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Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews Cont......
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I, Robot; and I Iike it!
by Mark
I, Robot by Issac Asimov; The Humanoids By Jack Williamson; and Society
of the Mind by Eric Harry.
I love a story about artificial intelligence. In fact if I hadn’t already reviewed The Matrix
in another review I would have thrown it in this mix as well. After reading I, Robot,
The Humanoids, and Society of the Mind, I came to the conclusion that in the
broadest view they all told the same story and therefore should all be discussed
together. All three have the premise of the birth of artificial intelligence, intentionally
created by humans with specific rules by which it must adhere. In each case there
are problems when the machine intelligence doesn’t have the ability to interpret the
rules and adapt to ambiguous situations. The result is mayhem. The artificial
intelligence is free and the humans are relatively weak to stop it since ai has a fast
thinking mind and a space age body that flesh and bone are no match for. The
dramatic irony is conveyed in each story in that problems arise because the specific
rules that get humans in trouble are those that are there to serve and protect us.
That’s the broadest view at which the differences in these stories are obscured by their
similarities. The fine structure reveals three different, highly entertaining science
fiction stories.
I, Robot is not actually a novel. It’s a series of short stories, some of which are linked
by common characters. The most famous story in I, Robot is “Robbie”. This is the
story of a little girl’s attachment for her nanny/Robot and the meddling interference of
her mother who tries to break up the relationship. The mother’s goal is simply to
encourage her daughter to form normal attachments to other children which in her
eyes is inhibited by the child’s love of her robot. The story is beautifully written and
you realize you are reading a new idea when you recognize that the robot actually
loves the child as well. The revelation that your microprocessor can actually have
human like emotion was certainly a new idea at the time that Asimov wrote it in the
first half of the last century. As a side note, the recent movie “Bicentennial Man” was
reportedly grown from the seed of “Robbie” . I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t
confirm this. Subsequent stories in the collection are about the so called three laws of
Robotics that are meant to define the relationship of these independent robotic
intelligences to their human masters and to protect the humans. The fact that humans
feel they need protection from these nascent minds tells you that we probably
shouldn’t be messing with them. But this is the dawn of the technical society and
perhaps there is prescience in the dilemma. Several stories in the collection revolve
around the travels of a pair of robot trouble shooters who are called into action to solve
problems created by the chaos that can occur when a delinquent robot has trouble
within the scope of its three robotic laws. Delinquency in these cases is usually found
to be a poor but correct application of the laws in a very difficult situation. Other
stories in the collection are about the life of the creator of robotic intelligence, her
understanding of the three laws of robotics, and her personal life among other
roboticists.
Praising Asimov is almost presumptuous. Reading Asimov is not like reading other
literature; you aren’t imagining, you’re watching. Asimov’s style never gets in the way
of your understanding, you are never distracted by Asimov when reading his work, you
are only absorbed. Asimov writes science fiction, but he never gets into the hard
science of his story, only into the logic of a science fiction situation and its implication
for man and society.
Jack Williamson was a less famous contemporary of the “giants” of science fiction
like Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. His story “ The Humanoids” takes place in the far
future in which man has colonized other planets around other stars. Technology is far
advanced by the time mechanical men become actors. They are created by a man
who’s reason for creating them is to protect man from himself. They are provided a
“Prime Directive” which insures that all of their activities are directed towards the
protection of man and mankind. It is the ambiguous nature of this directive and its
strict application that gets mankind in trouble. First thing you know, humanoids are
busy making more humanoids (no robot sex, just wrenches and screwdrivers) in order
to logistically fulfill their mission. Humans cannot wage war on each other with
humanoids around, but they also can’t smoke, drive, even work because those are all
things that are potentially dangerous. Humans that are rebellious about this situation
are perceived by the humanoids as interfering with their prime directive and are forced
to take a drug call “Euphoride”. The drama of the story is provided by the actions of a
band of human rebels with superhuman mental abilities including clairvoyance and
teleportation. Williamson doesn’t just imbue his characters with these abilities he
creates a science fiction that explains it. He postulates new fundamental forces (like
gravity, or electromagnetism are fundamental) that allows these abilities. As far as I
know he was the first author to make teleportation a quantum mechanical effect. This
device was also employed by Greg Bear in his novel “Moving Mars” but Bear used it 50
years later.
The Humanoids doesn’t have a storybook ending. In fact you are left doubting your
human centered point of view at the end, which I think is a true testament to
Williamson’s vision. Williamson has a very lucid style, apparently influenced by
Asimov, but perhaps not quite as elegant as the master.
Society of the Mind is another interesting novel telling the story of a new artificial
intelligence with personality problems. Eric Harry is a modern author, who unlike
Asimov in I, Robot, and Williamson in The Humanoids, has the benefit of seeing how
technology and computing is evolving along with its jargon. The story involves the
actions of a privately owned super corporation and its owner who develop an artificial
intelligence. They also provide this intelligence with all manner of tools and
capabilities, including mechanical creatures which the computer controls. Good
capitalists, they do all of this in order to maximize profits. At the same time the owner
and his close band of computer technicians raise this artificial intelligence to possess
a human like personality. Unfortunately, the human personality aspect develops
emotional problems. At this point the drama begins as a psychologist is brought in to
psychoanalyze the artificial intelligence. The science in the fiction of this story
revolves around the questions of how does one distinguish between a truly sentient
being and a fast machine with a huge database. This aspect is truly fascinating and
fairly complex. There is also an interesting exposition of the importance of internal
mental conflict in the healthy mind , the competition of ideas , assimilation of new
ideas (and the assimilation of computer viruses) into a functioning thinking matrix.
I enjoyed reading Society of the Mind or I wouldn’t have placed it with I, Robot , and
The Humanoids. But Eric Harry uses writing devices that I find very tedious. Why do
some writers feel this need to make their characters so unrealistic? The psychologist
is so beautiful, so athletic,and so smart (yet emotional). The capitalist is so
handsome, so athletic and so smart (yet mysterious). The lines between good and
bad humans (robots are always, neutral even when extremely violent) are clearly
drawn, their emotions transparent and predictable. The science fiction in this story
was so interesting that I had no trouble reading through this weakness. I have
assigned weaker stories with the same failings to the trash heap.
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