doesn't sound bad, but we can't have that.
Something else has arisen.
The science of computers was given the name “cybernetics” by Norbert Weiner a
generation ago, so that if we consider something that is part robot and part
organism and remember that a robot is cybernetic in nature, we might think of
the mixture as a “cybernetic organism”, or a “cyborg”. In fact, that is the
name that has stuck and is used.
To see what a cyborg might be, let's try starting with a human organism and
moving toward a robot; and when we are quite done with that, let's start with
a robot and move toward a human being.
To move from a human organism toward a robot, we must begin replacing portions
of the human organism with robotic parts. We already do that in some ways. For
instance, a good percentage of the original material of my teeth is now
metallic, and metal is, of course, the robotic substance par excellence .
The replacements don't have to be metallic, of course. Some parts of my teeth
are now ceramic in nature, and can't be told at a glance from the natural
dentine. Still, even though dentine is ceramic in appearance and even, to an
extent, in chemical structure, it was originally laid down by living material
and bears the marks of its origin. The ceramic that has replaced the dentine
shows no trace of life, now or ever.
We can go further. My breastbone, which had to be split longitudinally in an
operation a few years back, was for a time held together by metallic staples,
which have remained in place ever since. My sister-in-law has an artificial
hip-joint replacement. There are people who have artificial arms or legs and
such non-living limbs are being designed, as time passes on, to be ever more
complex and useful. There are people who have lived for days and even months
with artificial hearts, and many more people who live for years with
pacemakers.
We can imagine, little by little, this part and that part of the human being
replaced by inorganic materials and engineering devices. Is there any part
which we would find difficult to replace, even in imagination?
I don't think anyone would hesitate there. Replace every part of the human
being but one—the limbs, the heart, the liver, the skeleton, and so on—and the
product would remain human. It would be a human being with artificial parts,
but it would be a human being.
But what about the brain?
Surely, if there is one thing that makes us human it is the brain. If there is
one thing that makes us a human individual, it is the intensely complex
makeup, the emotions, the learning, the memory content of our particular
brain. You can't simply replace a brain with a thinking device off some
factory shelf. You have to put in something that incorporates all that a
natural brain has learned, that possesses all its memory, and that mimics its
exact pattern of working.
An artificial limb might not work exactly like a natural one, but might still
serve the purpose. The same might be true of an artificial lung, kidney, or
liver. An artificial brain, however, must be the precise replica of the brain
it replaces, or the human being in question is no longer the same human being.
It is the brain, then, that is the sticking point in going from human organism
to robot.
And the reverse?
In my story “The Bicentennial Man”, I described the passage of my robot-hero,
Andrew Martin, from robot to man. Little by little, he had himself changed,
till his every visible part was human in appearance. He displayed an
intelligence that was increasingly equivalent (or even superior) to that of a
man. He was an artist, a historian, a scientist, an administrator. He forced
the passage of laws guaranteeing robotic rights, and achieved respect and
admiration in the fullest degree.
Yet at no point could he make himself accepted as a man. The sticking point,
here, too, was his robotic brain. He found that he had to deal with that
before the final hurdle could be overcome.
Therefore, we come down to the dichotomy, body and brain. The ultimate cyborgs
are those in which the body and brain don't match. That means we can have two
classes of complete cyborgs:
a) a robotic brain in a human body, or
b) a human brain in a robotic body.
We can take it for granted that in estimating the worth of a human being (or a
robot, for that matter) we judge first by superficial appearance.
I can very easily imagine a man seeing a woman of superlative beauty and
gazing in awe and wonder at the sight. “What a beautiful woman,” he will say,
or think, and he could easily imagine himself in love with her on the spot. In
romances, I believe that happens as a matter of routine. And, of course, a
woman seeing a man of superlative beauty is surely likely to react in
precisely the same way.
If you fall in love with a striking beauty, you are scarcely likely to spend
much time asking if she (or he, of course) has any brains, or possesses a good
character, or has good judgment or kindness or warmth. If you find out
eventually that good looks are the person's only redeeming quality, you are
liable to make excuses and continue to be guided, for a time at least, by the
conditioned reflex of erotic response. Eventually, of course, you will tire of
good looks without content, but who knows how long that will take?
On the other hand, a person with a large number of good qualities who happened
to be distinctly plain might not be likely to entangle you in the first place
unless you were intelligent enough to see those good qualities so that you
might settle down to a lifetime of happiness.
What I am saying, then, is that a cyborg with a robotic brain in a human body
is going to be accepted by most, if not all, people as a human being; while a
cyborg with a human brain in a robotic body is going to be accepted by most,
if not all, people as a robot. You are, after all—at least to most people—
what you seem to be.
These two diametrically opposed cyborgs will not, however, pose a problem to
human beings to the same degree.
Consider the robotic brain in the human body and ask why the transfer should
be made. A robotic brain is better off in a robotic body since a human body is
far the more fragile of the two. You might have a young and stalwart human
body in which the brain has been damaged by trauma and disease, and you might
think, “Why waste that magnificent human body? Let's put a robotic brain in it
so that it can live out its life.”
If you were to do that, the human being that resulted would not be the
original. It would be a different individual human being. You would not be
conserving an individual but merely a specific mindless body. And a human
body, however fine, is (without the brain that goes with it) a cheap thing.
Every day, half a million new bodies come into being. There is no need to save
anyone of them if the brain is done.
On the other hand, what about a human brain in a robotic body? A human brain
doesn't last forever, but it can last up to ninety years without falling into
total uselessness. It is not at all unknown to have a ninety-year-old who is
still sharp, and capable of rational and worthwhile thought. And yet we also
know that many a superlative mind has vanished after twenty or thirty years
because the body that housed it (and was worthless in the absence of the
mind) had become uninhabitable through trauma or disease. There would be a
strong impulse then to transfer a perfectly good (even superior) brain into a
robotic body to give it additional decades of useful life.
Thus, when we say “cyborg” we are very likely to think, just about
exclusively, of a human brain in a robotic body—and we are going to think of
that as a robot.
We might argue that a human mind is a human mind, and that it is the mind that
counts and not the surrounding support mechanism, and we would be right. I'm
sure that any rational court would decide that a human-brain cyborg would have
all the legal rights of a man. He could vote, he could be enslaved, and so on.
And yet suppose a cyborg were challenged: “Prove that you have a human brain
and not a robotic brain, before I let you have human rights.”
The easiest way for a cyborg to offer the proof is for him to demonstrate that
he is not bound by the Three Laws of Robotics. Since the Three Laws enforce
socially acceptable behavior, this means he must demonstrate that he is
capable of human (i.e. nasty) behavior. The simplest and most unanswerable
argument is simply to knock the challenger down, breaking his jaw in the
process, since no robot could do that. (In fact, in my story “Evidence”,
which appeared in 1947, I use this as a way of proving someone is not a robot—
but in that case there was a catch.)
But if a cyborg must continually offer violence in order to prove he has a
human brain, that will not necessarily win him friends.
For that matter, even if he is accepted as human and allowed to vote and to
rent hotel rooms and do all the other things human beings can do, there must
nevertheless be some regulations that distinguish between him and complete
human beings. The cyborg would be stronger than a man, and his metallic fists
could be viewed as lethal weapons. He might still be forbidden to strike a
human being, even in self-defense. He couldn't engage in various sports on an
equal basis with human beings, and so on.
Ah, but need a human brain be housed in a metallic robotic body? What about
housing it in a body made of ceramic and plastic and fiber so that it looks
and feels like a human body—and has a human brain besides?
But you know, I suspect that the cyborg will still have his troubles. He'll be
different. No matter how small the difference is, people will seize upon it.
We know that people who have human brains and full human bodies sometimes hate
each other because of a slight difference in skin pigmentation, or a slight
variation in the shape of the nose, eyes, lips, or hair.
We know that people who show no difference in any of the physical
characteristics that have come to represent a cause for hatred, may yet be at
daggers-drawn over matters that are not physical at all, but cultural-
differences in religion, or in political outlook, or in place of birth, or in
language, or in just the accent of a language.
Let's face it. Cyborgs will have their difficulties, no matter what.
CHAPTER 1
THE KEY TO PERIHELION
Derec sighed and ran his hand through his brush-cut sandy hair. “Katherine, I
don’t know if this stupid computer knows who has the Key to Perihelion or not.
Anyhow, if it does, it won’t tell me. I’ve asked it every way I can think
of.” He swiveled his chair away from the computer console to face her.
Katherine looked down at him from where she stood, and shook her head in
apparent disgust. “I didn’t know computers could be stupid,” she said
pointedly.
“Well, this one is,” he muttered lamely, feeling his face grow hot. “Look if
someone else programmed a higher priority of secrecy into the computer, it
won’t answer any questions it was forbidden to answer. I can’t do anything
about that.” He was glad he was seated. She was a bit taller than he, though
he was—he hoped—still growing. He guessed that she was a year or two older
than he was, but that was as uncertain as the rest of her identity...and his.
Derec sprang out of his chair to put some distance between them and started
pacing around the room. Through his manipulation of the computer, he had
ordered the builder robots of Robot City to continue developing the quarters
he and Katherine shared. They had constructed a bedroom for each of them, a
kitchen area, and a console for the computer access equipment he had put
together himself. Now he strode around the perimeter of the office, burning up
nervous energy.
The apartment was hexagonal, and the furniture was shaped from the interior
surface. Light glowed from the ceiling itself in a pleasant, soft diffusion.
The room walls now obscured the elegant shape of the quarters, which resembled
the interior of a crystal, but he and Katherine were more comfortable than
before, and more independent.
Ever since Derec had stopped Robot City from its automatic, frantic, and self-
destructive growth, they had been living in a city that almost resembled a
normal one. Construction now continued at a steady pace, within the capacity
of the city to adjust as it grew. With the Laws of Robotics in effect, the two
humans had a comfortable and safe existence here now.
The First Law of Robotics is: “A robot may not injure a human being, or,
through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
“Look, Derec,” said Katherine. “We both want to get off this planet, I guess.
At the moment, we aren’t suffering here. Sure, if we had a ship, we’d be gone
by now. But as long as that Key is our only chance to get away, we simply have
to find it.”
Her tone was milder now, Derec noticed, but he just spun around, turning his
back on her, and went on pacing. Ever since he had found out that she was not
really Katherine Ariel Burgess, as she had told him she was, he had known he
could not trust her. Or, at least, he could only believe her when she was
being sarcastic or condescending. When she sounded pleasant, he had to figure
out what she was up to.
Besides, he still suffered from his amnesia. It was a little too awkward to
demand her identity when he couldn’t even figure out his own. In fact, even
raising the subject was embarrassing. The situation left him perpetually
uneasy. The best place to get away from it was in the computer.
He moved past her and threw himself back into the chair. Then he started
working on the keyboard before he had any idea of what he should do. He just
tried to look busy.
He had declined to construct a VoiceCommand in his terminal, since he felt it
a barrier between him and the labyrinth of the central computer. The computer
was comprised of the top seven planner robots, or Supervisors, in the city,
joined by their communication links. The central core could only be accessed
in the mysterious office inside the Compass Tower, but he had had no use for
it since instructing it to discontinue the excessive building and
shapechanging of the city. Using only his keyboard to access the computer
allowed him to bring up more raw data and to streamline the whole system when
he had the time. Now it also allowed him to tinker silently.
After a moment of concentrating, his discomfort was gone. When he spoke, his
voice was casual. “Actually, this computer really is kind of stupid. Not the
individual Supervisors, of course, but the way they combine their
information. The shapechanging loaded so much data into them so fast that they
recorded it without organizing it. The computer has become too complex to work
well. It needs a lot more streamlining to become efficient.”

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