"Snodgrass, Norman - A Robot's Night Out" - читать интересную книгу автора (Snodgrass Norman)

PROLOG
Robots (at least in science fiction) were once regarded as mindless machines that were plainly untrustworthy and could often engage in random violence and destructive behavior. To bring order to this chaos, in 1942 Isaac Asimov put forth some fundamental laws he called Rules of Robotics. They were a code of conduct for robots to make sure people using them as a helpmate remained the Master and didn't get their head torn off in the process. In summary, the rules say that a robot will always obey its master, may not injure him, or allow him to come to harm. In doing that it must protect its own existence unless doing that conflicts with protecting its Master. In a word, they were now to be genteel. But did being genteel mean they were also smart? Can't a robot make a mistake in judgment? Can it always deal with the deviousness of humans? After all, nobody ever said life was fair ...for robots.

A ROBOT'S NIGHT OUT

"Sure, Hank, I agree the mining robots we have now don't rust. You can't even scratch some of the latest models, and they're so flexible you can pull them out of a rock slide and they'll jump right up, ready to dig some more, but I'm talking about years ago when the manufacturers weren't exactly sure what their products might have to do. They had no idea, really, what the service life of a tin man should be or what he'd run into on those burned out planets."
Thorsen shifted his weight so he could put his legs up on the writing space of the pilot's console. The paint on the narrow shelf was nearly worn off from the impact of hundreds of boots put there by tired star sifters like himself, trying to get comfortable on another long trip beyond the frontier planets looking for minerals, hydrocarbons, plant fibers, anything useful to emigrants on the outer worlds, and hauling it to them.
"When I quit the merchant ships and first started in this sifting business I met lots of miners who used robots on their digs. I'll tell you, it was primitive. Between heat, dust, and hard rock a robot could get old, just like a man. Some of them stood up to their knees in water for a year at a time waiting for their master to come along and give them new orders. That's if they didn't get run down by a mining machine or buried by a cave-in while they stood there."
Thorsen's partner and copilot was slow to reply as he tapped on the case of a pressure gauge to make sure its unmoving needle wasn't stuck. On long trips the instruments in front of them showed the same readings for so long they began to look like they were pictures painted on the control console, not status indicators on the health of their ship's vital systems. Finally, he turned his seat toward the coffee dispenser and drew his fifth, maybe sixth, cup since breakfast, stirred it with a pen, and set it down carefully in the small space not taken up by Thorsen's shapeless boots.
"Well, I wasn't out there in those days, Lyle, and I'm glad of it. I'm sure there were problems with those early models that we don't have anymore, but those miners got plenty of work out of them, and after all, they were some companionship too."
"Companionship? You ready for a rubber room, you space wart? Start talking to machines and you're ready for the giggle garden," the old sifter said as he pulled his feet back to the floor and leaned forward to gulp down the last of his coffee. "Those models couldn't talk and were a long way from cheating at cards like our Jimmy."
"I told you, Lyle, you have to learn not to take Jimmy too seriously. He's just trying to be pleasant. After all, he knows that you know he's cheating and he just does it to make the game more interesting for you. When things get really serious we can depend on Jimmy to do whatever he's told, within the rules of robotics of course, so it doesn't matter if he plays games with your mind just to keep you on your toes when you're about to expire from boredom."
With that the young copilot rose from his seat, stretched his arms and shook the stiffness from his legs. "I'm going back to the driver room for a look at things. I don't trust these old instruments and I want to make sure Jimmy understands he can't rely on them."
"Yea, playing games with my mind," Thorsen said to the younger man's back, "Well you get Jimmy to understand that the next time he puts chicory in this coffee I'm going to pull a dog wrench off the bulkhead and play games on his head!"
As Sweeney climbed down the ladder from the bridge Thorsen turned to the view panel and looked at its panorama of stars. "Robots!, a pain in the butt," he thought. Thorsen had long since learned not to attach human characteristics to assemblies of metal, plastic, and wires no matter how good they looked. That could be fatal. You had to remember they were still machines, not humans, even though they were built to follow the rules that forbid them to harm their master or anything else, including themselves. He smiled. "Yea, they can cheat at cards. Any damned computer can do that, but real judgment like a man, that's what they still don't have, and may never have. There's a lot of information stuffed into a robot, but it may not know what it all MEANS. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge involves judgment, and that's one human characteristic hard to put into a robot."
As he looked at the motionless screen Thorsen's mind started to drift back to the outworlds, back to the burning desert of Khobar and its hundreds of mines worked by a corps of rough unschooled men aided by man-like robots. The robots' strength was enormous, but their mental capacities needed some work. They didn't integrate their knowledge very well. He remembered a night when things were not exactly as they seemed, to one robot in particular.
The robots of Khobar had rudimentary human intelligence, but then they were very rudimentary robots and were not expected to think much. The miners who owned them, though, were full of cunning, strength, and the simple humility that comes with a life of numbing labor and they had the God-given gift of being able to find humor in so bleak an existence. With a chuckle, Thorsen thought about the time old Joe Redman from the Blackhawk mine had made Khobar history and became a folk hero overnight.




A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in one of the New Yukon bars. The topic of gentlemanly conversation had somehow got around to the relative intelligence of man and robot. Old Joe Redman raised his voice so all could hear. "I got one of them tinheads workin' fer me is so dumb he'd have to swing twice to hit a elephant in the ass with a banjo."
"They aint no elephants around here, Joe," a companion allowed.
"Well, if they was, he'd haft to stand on a box to see one acrost this room."
"Robots kin do anything a man kin do, Joe, only better. They kin load all day and never take a break."
"Oh, I'll give ya they kin work like they was five men, but it's thinkin' they's no good at. I got one now is about a foot shorter 'cause he went to the bottom of the shaft without takin' the elevator. Walked right in. I let him dig low down on the wall now 'cause he's like standin' on his knees."
"All robots fail now and agin, Joe, you know that, special when they gets old, but most of 'em, they kin do anythin' a man kin do."
"No they can't," a voice from down the room called out. The ranks near the bar parted as Thorsen walked up and stood next to Redman. "There's one thing a man can do that NO robot can do."
"What's that?," several voices asked in unison.
"Fart!," Thorsen replied.
When the laughter died down Joe Redman said, "Well, I grant you that, but smart is what I'm talkin' 'bout and that's somethin' they aint. We're talkin' dumb here. I got a robot so damned dumb, why he'd nail his own foot to this here floor."
Shorty Mallory looked up at Joe and said, "His self? Nail his very own foot to the floor his self? Why I got a week's pay right here says no man on this planet can get a tinhead to do that to his self."
Redman's jaw tightened for a few seconds. He wasn't used to having his word disputed, but he soon raised his chin and looked around the crowd. "All right! I'll cover that right now, tonight. I got me a tinhead man and I can make him nail his own foot to the floor right here. Take me about a half hour to git him in here is all."
Redman reached in his pocket and extracted a wad of dirty bank notes. There were many disbelieving hoots and much laughter, but the miners were up for anything that sounded like fun and a break in the boredom. Bets were quickly made all around until everyone had some money down on one side or the other, then Thorsen drove Redman out to the Blackhawk mine to get his robot.

PROLOG
Robots (at least in science fiction) were once regarded as mindless machines that were plainly untrustworthy and could often engage in random violence and destructive behavior. To bring order to this chaos, in 1942 Isaac Asimov put forth some fundamental laws he called Rules of Robotics. They were a code of conduct for robots to make sure people using them as a helpmate remained the Master and didn't get their head torn off in the process. In summary, the rules say that a robot will always obey its master, may not injure him, or allow him to come to harm. In doing that it must protect its own existence unless doing that conflicts with protecting its Master. In a word, they were now to be genteel. But did being genteel mean they were also smart? Can't a robot make a mistake in judgment? Can it always deal with the deviousness of humans? After all, nobody ever said life was fair ...for robots.

A ROBOT'S NIGHT OUT

"Sure, Hank, I agree the mining robots we have now don't rust. You can't even scratch some of the latest models, and they're so flexible you can pull them out of a rock slide and they'll jump right up, ready to dig some more, but I'm talking about years ago when the manufacturers weren't exactly sure what their products might have to do. They had no idea, really, what the service life of a tin man should be or what he'd run into on those burned out planets."
Thorsen shifted his weight so he could put his legs up on the writing space of the pilot's console. The paint on the narrow shelf was nearly worn off from the impact of hundreds of boots put there by tired star sifters like himself, trying to get comfortable on another long trip beyond the frontier planets looking for minerals, hydrocarbons, plant fibers, anything useful to emigrants on the outer worlds, and hauling it to them.
"When I quit the merchant ships and first started in this sifting business I met lots of miners who used robots on their digs. I'll tell you, it was primitive. Between heat, dust, and hard rock a robot could get old, just like a man. Some of them stood up to their knees in water for a year at a time waiting for their master to come along and give them new orders. That's if they didn't get run down by a mining machine or buried by a cave-in while they stood there."
Thorsen's partner and copilot was slow to reply as he tapped on the case of a pressure gauge to make sure its unmoving needle wasn't stuck. On long trips the instruments in front of them showed the same readings for so long they began to look like they were pictures painted on the control console, not status indicators on the health of their ship's vital systems. Finally, he turned his seat toward the coffee dispenser and drew his fifth, maybe sixth, cup since breakfast, stirred it with a pen, and set it down carefully in the small space not taken up by Thorsen's shapeless boots.
"Well, I wasn't out there in those days, Lyle, and I'm glad of it. I'm sure there were problems with those early models that we don't have anymore, but those miners got plenty of work out of them, and after all, they were some companionship too."
"Companionship? You ready for a rubber room, you space wart? Start talking to machines and you're ready for the giggle garden," the old sifter said as he pulled his feet back to the floor and leaned forward to gulp down the last of his coffee. "Those models couldn't talk and were a long way from cheating at cards like our Jimmy."
"I told you, Lyle, you have to learn not to take Jimmy too seriously. He's just trying to be pleasant. After all, he knows that you know he's cheating and he just does it to make the game more interesting for you. When things get really serious we can depend on Jimmy to do whatever he's told, within the rules of robotics of course, so it doesn't matter if he plays games with your mind just to keep you on your toes when you're about to expire from boredom."
With that the young copilot rose from his seat, stretched his arms and shook the stiffness from his legs. "I'm going back to the driver room for a look at things. I don't trust these old instruments and I want to make sure Jimmy understands he can't rely on them."
"Yea, playing games with my mind," Thorsen said to the younger man's back, "Well you get Jimmy to understand that the next time he puts chicory in this coffee I'm going to pull a dog wrench off the bulkhead and play games on his head!"
As Sweeney climbed down the ladder from the bridge Thorsen turned to the view panel and looked at its panorama of stars. "Robots!, a pain in the butt," he thought. Thorsen had long since learned not to attach human characteristics to assemblies of metal, plastic, and wires no matter how good they looked. That could be fatal. You had to remember they were still machines, not humans, even though they were built to follow the rules that forbid them to harm their master or anything else, including themselves. He smiled. "Yea, they can cheat at cards. Any damned computer can do that, but real judgment like a man, that's what they still don't have, and may never have. There's a lot of information stuffed into a robot, but it may not know what it all MEANS. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge involves judgment, and that's one human characteristic hard to put into a robot."
As he looked at the motionless screen Thorsen's mind started to drift back to the outworlds, back to the burning desert of Khobar and its hundreds of mines worked by a corps of rough unschooled men aided by man-like robots. The robots' strength was enormous, but their mental capacities needed some work. They didn't integrate their knowledge very well. He remembered a night when things were not exactly as they seemed, to one robot in particular.
The robots of Khobar had rudimentary human intelligence, but then they were very rudimentary robots and were not expected to think much. The miners who owned them, though, were full of cunning, strength, and the simple humility that comes with a life of numbing labor and they had the God-given gift of being able to find humor in so bleak an existence. With a chuckle, Thorsen thought about the time old Joe Redman from the Blackhawk mine had made Khobar history and became a folk hero overnight.




A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in one of the New Yukon bars. The topic of gentlemanly conversation had somehow got around to the relative intelligence of man and robot. Old Joe Redman raised his voice so all could hear. "I got one of them tinheads workin' fer me is so dumb he'd have to swing twice to hit a elephant in the ass with a banjo."
"They aint no elephants around here, Joe," a companion allowed.
"Well, if they was, he'd haft to stand on a box to see one acrost this room."
"Robots kin do anything a man kin do, Joe, only better. They kin load all day and never take a break."
"Oh, I'll give ya they kin work like they was five men, but it's thinkin' they's no good at. I got one now is about a foot shorter 'cause he went to the bottom of the shaft without takin' the elevator. Walked right in. I let him dig low down on the wall now 'cause he's like standin' on his knees."
"All robots fail now and agin, Joe, you know that, special when they gets old, but most of 'em, they kin do anythin' a man kin do."
"No they can't," a voice from down the room called out. The ranks near the bar parted as Thorsen walked up and stood next to Redman. "There's one thing a man can do that NO robot can do."
"What's that?," several voices asked in unison.
"Fart!," Thorsen replied.
When the laughter died down Joe Redman said, "Well, I grant you that, but smart is what I'm talkin' 'bout and that's somethin' they aint. We're talkin' dumb here. I got a robot so damned dumb, why he'd nail his own foot to this here floor."
Shorty Mallory looked up at Joe and said, "His self? Nail his very own foot to the floor his self? Why I got a week's pay right here says no man on this planet can get a tinhead to do that to his self."
Redman's jaw tightened for a few seconds. He wasn't used to having his word disputed, but he soon raised his chin and looked around the crowd. "All right! I'll cover that right now, tonight. I got me a tinhead man and I can make him nail his own foot to the floor right here. Take me about a half hour to git him in here is all."
Redman reached in his pocket and extracted a wad of dirty bank notes. There were many disbelieving hoots and much laughter, but the miners were up for anything that sounded like fun and a break in the boredom. Bets were quickly made all around until everyone had some money down on one side or the other, then Thorsen drove Redman out to the Blackhawk mine to get his robot.
They soon had the mechanical miner in the van and as they bounced along the rough desert road back to town Thorsen said, "Joe, I sure hope you know what you're doing. You've got a couple months of ore bet on this and I've put down all I got out of my last haul that you can make this work like you told me."
Redman turned and looked at the sifter with contempt. "You think I just rode into town on the last load of squash, son? This here robot's so dumb he thinks asphalt is bowel trouble."
A sly smile curled over Thorsen's lips. "You mess with his head circuits, Joe?"
"Hell no!," Redman shot back. " You know I caint do that. They's factory sealed. They don't got much brains nohow. Why, they aint nothin' but a walkin' shovel."
"Well, we're about to find out."
Thorsen pulled up to the New Yukon Palace and opened the rear door. The robot climbed out stiffly. "Boy, he's getting old, isn't he Joe?"
The robot resembled a man only in that it had the right number of arms and legs connected to a barrel-like chest. A head of sorts sat atop a short heavy neck. It would have been better design to have put the brain circuits in the chest cavity where they'd be more protected, but the visual and audio sensors had to be up there on top, so it was just as easy to put the small brain box there too. Another reason was the miners didn't like working with headless men and were an ignorant, superstitious, short tempered lot. More than one robot was decapitated by a shovel when an angry miner suddenly got terminally annoyed with his malfunctioning helper. The factory was finally forced to relocate the brain box to the lower body cavity in the newer models which, of course, prompted the always irreverent ore men to say, "These new robots got all their brains in their ass."
This robot was obviously near the end of its useful life and was overdue for overhaul or the metal compactor. It squeaked and cranked as it moved heavily. It's rusty members were extruded metal incapable of renewing themselves like man's flesh and bone. Thorsen almost felt sorry for the pitiful thing, but he knew it could neither hurt nor reason beyond accepting simple instructions and had the machine's usual lack of consciousness of its own existence. Unlike man, it didn't know what it didn't know. Thorsen never used robots. He thought they just got in the way.
"Come on, rust butt," Redman commanded. "Get your dumb ass up them steps and don't fall down."
Inside the bar, the tension and excitement had grown during their absence to get the steel contestant. Speculation and liquor were flowing freely. The crowd had grown as the word spread up and down the dirt street of the expected showdown between man and metal.
Betting was about twenty to one Redman would fail. Most of the miners and townsmen were sure the robot would simply ignore an order to drive a nail into its own foot, or anyone's foot for that matter. Only a few men were drunk enough to bet with Redman that the robot would act contrary to everything supposedly fixed in its brain circuits and deliberately nail down its foot. No robot had ever been known to do anything that might harm man or machine, including itself. When confronted with a command to do harm, the robots simply refused to move. It was the most human-like thing about them.
The money piled on the bar by the HE WON'T bettors was far greater than that by the HE WILLs, but Thorsen and the old miner covered most of the bets against their "man." The thought occurred to Thorsen that if this didn't work as planned, he'd be eating nothing but Space Spam for the next earth year.
The crowd parted to let Redman and his robot belly up to the bar. Shouts of "Stand back!" and "Lemme see!" caused a half-circle of open floor space to be made as the old miner turned his back to the bar and pulled the slower moving mechanical man around beside him, facing the eager men. Redman looked defiantly around the barroom as he produced two long timber nails and a short heavy hammer from the deep pockets of his baggy digsuit.
"Now listen to me, bucket brain," the old ore digger said in a loud voice to the immobile robot. "This here place has earthquakes about ever night this time and we got to make sure we stays put when things starts shakin', so do what I do."
With that, Redman bent down and placed the point of a nail atop his right boot, then with three strong blows of the hammer, he drove it in clear up to the nail head, pinning his foot securely to the rough floorboard. Most of the miners froze in stunned silence, gaping at the incredible sight of a man crucifying himself. A few gasps were heard, then Shorty Mallory stepped forward and looked into Redman's eyes. Only a steady look of continued defiance could be seen in them.
"Hell, he aint even got no tears in his eyes!," Shorty exclaimed.
Redman pushed the incredulous miner aside with one arm. "Get out the way, Shorty," then holding forth the hammer and the remaining nail to the still unmoving robot, the old ore digger added, "Here, aluminum ass, do what I tole ya."
The robot swiveled from the hips and accepted the hammer in one of its marred metal hands. Its six fingers clinched the blunt tool as the synthetic miner swiveled again to face front, then slowly repeated the movements to accept the nail Redman offered.
The old miner's voice grew even more demanding. "Go ahead. Right now. Do like I said."
The crowd pushed forward as the robot stared straight ahead, the hammer in one hand, the nail in the other. Slowly it bent over and placed the nail atop the metal of its size twenty right foot. It raised the hammer to strike, then came down with one powerful blow, much harder than any mortal could drive a hammer, forcing the nail through its foot and attaching it firmly to the floor. Redman smiled as the robot rose again to a stand.
The nearly silent room erupted in shouts as the miners pushed one another to get a closer look at the unbelievable sight of a machine designed to damage no thing living or unliving deliberately nailing its own foot to the floor in emulation of its master.
Thorsen quickly pulled a small crowbar and a block of wood from a deep pocket of his suit and went to his knees in the forest of onrushing legs around the nailed-down man and his immobilized robot. He got the teeth of the bar under the head of the nail in Redman's foot and by prying over the wood block, quickly released the miner's muddy boot from the floor. Redman was already scooping money from the bar into his pockets. Thorsen stood up, unzipped his suit to the waist and began to fill it with the banknotes.
"The drinks are on me boys," Redman shouted over the tumult and threw down a fistful of cash. The artificial man stood motionless as a sea of fleshy, cheering, men pushed past him to grab the filled glasses rapidly covering the bar top.
The two newly-rich partners sprinted for their vehicle. After they'd put a few miles between themselves and the mining settlement, Thorsen slowed the van and turned to the old miner. "I didn't know you were going to just leave him there until you broke for the door, Joe. Don't you want him anymore?"
Redman was busy removing his boot and unstrapping his artificial right leg. He inspected the hole he'd just made in its foot. "Why hell no! I don't want to never see that dumb ass iron head again. I figure we got enough money here after we pay Shorty his cut so that mine will still buy me one of them new four arm models, even after I get me a new foot."



Thorsen got up from his place at the spaceship's control console. He laughed and said aloud, "Well, Joe Redman will never be forgotten as long as ore is dug out on that planet. Not many men think a robot will do anything a man does, especially if it looks self-destructive, but old Joe Redman knew a robot would always be accommodating... if its master could demonstrate that what it was told to do was obviously harmless."

END