Read Online Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lydia Netzer
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all electricity. So the question is really: Why?”
“I am not following you, Genius,” said Phillips. “You’re making it sound easy, and then acting like it’s hard.”
The machine began to spin them. At first, it was slow.
“Can it, Lieutenant. Shut up, Dr. Mann,” said Gompers, always quick to remind him that he did not have a military title. But Maxon was already talking.
“Listen. From the smallest, deepest synapses in the human brain to the interactions of galaxies with the universe, it is all electricity. If you can shape the force of electricity, you can duplicate any other impulse in the world. A robot can yawn, it can desire, it can climax. It can do exactly what a human does, in exactly the same way. You really want a robot to love you? You want it to fuck you back, when you fuck it? Just like a woman? Let me tell you: There is no difference between carbon and steel, between water and ooze. With a number of conditional statements nearing infinity, any choice can be replicated, however random. The only hard thing about creating more sophisticated AI was acquiring the space needed to hold such a myriad of possibilities. There is nothing different in a human’s brain from a robot’s brain. Not one single thing.”
By this time the machine was spinning so fast, his cheeks were flapping. The other men in the module were quiet, intense. Their eyes were all open. Their faces looked skeletal, all the skin pulled back.
“GET IT?” Maxon screeched.
And even in the pressure of all that simulated gravity, Fred Phillips found it possible to roll his eyes.
When the machine stopped, Phillips said, “Mann, dude, I feel for your wife.”
“What do you feel for her?” said Maxon.
* * *
W HY DID THE ROBOTS not love? Why not feel good about themselves, just for once? Why not prefer one entity, one electrical epicenter, over all the others, for no other reason than that it felt good to do so? Maxon knew why. They could not love because he had not made them love. He had not made them love because he didn’t understand why they should love. He didn’t understand why he should love, why anyone should love. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t rational, because it wasn’t beneficial. That was the truth of the matter. He chose for them not to, because loving defied his central principle: If humans do it, it must be right.
To show preference only for a good reason, to accept any choice made with the best use of available information, to suspect a source of giving incorrect data when incorrect data had been received from it in the past; these responses were beneficial to the robot, to the human. To love for no reason, to grieve over a choice that had been made rationally, to forgive, to show mercy, to trust a poison well, also potentially damaging. If humans do it, why do they do it?
He understood the value of a mother’s love for her child. That had a use. He understood the value of a soldier’s love for his brother-in-arms. That had a use. But the family structure was so integral to the foundation of a civilization, and the solidity of the family was so important to the civilization’s survival, that choosing a mate based on some ridiculous whim seemed insane. It seemed destructive. How could it be so? Yet he, Maxon Mann, gearshrinker, droidmaster, having decided that all romantic love is at odds with the survival of the species, had fallen, himself, in love. He had fallen deeply, hopelessly, inexorably in love with Sunny, and it had happened almost before he got started in life. Over seven thousand rotations of the Earth ago. Certainly before he understood the ramifications of his electrobiological behavior.
That night, his second night in space, the feeling of breathing in was almost crushing him, the quarters so close that taking a deep breath almost had his bony chest brushing up against the shelf that held his laptop, his mission log, stuck down with Velcro. He let his head roll back against
“I am not following you, Genius,” said Phillips. “You’re making it sound easy, and then acting like it’s hard.”
The machine began to spin them. At first, it was slow.
“Can it, Lieutenant. Shut up, Dr. Mann,” said Gompers, always quick to remind him that he did not have a military title. But Maxon was already talking.
“Listen. From the smallest, deepest synapses in the human brain to the interactions of galaxies with the universe, it is all electricity. If you can shape the force of electricity, you can duplicate any other impulse in the world. A robot can yawn, it can desire, it can climax. It can do exactly what a human does, in exactly the same way. You really want a robot to love you? You want it to fuck you back, when you fuck it? Just like a woman? Let me tell you: There is no difference between carbon and steel, between water and ooze. With a number of conditional statements nearing infinity, any choice can be replicated, however random. The only hard thing about creating more sophisticated AI was acquiring the space needed to hold such a myriad of possibilities. There is nothing different in a human’s brain from a robot’s brain. Not one single thing.”
By this time the machine was spinning so fast, his cheeks were flapping. The other men in the module were quiet, intense. Their eyes were all open. Their faces looked skeletal, all the skin pulled back.
“GET IT?” Maxon screeched.
And even in the pressure of all that simulated gravity, Fred Phillips found it possible to roll his eyes.
When the machine stopped, Phillips said, “Mann, dude, I feel for your wife.”
“What do you feel for her?” said Maxon.
* * *
W HY DID THE ROBOTS not love? Why not feel good about themselves, just for once? Why not prefer one entity, one electrical epicenter, over all the others, for no other reason than that it felt good to do so? Maxon knew why. They could not love because he had not made them love. He had not made them love because he didn’t understand why they should love. He didn’t understand why he should love, why anyone should love. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t rational, because it wasn’t beneficial. That was the truth of the matter. He chose for them not to, because loving defied his central principle: If humans do it, it must be right.
To show preference only for a good reason, to accept any choice made with the best use of available information, to suspect a source of giving incorrect data when incorrect data had been received from it in the past; these responses were beneficial to the robot, to the human. To love for no reason, to grieve over a choice that had been made rationally, to forgive, to show mercy, to trust a poison well, also potentially damaging. If humans do it, why do they do it?
He understood the value of a mother’s love for her child. That had a use. He understood the value of a soldier’s love for his brother-in-arms. That had a use. But the family structure was so integral to the foundation of a civilization, and the solidity of the family was so important to the civilization’s survival, that choosing a mate based on some ridiculous whim seemed insane. It seemed destructive. How could it be so? Yet he, Maxon Mann, gearshrinker, droidmaster, having decided that all romantic love is at odds with the survival of the species, had fallen, himself, in love. He had fallen deeply, hopelessly, inexorably in love with Sunny, and it had happened almost before he got started in life. Over seven thousand rotations of the Earth ago. Certainly before he understood the ramifications of his electrobiological behavior.
That night, his second night in space, the feeling of breathing in was almost crushing him, the quarters so close that taking a deep breath almost had his bony chest brushing up against the shelf that held his laptop, his mission log, stuck down with Velcro. He let his head roll back against
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