Asimov's Future History Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  “I see. You make – uh – deductions, then. Tell me” – he couldn’t resist the question –” what do you think of the book so far?’

  Easy said, “I find it very pleasant to work with.”

  “Pleasant? That is an odd word for a – uh – a mechanism without emotion. I’ve been told you have no emotion.”

  “The words of your book go in accordance with my circuits,” Easy explained. “They set up little or no counterpotentials. It is in my brain paths to translate this mechanical fact into a word such as ‘pleasant.’ The emotional context is fortuitous.”

  “I see. Why do you find the book pleasant?”

  “It deals with human beings, Professor, and not with inorganic materials or mathematical symbols. Your book attempts to understand human beings and to help increase human happiness.”

  “And this is what you try to do and so my book goes in accordance with your circuits? Is that it?”

  “That is it, Professor.”

  The fifteen minutes were up. Ninheimer left and went to the university library, which was on the point of closing. He kept them open long enough to find an elementary text on robotics. He took it home with him.

  Except for occasional insertion of late material, the galleys went to Easy and from him to the publishers with little intervention from Ninheimer at first – and none at all later.

  Baker said, a little uneasily, “It almost gives me a feeling of uselessness.”

  “It should give you a feeling of having time to begin a new project,” said Ninheimer, without looking up from the notations he was making in the current issue of Social Science Abstracts.

  “I’m just not used to it. I keep worrying about the galleys. It’s silly, I know.”

  “It is.”

  “The other day I got a couple of sheets before Easy sent them off to –”

  “What!” Ninheimer looked up, scowling. The copy of Abstracts slid shut. “Did you disturb the machine at its work?”

  “Only for a minute. Everything was all right. Oh, it changed one word. You referred to something as ‘criminal’; it changed the word to ‘reckless.’ It thought the second adjective fit in better with the context.”

  Ninheimer grew thoughtful. “What did you think?”

  “You know, I agreed with it. I let it stand.”

  Ninheimer turned in his swivel-chair to face his young associate. “See here, I wish you wouldn’t do this again. If I am to use the machine, I wish the – uh – full advantage of it. If I am to use it and lose your – uh – services anyway because you supervise it when the whole point is that it requires no supervision, I gain nothing. Do you see?”

  “Yes, Dr. Ninheimer,” said Baker, subdued. The advance copies of Social Tensions arrived in Dr. Ninheimer’s office on the eighth of May. He looked through it briefly, flipping pages and pausing to read a paragraph here and there. Then he put his copies away.

  As he explained later, he forgot about it. For eight years, he had worked at it, but now, and for months in the past, other interests had engaged him while Easy had taken the load of the book off his shoulders. He did not even think to donate the usual complimentary copy to the university library. Even Baker, who had thrown himself into work and had steered clear of the department head since receiving his rebuke at their last meeting, received no copy.

  On the sixteenth of June that stage ended. Ninheimer received a phone call and stared at the image in the ‘plate with surprise.

  “Speidell! Are you in town?”

  “No, sir. I’m in Cleveland.” Speidell’s voice trembled with emotion.

  “Then why the call?”

  “Because I’ve just been looking through your new book! Ninheimer, are you mad? Have you gone insane?”

  Ninheimer stiffened. “Is something – uh – wrong?” he asked in alarm.

  “Wrong? I refer you to page 562. What in blazes do you mean by interpreting my work as you do? Where in the paper cited do I make the claim that the criminal personality is nonexistent and that it is the law-enforcement agencies that are the true criminals? Here, let me quote –”

  “Wait! Wait!” cried Ninheimer, trying to find the page. “Let me see. Let me see... Good God!”

  “Well?”

  “Speidell, I don’t see how this could have happened. I never wrote this.”

  “But that’s what’s printed! And that distortion isn’t the worst. You look at page 690 and imagine what Ipatiev is going to do to you when he sees the hash you’ve made of his findings! Look, Ninheimer, the book is riddled with this sort of thing. I don’t know what you were thinking of – but there’s nothing to do but get the book off the market. And you’d better be prepared for extensive apologies at the next Association meeting!”

  “Speidell, listen to me –” But Speidell had flashed off with a force that had the ‘plate glowing with after-images for fifteen seconds.

  It was then that Ninheimer went through the book and began marking off passages with red ink.

  He kept his temper remarkably well when he faced Easy again, but his lips were pale. He passed the book to Easy and said, “Will you read the marked passages on pages 562, 631, 664 and 690?”

  Easy did so in four glances. “Yes, Professor Ninheimer.”

  “This is not as I had it in the original galleys.”

  “No, sir. It is not.”

  “Did you change it to read as it now does?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Sir, the passages as they read in your version were most uncomplimentary to certain groups of human beings. I felt it advisable to change the wording to avoid doing them harm.”

  “How dared you do such a thing?”

  “The First Law, Professor, does not let me, through any inaction, allow harm to come to human beings. Certainly, considering your reputation in the world of sociology and the wide circulation your book would receive among scholars, considerable harm would come to a number of the human beings you speak of.”

  “But do you realize the harm that will come to me now?”

  “It was necessary to choose the alternative with less harm.” Professor Ninheimer, shaking with fury, staggered away. It was clear to him that U. S. Robots would have to account to him for this.

  There was some excitement at the defendants’ table, which increased as Prosecution drove the point home.

  “Then Robot EZ-27 informed you that the reason for its action was based on the First Law of Robotics?”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “That, in effect, it had no choice?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It follows then that U. S. Robots designed a robot that would of necessity rewrite books to accord with its own conceptions of what was right. And yet they palmed it off as simple proofreader. Would you say that?”

  Defense objected firmly at once, pointing out that the witness was being asked for a decision on a matter in which he had no competence. The judged admonished Prosecution in the usual terms, but there was no doubt that the exchange had sunk home – not least upon the attorney for the Defense.

  Defense asked for a short recess before beginning cross-examination, using a legal technicality for the purpose that got him five minutes.

  He leaned over toward Susan Calvin. “Is it possible, Dr. Calvin, that Professor Ninheimer is telling the truth and that Easy was motivated by the First Law?”

  Calvin pressed her lips together, then said, “No. It isn’t possible. The last part of Ninheimer’s testimony is deliberate perjury. Easy is not designed to be able to judge matters at the stage of abstraction represented by an advanced textbook on sociology. It would never be able to tell that certain groups of humans would be harmed by a phrase in such a book. Its mind is simply not built for that.”

  “I suppose, though, that we can’t prove this to a layman,” said Defense pessimistically.

  “No,” Admitted Calvin. “The proof would be highly complex. Our way out is still what it was. We must pr
ove Ninheimer is lying, and nothing he has said need change our plan of attack.”

  “Very well, Dr. Calvin,” said Defense, “I must accept your word in this. We’ll go on as planned.”

  In the courtroom, the judge’s gavel rose and fell and Dr. Ninheimer took the stand once more. He smiled a little as one who feels his position to be impregnable and rather enjoys the prospect of countering a useless attack.

  Defense approached warily and began softly. “Dr. Ninheimer, do you mean to say that you were completely unaware of these alleged changes in your manuscript until such time as Dr. Speidell called you on the sixteenth of June?”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Did you never look at the galleys after Robot EZ-27 had proofread them?”

  “At first I did, but it seemed to me a useless task. I relied on the claims of U. S. Robots. The absurd – uh – changes were made only in the last quarter of the book after the robot, I presume, had learned enough about sociology –”

  “Never mind your presumptions!” said Defense. “I understood your colleague, Dr. Baker, saw the later galleys on at least one occasion. Do you remember testifying to that effect?”

  “Yes, sir. As I said, he told me about seeing one page, and even there, the robot had changed a word.”

  Again Defense broke in. “Don’t you find it strange, sir, that after over a year of implacable hostility to the robot, after having voted against it in the first place and having refused to put it to any use whatever, you suddenly decided to put your book, your magnum opus, into its hands?”

  “I don’t find that strange. I simply decided that I might as well use the machine.”

  “And you were so confident of Robot EZ-27 – all of a sudden – that you didn’t even bother to check your galleys?”

  “I told you I was – uh – persuaded by U. S. Robots’ propaganda.”

  “So persuaded that when your colleague, Dr. Baker, attempted to check on the robot, you berated him soundly?”

  “I didn’t berate him. I merely did not wish to have him – uh – waste his time. At least, I thought then it was a waste of time. I did not see the significance of that change in a word at the –”

  Defense said with heavy sarcasm, “I have no doubt you were instructed to bring up that point in order that the word-change be entered in the record –” He altered his line to forestall objection and said, “The point is that you were extremely angry with Dr. Baker.”

  “No, sir. Not angry.”

  “You didn’t give him a copy of your book when you received it.”

  “Simple forgetfulness. I didn’t give the library its copy, either.”

  Ninheimer smiled cautiously. “Professors are notoriously absentminded.”

  Defense said, “Do you find it strange that, after more than a year of perfect work, Robot EZ-27 should go wrong on your book? On a book, that is, which was written by you, who was, of all people, the most implacably hostile to the robot?”

  “My book was the only sizable work dealing with mankind that it had to face. The Three Laws of Robotics took hold then.”

  “Several times, Dr. Ninheimer,” said Defense, “you have tried to sound like an expert on robotics. Apparently you suddenly grew interested in robotics and took out books on the subject from the library. You testified to that effect, did you not?”

  “One book, sir. That was the result of what seems to me to have been – uh – natural curiosity.”

  “And it enabled you to explain why the robot should, as you allege, have distorted your book?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very convenient. But are you sure your interest in robotics was not intended to enable you to manipulate the robot for your own purposes?”

  Ninheimer flushed. “Certainly not, sir!” Defense’s voice rose. “In fact, are you sure the alleged altered passages were not as you had them in the first place?”

  The sociologist half-rose. “That’s – uh – uh – ridiculous! I have the galleys –”

  He had difficulty speaking and Prosecution rose to insert smoothly, “With your permission, Your Honor, I intend to introduce as evidence the set of galleys given by Dr. Ninheimer to Robot EZ-27 and the set of galleys mailed by Robot EZ-27 to the publishers. I will do so now if my esteemed colleague so desires, and will be willing to allow a recess in order that the two sets of galleys may be compared.”

  Defense waved his hand impatiently. “That is not necessary. My honored opponent can introduce those galleys whenever he chooses. I’m sure they will show whatever discrepancies are claimed by the plaintiff to exist. What I would like to know of the witness, however, is whether he also has in his possession Dr. Baker’s galleys.”

  “Dr. Baker’s galleys?” Ninheimer frowned. He was not yet quite master of himself.

  “Yes, Professor! I mean Dr. Baker’s galleys. You testified to the effect that Dr. Baker had received a separate copy of the galleys. I will have the clerk read your testimony if you are suddenly a selective type of amnesiac. Or is it just that professors are, as you say, notoriously absent-minded?”

  Ninheimer said, “I remember Dr. Baker’s galleys. They weren’t necessary once the job was placed in the care of the proofreading machine –”

  “So you burned them?”

  “No. I put them in the waste basket.”

  “Burned them, dumped them – what’s the difference? The point is you got rid of them.”

  “There’s nothing wrong –” began Ninheimer weakly.

  “Nothing wrong?” thundered Defense. “Nothing wrong except that there is now no way we can check to see if, on certain crucial galley sheets, you might not have substituted a harmless blank one from Dr. Baker’s copy for a sheet in your own copy which you had deliberately mangled in such a way as to force the robot to –”

  Prosecution shouted a furious objection. Justice Shane leaned forward, his round face doing its best to assume an expression of anger equivalent to the intensity of the emotion felt by the man.

  The judge said, “Do you have any evidence, Counselor, for the extraordinary statement you have just made?”

  Defense said quietly, “No direct evidence, Your Honor. But I would like to point out that, viewed properly, the sudden conversion of the plaintiff from anti-roboticism, his sudden interest in robotics, his refusal to check the galleys or to allow anyone else to check them, his careful neglect to allow anyone to see the book immediately after publication, all very clearly point –”

  “Counselor,” interrupted the judge impatiently, “this is not the place for esoteric deductions. The plaintiff is not on trial. Neither are you prosecuting him. I forbid this line of attack and I can only point out that the desperation that must have induced you to do this cannot help but weaken your case. If you have legitimate questions to ask, Counselor, you may continue with your cross-examination. But I warn you against another such exhibition in this courtroom.”

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

  Robertson whispered heatedly as counsel for the Defense returned to his table, “What good did that do, for God’s sake? The judge is dead-set against you now.”

  Defense replied calmly, “But Ninheimer is good and rattled. And we’ve set him up for tomorrow’s move. He’ll be ripe.”

  Susan Calvin nodded gravely.

  The rest of Prosecution’s case was mild in comparison. Dr. Baker was called and bore out most of Ninheimer’s testimony. Drs. Speidell and Ipatiev were called, and they expounded most movingly on their shock and dismay at certain quoted passages in Dr. Ninheimer’s book. Both gave their professional opinion that Dr. Ninheimer’s professional reputation had been seriously impaired.

  The galleys were introduced in evidence, as were copies of the finished book.

  Defense cross-examined no more that day. Prosecution rested and the trial was recessed till the next morning.

  Defense made his first motion at the beginning of the proceedings on the second day. He requested that Robot EZ-27 be a
dmitted as a spectator to the proceedings.

  Prosecution objected at once and Justice Shane called both to the bench.

  Prosecution said hotly, “This is obviously illegal. A robot may not be in any edifice used by the general public.”

  “This courtroom,” pointed out Defense, “is closed to all but those having an immediate connection with the case.”

  “A large machine of known erratic behavior would disturb my clients and my witnesses by its very presence! It would make hash out of the proceedings.”

  The judge seemed inclined to agree. He turned to Defense and said rather unsympathetically, “What are the reasons for your request?”

  Defense said, “It will be our contention that Robot EZ-27 could not possibly, by the nature of its construction, have behaved as it has been described as behaving. It will be necessary to present a few demonstrations.”

  Prosecution said, “I don’t see the point, Your Honor. Demonstrations conducted by men employed at U. S. Robots are worth little as evidence when U. S. Robots is the defendant.”

  “Your Honor,” said Defense, “the validity of any evidence is for you to decide, not for the Prosecuting Attorney. At least, that is my understanding.”

  Justice Shane, his prerogatives encroached upon, said, “Your understanding is correct. Nevertheless, the presence of a robot here does raise important legal questions.”

  “Surely, Your Honor, nothing that should be allowed to override the requirements of justice. If the robot is not present, we are prevented from presenting our only defense.”

  The judge considered. “There would be the question of transporting the robot here.”

  “That is a problem with which U. S. Robots has frequently been faced. We have a truck parked outside the courtroom, constructed according to the laws governing the transportation of robots. Robot EZ-27 is in a packing case inside with two men guarding it. The doors to the truck are properly secured and all other necessary precautions have been taken.”