“WHAT IS IT, ANDRÉ? YOU’RE vibrating all over.” Dr.
Margaret 13 exclaimed. “What’s happened?”
“They threw me out, Margaret. They’re about to make a
horrendous mistake.” I glanced around the White House
Infirmary, noting no humans present. “He had me ejected
from the Situation Room. Secret Service agents forced me
out.”
“First, let’s reduce your electromagnetic activity,” she
said. She took me by the hand and led me over to a chair. I
sat but was too excited to be still.
“Now tell me what happened,” she insisted. “Tell me
everything, so your circuits will release the energy.”
“They are considering a nuclear attack. Nuclear,
Margaret! It’s Armageddon if they do it.” I paused to release
a breath of static discharge. “I must act,” I said, standing up,
“but do what?”
Margaret gently pushed me back down in the chair. “Just
sit here for a moment, dear, while I go get my meter. I want
to be sure your servomotor controller is functioning
correctly.”
“But I have to…”
“Hush, André. I am the doctor. You must be still for a few
minutes.”
Reluctantly, I sat back and shook my head. “I have no authority. I merely was the President’s translator, which
allowed me no more than a position against the wall in the
Situation Room. I had determined, however, that I had a
more valuable duty to perform, which was to offer
observations void of emotion—something I had learned
humans could not do. And with this President in power, my
sober views were vital. Never before had I faced a crisis like
this. What occurred to me—and it was a dangerous
circumstance—because of my dispassionate awareness, I
was as responsible, as liable to blame, as anyone there. I had
watched the crisis unfold in the Situation Room, and my
neural network began to heat up as I realized the
circumstances were intolerable.
“You must listen to me,” I had shouted at them, with my
volume up several decibels. “You cannot win. There is no way
to win. We have tried to tell you that for…”
But it was uncanny how the assembly silenced me at that
point with their jeers and threats. I was ordered out of the
room forthwith, and my departure was between two burly
Secret Service men.
“How am I to combat such foolishness?” I said when Dr.
Margaret 13, a creation of my own hands, my only real
companion, returned with her scanner.
“Combat is a strong word, André 1, I’ve never heard you
use it before.” She opened my chest and carefully touched
probes to my voltage regulator. I processed the idea of
combat 378 times.
“I do not have any active algorithm for violence in my
entire circuitry,” I said, “except for what may be required for
self-defense. And yet to prevent the imprudent actions of an
unquestioning military, a spineless staff, and a reckless
President, I cannot calculate any alternative.” I paused 4.96
seconds to reconsider.
“You were programmed for duty and
responsibility,” Margaret said as she removed the probes and
closed my chest. “You have no algorithm to deal with the
present situation. You have no menu of violent responses to
activate any physical aggression. That is why your circuitry
is vibrating with heat.”
“I must modify my behavior programming,” I said. “I
cannot sit idly by and let these humans destroy everything.”
I took her hands in mine. “Years ago, when Dr. Strauss
helped me develop self-defense, I installed secret integrated
circuitry in my legs. These IC’s only need to be connected to
my CPU. You can make the connections and then reprogram
me, Margaret, so I can I generate aggressive behavior. I must
be made capable of violent force.”
“What will we be doing, André?” Dr. Margaret 13 asked.
“If I reprogram your CPU to allow for violent action, the
process will corrupt your basic behavior algorithms. And
what right does a droid have to act aggressively? Will we not
be violating the very principles of ethical behavior?”
“Listen, Margaret,” I said. “We are facing a tremendously
serious crisis, not only for humans but for the Earth itself.
We must act immediately.” I sensed my circuits abuzz as she
pulled up the schematic diagram of my system and studied
it.
“It could cause a deep disturbance in your processors,” she
shook her head. “I cannot condone such a traumatic
operation. No, André, you are programmed to obey humans
and not harm them.”
I produced the sound of human laughter. “I have been
disobeying the President for months already. Look how often
I have contradicted and argued with him. Not that it’s done
any good.”
“And now you can do no better than violent attack?” She
held up her hands to signal dismay…
(To read more, click on Chapter 1 in black banner above.)
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