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

watching; there was a cutie on Delilah Team with whom I was cooping from time to time,
sometimes sleeping over at her apartment and vice-versa. What she didnтАЩt know, though, was
that I had learned her password. It was a sort-of-accidental discovery; one time we were
lounging in bed together, she took a few minutes to check her company email on TV, so I was
able to see her password when she entered it. I had never abused that knowledge, but thereтАЩs
always a first time for everything, so it was with no small amount of guilt that I used my
occasional girlfriendтАЩs password to gain access to D-TeamтАЩs files.

It took a couple of hours of rummaging, but after a while I managed to locate a batch of reports
regarding DelilahтАЩs trial runs. I wasnтАЩt surprised to discover that D-team had their own problems
with their robot. Like Samson, Delilah sometimes behaved aggressively when the circumstances
called for her to be friendly. The fault obviously lay in the conditioning module, yet no oneтАУat
least, not those who had written the reports; I couldnтАЩt find any from Kathy VederтАУhad been able
to figure out what was providing negative stimuli to the robot.

But I knew. Delilah was being also being trained in a suite much like SamsonтАЩs. It didnтАЩt take a
rocket scientist, let alone a cyberneticist, to realize that this suite was sometimes being used by
Drs. Veder and Burton for certain extracurricular activities . . . with Delilah in the same room,
watching the entire time, absorbing everything. Learning all the wrong lessons about the human
condition.

It could be argued either way whether Samson and Delilah truly had any emotions of their own.
Were they merely imitating Phil and Kathy, or had they developed inner lives, as incredible as
that may seem? Regardless of the explanation, though, their environment was causing them to
sometimes behave in what appeared to be an irrational manner.

Yet loveтАУeven agape, its highest expressionтАУisnтАЩt rational. It cannot be reduced to bar-graphs
and lines of source code; once you get past pheromones, body language and casual eye-
contact, there is no reason for it to happen, save for the biological imperatives to procreate,
maintain tribal associations, or remain close to oneтАЩs family. But love does nonetheless persist,
and sometimes under the strangest of circumstances.




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Were Samson and Delilah in love? Probably not; they were robots, machines with none of the
beforementioned hangups. You could spend countless man-hours of R&D trying to resolve that
question. Yet the only people who had the answer were their own creators . . . and they had a
hard enough time researching and developing their own feelings toward each other.

When I arrived the trailer the following morning, the rest of Samson Team was already getting
ready for the test. Phil, however, was nowhere to be found, and neither was Samson. I paged
him but he didnтАЩt return the call, and while Bob was setting up his camera and Keith was
opening his first bag of Fritos for the day, Kathy Veder appeared in the atrium, walking Delilah
ahead of her.

Delilah was dressed in the same ankle-length, high-collared gown she had worn the day before.