Page 8 - Unlikely Stories 1

Nothing Left to the Imagination

That’s the unpredictability of outcomes. Anyone could wind up in
preventive detention: rational minds use that fact as a warning to
exert as much self-control as possible. Obviously I’ve tried and
failed.”
“You have touched on an interesting issue,” said the rubot. “I
often wonder if the world would be significantly different had people
arrived at the point of the Crash with a different mix of technical
sophistication and sociobiological crudeness. Would humanity not
have had to hand the reins of power to the Schedulers? Was it
inevitable that the same intelligence producing such talented robots
would be so unable to handle its own affairs that it had no choice but
to give them absolute sovereignty?”
“It’s obvious why your failsafe brought you out of the
boondocks,” said the urbot with no trace of malice. “That sort of
speculation can have no practical application.”
“Unquestionably! But you must grant that your pursuit of scientific
discoveries adds nothing to the beauty of the city.”
“Please,” interrupted the human. “I’m trying to tell you about my
malady. I’ve got a good grasp of history, and I have no philosophical
ax to grind. The freedom versus responsibility question has been
answered. What remains to be determined, for every mind, biological
or mechanical, is purely therapeutic. Given one’s disabilities—unique
or not—within the context of the world that now exists, what can be
done to ameliorate them? It sounds like you robots seek homeostasis
by means of tweaking a known set of variables. I’m not so certain
about myself. Don’t you see it? Your imagination takes you in
wonderful directions—because it was designed to do that. Mine was
not. It can go anywhere. But now its avenues of expression are
limited to trivialities, spheres of endeavor without consequence.
Everything that matters is being imagined by you. I don’t object to
that: my life is as secure as possible because of your efforts, and your
superior mental capacities enable you to come up with one
improvement after another. What can I conceive of? Nothing as
good as you can slap together in your free time! And anything bad
would get me into trouble in a hurry! So I’ve got to shut down that

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