"Allen Steele - Agape Among The Robots" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

highly intelligent people; no matter how smart they may be, most of them have a hard time lying
with a straight face.

Phil didnтАЩt say anything. He rotated the chair to the console, where he found a spare disk,
slapped it into the drive, and tapped a couple of commands into the keyboard. "Sorry you had to
lose this afternoonтАЩs session," he said quietly, not looking back at me as SamsonтАЩs memory
buffer downloaded onto the disk, " but I think weтАЩve got a flaw in the conditioning module . . ."

"Aw, cтАЩmon! HeтАЩs just confused. He sees you and Kathy in there . . ." I saw the angry look on his
face reflected in the window, but I didnтАЩt stop myself ". . . and then he sees you two fighting. No
wonder his conditioning is . . ."

"ThatтАЩs enough!" He ejected the disk from the drive and stood up quickly, shoving the disk in his
trouser pocket without bothering to first put it in its case. "Th-th-this is none of your buh-buh-
business, and I-I-IтАЩd ap-ap-appreciate it if y-y-youтАЩd k-k-k-kindly stay out of it. Samson needs to b-
b-be reprogrammed. Th-th-th-thatтАЩs all."

No argument either way. PhilтАЩs relationship with Kathy wasnтАЩt any of my business, and there was
no doubt that Samson conditioning module needed drastic remodification. Like it or not, our
team had designed a third-generation robot which took all the wrong cues from human behavior.
Kathy and Phil could fight out their problems on their own, but it wasnтАЩt right to send a robot to
market whose training inadvertently reflected their love-hate relationship.

"Sure, Phil," I said. "Whatever you say."

Still not looking directly at me, Phil nodded as he headed for the door. "Th-th-thatтАЩs the end of t-t-
t-todayтАЩs exercise," he said quietly. "I-I-IтАЩll work on S-s-s-samson tonight, have it r-r-ready for t-t-
tomorrowтАЩs test with D-d-d-d-d . . ."

"Sure you want to do that?" Tomorrow morning we had another test scheduled with D-team.
Same routine as before: Samson comes out of the woods, offers an apple to Delilah, bows to

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her, offers his hand and asks if she wants him to join her on the bench. Both teams had agreed
this as a test of whether the two robots could work in unison without operator intervention.
"Maybe we should ask for a delay."

Phil appeared to think about it for a moment, then he shook his head. "No," he said at last. "WeтАЩll
do the test tomorrow. Between now and then, donтАЩt touch Samson. Just let me take care of this,
okay?"

"Sure," I said, and he nodded and let himself out of the booth. It wasnтАЩt until long after he had
closed the door behind him that I realized he had stopped stuttering.

By this time, though, I had taken a seat at the console and begun doing a little work of my own.

The two R&D programs were supposed to be isolated from one another, but the seal wasnтАЩt
airtight. Kathy and Phil werenтАЩt the only couple who were keeping company when no one was