Art necessarily reflects
the artistsometimes in surprising ways.
Then Samson met Delilah, the first thing he did was crush an apple
against her head. Delilah didnt react in any way; she sat calmly
on the park bench, her hands folded primly in the lap of her long
purple dress, staring straight ahead as wet pulp ran down her
face and into the neckline of her lace collar. She didnt even
look up as Samson walked around the front of the bench, bowed
from the waist, and gallantly offered his hand.
In the Samson Team control van, though, we were either cracking
up or gaping at our monitors in dumb surprise. All except Phil
Burton; glaring through the one-way glass window, almost apoplectic
with rage, his mouth opened and closed several times before he
finally managed to give utterance to his thoughts.
"W-w-w-what t-t-t-the . . . what the hell was that?" he demanded.
"W-w-who pr-pr-programmed th-th-th-tha-that. . . ?"
"Nobody programmed it, Phil," I said. I had been worked with him
long enough to intuit what he meant when his speech impediment
got in the way. He looked sharply my way, and I hastily coughed
into my hand to hide my grin. Phil had a tendency to think people
were laughing at him even when something else funny was going
on. "Honest. I checked Samsons routine myself. That wasnt supposed
to happen."
"I-I-I know th-th-th-th. . . ." Phil shut his eyes, took a deep
breath, and silently counted to ten. While he was counting, I
glanced past him at Keith DAmico; although he was still chuckling,
he had already checked out his own screen. He caught my eye and
shook his head. No, he didnt have a clue as to what went wrong
either.
"Phil, Jerry . . . Ive put Samson in standby mode." This from
Donna Raitt, seated at the console on the other side of me. Unlike
Keith and me, she hadnt lost it when Samson had assaulted Delilah
with a deadly fruit; she was watching her screen, her hand cupped
over her headset mike. "It looks like D-team has done the same,"
she added quietly. "I havent heard from Dr. Veders group yet."
"Oh, but you will . . . you will." Keith was doing his Yoda impression
again. "Beware the dark side, Luke . . ."
"Knock it off." Phil had managed to get control of his stutter.
He glared at Keith, then turned back to me. "Okay, I believe you.
Its a glitch, thats all." He glanced out the window, taking
a moment to study the two robots frozen in the wooded atrium.
"Access his memory buffer from the beginning of the test up to
when Donna put him on standby."
"Death Star in range within ten seconds," Keith murmured.
If Phil heard thatand judging from the annoyed expression which
briefly crossed his face, he didhe chose to ignore it. He turned
to Bob, the kid operating the remote camcorders. "You got everything,
didnt you?"
"What . . . oh, yeah, yeah, its all here." Bob was wiping tears
from the corners of his eyes. "Do you want a copy, Dr. Burton?"
"No, I want you to delete the whole thing." Bob stared at him
in surprise, and for a moment his hands moved to the editing board.
"Goddammit, of course I want a copy!" Phil snapped. "Run it off
now! Move!" He returned his attention to me. "Cmon, Jerry, gimme
everything you got . . ."
"Coming right now." I had already loaded a fresh 100 MB disk.
A few deft commands on the keypad above my lap, and a bar-graph
appeared on my screen, indicating that the data Phil wanted was
being copied. I looked again at Keith; behind Phils back, he
had his right hand raised, and he was counting off the seconds
with each finger he folded into his palm. Five . . . four . . .
three . . . two . . . one . . .
"Delilah Team just called in." Once again, Donna had clasped her
hand over the wand of her headset. "Dr. Veder wants to meet with
you in the test area . . . umm, right now, Phil."
The color vanished from Phils face. "Uhh . . . t-t-tell her Ill
b-b-b-be there as . . . as . . ."
My terminal chirped. I popped out the disk, shoved it into Phils
hand, then snapped my fingers at Bob. He ejected the DVD from
the camcorder, slapped it into a jewelbox, then passed it to Keith,
who tapped it against Phils shoulder. That seemed to wake him
up; he blinked a few times, then turned to snatch the DVD from
Keiths hand.
"Hes coming now," Donna said quietly into her headset. "Sorry
for the problem. We had a problem here, but . . ."
"Stick to the rules. No contact except between team leaders."
Phil took another deep breath, then clapped the two disks together
as he turned sideways to squeeze past her and me as he headed
for the control vans door. "Wish me luck."
"May the Force be with you," Keith said, and I shot a look which
told him that Id like to stick a light-saber where a Jedi couldnt
find it. "Good luck," he added, albeit reluctantly.
"Thanks." Phil grabbed a roll of paper towels from the shelf near
the door. Then, almost as an afterthought, he looked back at Keith.
"Wipe the memory buffer, will you? I dont want this to affect
the next test." Then he stepped out of the van, slamming the door
shut behind him.
For a moment no one said anything, then everyone collapsed in
their seats. "Man, oh man," Keith muttered, covering his face
with his hands. "I thought he was going to have a stroke . . ."
"Thought he was going to have a stroke?" Donna shook her head. "You should
have heard what was going on in D-teams trailer. Kathy sounded
like she was ready to . . ."
"Are you off-line?" I asked quietly, and her eyes went wide as
she lunged for the mute button. Keith chuckled as he reached for
the two-pound bag of Fritos he kept stashed beneath the console.
I glanced at Bob; he said nothing as he hunched over his screen,
replaying the test on his monitor. Fresh out of MIT, he had been
working for LEC for less than five months now, and only very recently
had been assigned to the R3G program. He was wisely keeping office
politics at arms length, nor could I blame him.
Through the window, I watched Phil as he walked toward the bench
where Samson stood frozen, his right hand still extended. He glanced
nervously toward the opposite side of the atrium, then he tore
a wad of paper off the roll and began hastily wiping the apple
shards off Delilahs spherical head. I had to wonder why someone
on her team had felt compelled to put her in a dress. Perhaps
to accentuate her feminine role; although the test was supposed
to work out bugs in their handshaking procedures, the scenario
Phil and Kathy had mutually devised was supposed to playfully
emulate a quaint, old-fashioned courtship. So far, though, the
results werent very promising.
"Oh, such a nice man," Keith said, propping his sandals up on
his console as he shoved a fistful of chips in his mouth. "Look,
hes cleaning . . . uh-oh, here she comes."
From behind him, Dr. Katherine "Darth" Veder came stalking through
the trees, her hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. Even
before he saw her, Phil must have heard her coming, for he fumbled
with the roll in his hands as he reluctantly turned to face her.
"Oh, boy, is she pissed or what?" Bob murmured.
"What," I replied, and Donna arched an eyebrow knowingly.
"Dum-dum-dum-dah-de-dum-dah-de-dum," Keith hummed. "Volume, please. I dont want to miss this."
The van was soundproofed, but we had a parabolic mike aimed at
the test area. Donna started to reach for her board to activate
it. "Dont," I said quietly, shaking my head at her. "Lets let
them handle this themselves." Smiling a little, Donna withdrew
her hand.
Keith sighed in disgust, then pulled on his headset and tapped
a command into his console. I had little doubt that he was patching
into Samsons external mike to eavesdrop on their conversation,
if it could be called that. Through the window, I could see Kathy
yelling at Phil, her small hands gesturing wildly as she pointed
at him, at Samson, at Delilah, at our van, and back at Phil again.
Although Phils back was half-turned to us, his hands were almost
as busy, first making gestures of supplication and apology, then
briefly returning to his sideshe was probably counting to ten
againbefore rising again to make irate motions of his own.
Donna rested her elbows on the console and cupped her chin in
her hands. Bob picked up the month-old issue of Spin he had placed on top of one of the mainframes. Keith pawed at
his bag of chips, watching with interest while the two team leaders
ripped into each other.
"I wish these guys would hurry up and admit theyre in love,"
he muttered.
Meanwhile Samson and Delilah patiently waited nearby, ignored
yet omnipresent, as stoical as only robots can be.
Okay. Time to backtrack a bit.
You know about LEC, of course . . . or at least you should, if
you pay attention to TV commercials, browse the web, or visit
shopping malls. Lang Electronics Corporation is one of the three
major U.S. manufacturers of consumer robots; it started out as
a maker of IBM-clones in the early 80s, then diversified into
robotics shortly after the turn of the century, introducing its
first-generation robot vacuum cleaners and home sentries about
the same time that its closest competitors, CybeServe and Cranberry,
entered the market with their own household bots. CybeServe was
the leading company, and solidified that position after it was
bought out by Mitsubishi; Cranberry, on other hand, was hurt by
poor sales and a reputation for making second-rate bots that
tended to forget instructions, burn actuators, and taser the mailman.
By the time CybeServe and Mitsubishi merged, Cranberry had laid
off one-third of its employees and was on the verge of declaring
bankruptcy.
This left LEC in somewhere in the middle. It remained strong enough
to fight off hostile takeover attempts by larger electronics companies
in both America and Japan, and its Valet and Guardian series of
home bots held their own in the marketplace, not only selling
as many units as CybeServe but even surpassing their sales in
Europe. The success of its first-generation robots prompted LEC
to invest considerable capital in developing a second-generation
series of universal robots. Biocybe Resources in Worcester, Massachusetts,
had recently introduced its Oz 100 biochips, pseudo-organic microprocessors
capable of handling 100,000 MIPSMillions of Instructions Per
Second, the robotic equivalent of megabytesand LEC had built
them into its Gourmand, Guardian III, and Companion bots, successfully
bringing them to market nearly two months before CybeServe brought
out their rival systems. It also helped that CybeServes bots
were more expensive and that their CybeServe Butler had an embarrassing
tendency to misunderstand questions or commands given in less
than perfect English (e.g., "Is the dishwasher running?" No, its
still in the kitchen. "Answer the door, please." But it hasnt
asked me anything. And so forth.).
(If all this is beginning to make your eyes glaze over, please
be patient. Home bots may be rather commonplace these daysif
you dont already own one, chances are one of your neighbors does,
and your kids may be dropping hints about how nice it would be
to find a CybeServe Silver Retriever or a LEC Prince barking and
wagging its tail beneath the Christmas treebut Im relating events
which occurred about ten years ago. It may seem like business
talk, but it has quite a bit to do with the story at hand, so
bear with me, okay?)
CybeServe wasnt about to let itself get stampeded the way Cranberry
was several years earlier, so after it spent a small fortune working
out the bugs in its second-generation bots and an even larger
fortune in consumer advertising, it took the next logical step:
the development of a third-generation, all-purpose universal robot,
one which could serve as butler, housekeeper, sentry, cook, chess-player,
dog-walker, babysitter . . . you name it. And just to put the
icing on the cake, CybeServe intended its new bot to be humanlike:
bipedal, about six feet in height, with multijointed arms and
legs and five fingers on each hand.
This was probably the most significant factor, for with the exception
of a few experimental prototypes like Hondas P2 of the late 90s,
virtually every robot on the market looked like a fire hydrant,
an oversized turtle, or a vacuum cleaner with arms. A humanlike
robot, however, would not only be aesthetically familiar, but
it would also be able to adapt more readily to a household environment,
since it would be able to climb stairs or place objects on tables.
Although CybeServe tried to keep their R3G program secret, the
cybernetics industry is small enoughand the Robot Belt along
Route 9 in Massachusetts short enoughthat it was only a matter
of time before word leaked out of its Framingham headquarters.
The fact that their R3G project was codenamed Metropolis, an ironic
allusion to the robot in the 1927 silent film directed by Fritz
Lang, was a clear signal that CybeServe meant to pull an end-run
around its rival in Westboro .
When Jim Lang, LECs founder and CEO, learned that CybeServe was
actively engaged in the development of a third-generation bot,
the lights stayed on all night in the fourth-floor boardroom.
The following morning, Slim Jim summoned his department heads
to the executive suite, where he read them the riot act: LEC was
now in a race with CybeServe to be the first company to produce
a third-generation universal robot.
As luck would have it, though, the company wasnt caught flat-footed:
during their spare time, two of its senior engineers had already
been working on third-generation robots.
Where Phil Burton or Kathy Veder managed to find any spare time
at a company where everyone in the R&D divisions typically puts
in a 7-by-14 work week is beyond me, yet nonetheless these two
had been using their downtime to tinker in their labs. On their
own initiative, both Phil and Kathy had drafted plans for universal
bots which would utilize the new Oz chips being produced by Biocybe.
Since the Oz 3Megs were capable of processing three million MIPS,
this meant that a third-generation robot could have the approximate
learning ability of a Rhesus monkey, as opposed to a second-generation
bot with the IQ of a well-trained mouse.
The fact that they had designed their robots independently of
each other, without one being aware of what the other was doing,
was no great surprise to anyone. Phil Burton was in charge of
the division which developed the Companion robot, while Kathy
Veder was the senior engineer behind the Guardian III. Their departments
were located at opposite ends of the LEC quad, and their staffs
shared little more in common than the company cafeteria. Not only
that, but the two couldnt be more unalike: Phil Burton, tall
and rather skinny, with thinning blond hair, and a lifelong stutter
which betrayed his shyness, and Kathy Veder, short, plump, with
unruly black hair which was seldom combed and an aggressive manner
which bordered on outright hostility (hence the nickname). A pair
of über-geeks who couldnt have agreed on the proper pronunciation of
banana if someone threatened to take away their Usenet accounts.
Nonetheless, Lang was delighted that they already had a head-start,
and asked them to show him their work. However, Kathy was a little
more reluctant than Phil to comply; in fact, rumor had it that
Jim had to memo Darth three times before she finally coughed up
her notes and blueprints, while Phil delivered his material almost
immediately. The rest of us chalked up her reticence to peer rivalry,
never realizing that there was something else going on just under
the surface.
Lang carefully studied their plans, talked to some of his other
geeksmyself includedand eventually reached the conclusion that,
although each robot was designed differently, they were so fundamentally
similar that either could serve as LECs entry in the R3G race.
However, since the company didnt have the time, money or resources
to manufacture two third-generation bots, it was one or the other.
To make matters worse, there was no accord among the brain trust
upon which robot should be chosen; Kathys people were solidly
behind her Guardian IV design, while Phils group was equally
convinced that Companion II was the superior system.
Jim Lang loved strategy games. He collected antique chess sets
and backgammon boards, and was renowned among Go enthusiasts as
something of a master. Indeed, when LEC was a small start-up company
in the late 70s, its first major product had been a modular pocket
game system, the now-forgotten Lang Buddy. So it came as no great
surprise that his solution took the form of a competition.
Dr. Burtons group and Dr. Veders group were divided into two
teams, respectively code-named Samson and Delilah, with Dr. Burton
and Dr. Veder as their leaders. Each team was given a substantial
R&D budget and access to the same material resources, not the
least of which were copies of the Oz 3Meg chips. However, the
members of each team would not be allowed to talk to one another
or share notes; only the team leaders were given that privilege,
if they saw fit to do so.
The objective of Slim Jims game was the fast-track development
of a fully-operational, self-learning universal robot within six
months. At the end of this period, each team would let their robots
be testedfirst by themselves, then interacting with each otherin
a series of environments approximating real-world conditions.
The team which produced the best robot would not only see their
system enter mass-production, but they would also be awarded large
bonuses, along with royalties from the sale of each unit. Indeed,
the members of the winning team could very well walk away with
several hundred grand in their pockets.
It was a hell of an approach, to be sure, and over the course
of the next six months I didnt get much sleep, let alone very
many free weekends or holidays. Yet Samson itself was built within
only three months, and we began installing and testing its conditioning
modules shortly thereafter. Although we knew that, on the other
side of the quad, behind a pair of keycard-access doors, Delilah
Team spending an equal amount of effort on their own bot, we
had little doubt who would come out ahead. In fact, I was beginning
to price Porsches.
But building a new robot is one thing. Dealing with the human
factor is quite another.
"Okay, Samson," I said, "fix me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
"Yes, Jerry." The voice which came from his mouth grid sounded
almost exactly like Robert Redfords. That had to be Donnas choice;
she was a movie buff, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was one of her favorites. So was Keith, but at least he hadnt
again sampled Dennis Hoppers vocal patterns from Blue Velvet. That had been a little scary.
Samson turned and walked toward the small kitchenette in one corner
of the training suite. The suite resembled a large, two-room apartment,
with everything youd normally find in a well-furnished bachelor
flat; in fact, some members of the team crashed there overnight
when they were too tired to drive home. The only difference was
the two-way mirror on the wall above the couch; behind the reflective
glass, Donna and Keith were quietly watching the session from
the observation booth.
Samson had no difficulty finding his way to the kitchen; his three-dimensional
grid-map had already memorized the suite, and even when we rearranged
the furniture Samson quickly relearned his way around. As he trod
past the dinner table, the coffee in my cup sloshed slightly over
the rim. "Were going to have work on the shock-absorption," I
murmured as I jotted a note on my clipboard. "Maybe some padding
on his treads."
"Ill take it up with the shop," Donnas voice whispered in my
earpiece, "but theyre not going to be happy about it." I knew
what she meant. Although Samsons frame was constructed of lightweight
polymers, he still weighed more than two hundred and fifty pounds.
Still, we couldnt have a robot who shook the floor every time
he walked by.
Samson stopped in front of the kitchen counter. In earlier tests
of his cooking repertoire, we had laid everything out he needed
in plain sight. This time, though, the counter was clean. Two
days earlier, we had stocked the kitchen, then spent the better
part of the afternoon showing him what everything was and where
it was stored. If his conditioning module had properly tutored
him, he should figure it out with no problem.
And sure enough, Samson reached up to the cupboard above the counter
and, ever so gently, pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a loaf
of bread. He carefully placed them on the counter, then turned
to the refrigerator, opened it, and accurately selected the grape
jelly from the nearly identical jars of mayo and mustard placed
next to them. Sometime later wed put two different flavors of
jelly in the fridge, but right now his artificial vision was doing
well to recognize and read printed labels.
Samson located a butter-knife in the utensil drawer, laid it on
the counter next to the jars of jelly and peanut butter. He had
no problem opening the bread loafalthough it had taken him several
hours to learn the trick of loosening twist-ties without ripping
open the wrapperbut I held my breath as he picked up the peanut
butter. Before I led Samson into the room, Keith had deliberately
tightened its lid as firmly as possible, then bet me ten bucks
that Samson couldnt open it without breaking the jar. But this
time Samson clasped the rubberized fingertips of his left hand
around the lid and, while holding the jar steady in his right
hand, gradually exerted pressure until he unscrewed the lid.
"Very good, Samson," I said. "Youre doing well." I glanced at
the window and rubbed my thumb and fingers together. Donna chuckled
as Keith muttered an obscenity, and now I had beer money for tonight.
"Thank you, Jerry." Although the cyclopean red eye in the center
of Samsons forehead didnt turn my way, I knew that he could
see me nonetheless. Although the eye contained two parallax lenses,
Samsons bullet-shaped head contained a variety of motion and
heat detectors which continually updated my location in the room.
We had already tested their capability by putting a cat in the
room; although the cat, frightened out of her feline wits by this
lumbering man-thing, had constantly raced around the apartment,
growling and spitting and raising her fur whenever Samson came
near, the robot had deftly avoided trampling her underfoot. The
SPCA probably would have objected, but it was better to have our
bot get acquainted with house pets during the teaching phase
than receive lawsuits later.
Samson spread peanut butter across one slice of bread, then grape
jelly across another"A little more jelly, please, Samson," I
asked, and he compliedthen he successfully closed the two halves
together without making a mess. He located a small plate in another
cupboard and placed the sandwich upon it, then picked up the knife
again and cut it cleanly in half.
So far, so good. Then he began to take the sandwich apart, carefully
pulling apart the two halves of each section and laying them on
the counter, much as if he was . . .
Oh, no. I shut my eyes, shook my head. "Samson, what are you doing?"
I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
"Jerry, Im fixing the peanut butter and jelly sandwich," he replied.
"Please tell me what is wrong with it."
From the observation booth, I could hear Keith and Donna whooping
it up. I scowled at the windowKeith better not try using this
as an excuse to welsh on his betthen I looked back at Samson.
"Samson, there is nothing wrong with the sandwich," I replied,
speaking as I would to a small child who had erred. "My previous
instruction was a verbal colloquialism. In this context, to fix
any form of food means to prepare, not to repair. Please remember
that."
"Ill remember, Jerry." Samson stopped what he was doing, began
putting the sandwich back together again. "Im sorry for the misunderstanding.
Are we still friends?"
The last might seem odd, but it was part of the approval-disapproval
protocol programmed into Samsons conditioning module. Although
Samson couldnt know the meaning of friendshipor at least, technically
speaking, not as a human emotionit was part of his repertoire
to ask for forgiveness when he made an error. That had been Phils
idea; not only would it give third-generation robots a closer
resemblance to humanity, but it would also give their owners a
more user-friendly means of checking their onboard systems. Casual
queries like "are we still friends?" or "am I bothering you?"
sound more benign than "error code 310-A, resetting conditioning
module, yes/no?"
"Yes, Samson, were still friends," I replied. "Please bring me
the sandwich now."
I turned back to the dinner table, picked up my lukewarm coffee
and took a sip, then clicked my pen and started to make a few
notes. Behind me, I heard Samson was walking over to the table,
bearing my lunch. Through my earpiece, Keith asking Donna if she
wanted to go to Boston for dinner tomorrow night, and Donna sayingas
usualthat she was busy. Id heard this before. Donna had recently
divorced her second husband and Keith had never married; the two
were friends and colleagues, but their attraction was anything
but mutual. Donna was understandably reluctant to strike up a
workplace romance, and particularly not with the likes of Keith,
who thought fart jokes were the height of . . .
"Jerry, look out!"
Donnas warning reached me just an instant too late. I looked
up just as Samson slammed a peanut butter and extra-jelly sandwich
into the side of my face.
Maybe that sounds funny, in a Three Stooges kind of way, but mind you this came from a robot capable of picking
up one end of a six-foot couch without perceptible strain. The
sandwich was soft, sure, but the plate upon which it rested was
hard; even if I had known what was coming, its still likely that
I would have been knocked out my chair.
I sprawled across the tile floor, more surprised than injured,
with grape jelly drooling down into my right eye and peanut butter
plastering my hair against my face, the plate rattling against
the table. Towering above me was Samson, six feet of cobalt-blue
robot, his right hand placidly returning to his side.
"Jerry!" Donna screamed. "Are you. . . ?"
"Samson, shut down!" Keith bellowed. "Samson, code S. . . !"
"No, Samson!" I yelled. "Code B-for-Break!"
"Code B understood." Samson double-beeped and became motionless,
yet his chest diodes remained lit.
Good. He had obeyed the orders of the person closest to him. Had
he shut down, as Keiths Code S instruction would have made him
do, there was a chance that the abrupt loss of electrical current
might have erased the last few moments from his memory buffer.
Code B, on the other hand, simply returned him to standby mode.
I sat up quickly, glanced toward the window. "Its okay, Im all
right," I said. "Im unhurt. Just stay where you are."
Even as I spoke, though, I heard the door open behind me. Glancing
over my shoulder, I saw Keith just outside the room. The last
thing I wanted was for him to barge in and start throwing questions
at Samson, so I waved him off. He hesitated, then he reluctantly
shut the door, leaving me alone with the robot.
I let out my breath, then I clambered to my feet, walked over
to the sink, and wetted some paper towels. There was a small bruise
on my cheek, but I didnt find any blood mixed in with the peanut
butter and jelly; the shirt, though, would need a trip to the
dry cleaner. Cleaning up gave me a chance to calm down a little;
when I returned to the table and picked up the chair, I was ready
to talk to Samson once more.
"Samson, come back on-line, please," I said as I sat down, and
the bot gave me a single beep. "Do you remember what you were
doing before . . . uh, just before I gave you the Code B?"
"Yes, I do, Jerry. I gave you the sandwich you asked me to fix
for you."
So far, so good. His new usage of the word "fix" indicated that
his short-term memory wasnt impaired. The rest, though . . .
"Samson, you didnt give me the sandwich. You hit me in the face
with it. Do you remember doing that?"
"Yes, I do, David."
"Why did you do that? Hit me in the face with the sandwich, I
mean?"
"It seemed to be the right thing to do."
I expected to hear something from the booth; when I didnt, I
touched my ear with my right hand, found my earpiece missing.
Sometime during the last few minutes, it had become dislodged,
probably while I was washing my face at the sink. But I didnt
want to interrupt the conversation to go searching for it, so
I let it pass.
"That was the wrong thing to do, Samson," I said. "You could have
hurt me."
"Im sorry, Jerry. Please forgive me."
Again, it may seem strange for a robot to ask a human for forgiveness,
but this was another aspect of Samsons conditioning. For him,
begging forgiveness was an acknowledgement that he understood
he had made an error and a tacit statement that he would never
do it again. And indeed, he never would, not in a thousand reiterations
of the same sequence. Unlike humans, robots dont make the same
mistake twice.
Yet getting nailed again with a PB&J was the least of my concerns.
"Ill forgive you if you tell me why it seemed like it seemed
like the right thing to do."
Silence. I had posed the question the wrong way. "Samson, why
did you think hitting me in the face with the sandwich was the
right thing to do?"
"Because youre I want to do the right things for you, Jerry."
Great. Now we were stuck in a logic loop. Yet this was the second
time today he had struck someone elseeither another robot or
a humanwith an object he was supposed to give to them. For such
an occurrence to happen twice in such short succession couldnt
be a coincidence. Time to try a different tack . . . "If you want
to do the right things for me, Samson, then how do you feel about
me?"
"I love you, Jerry."
Wha-a-a-t?
Even if he sounded like Elizabeth Taylor rather than Robert Redford,
that response couldnt have shocked me more. Samson was programmed
to learn the identities of his human operators and accept them
with platonic, selfless affection. Agape, if you want to use the
seldom-used term for such a condition (and, no, its not pronounced
ah-gape, like the way you may stare at something, but as ah-gaw-pey). Since Samson had become operational, I had spent well over
a hundred hours with him in this room, patiently instructing him
how to make the bed, wash dishes, vacuum the floor, program the
TV, fetch me a soda, answer the front door and greet guests, play
various board games, and feed the cat. If I were to ask Samson
how he felt about me, he should have replied, "I like you, Jerry.
Youre my friend."
Love was not supposed to be in the algorithms. I was pretty damn
sure he didnt know what he was saying. But what was it that he
meant to say. . . ?
Once more, I heard the door open. Looking over my shoulder, I
saw Donna urgently gesturing to me. I wanted to continue this
train of thought, yet since I didnt know exactly what to say
next, perhaps now was a good time to grab a Coke. "I like you,
too, Samson," I said as I stood up. "Lets take a break. Code
B."
"Code B understood," Samson said, and there was another double-beep
as he went off-line again. If I didnt return in ten minutes to
rescind the order, he would automatically come back on-line again,
then seek out the nearest wall-socket and plug himself in for
a recharge. Until then, he was an inert hunk of machinery.
Right. An inert hunk of machinery who had just proclaimed his
love for me.
I found Phil in the observation booth, bent over one of the monitors
as he studied the video replay of the session. He didnt look
at me as I came in, but moused the slidebar on the bottom of the
screen to review my interview with Samson. Keith was seated in
his chair on the other side of him; he glanced in my direction,
then quickly looked away. I noticed the cordless phone near his
left elbow; that explained how Phil had gotten down here so quickly.
Keith, you prick; youre always ready to crack jokes behind the
bosss back, but whenever you get a chance to suck up to him . . .
"Why didnt you let Keith shut down Samson?" Phil asked quietly,
still gazing at the screen. At least he wasnt stammering this
time.
"I wanted to make sure we didnt lose anything from Samsons memory."
I stepped aside to let Donna slide past me, but she remained behind
me, standing in the open door of the darkened booth. "This was
the second time today Samson has attacked someone, and I wanted
to find out why."
Phil shook his head. "Sorry, Jerry, but thats an unacceptable
risk. If theres something critically wrong with his conditioning
protocols, we cant let him stay active after an accident." He
turned to Keith. "Download everything from his buffer and give
them to me, then erase his memory of this test."
"Hey, whoa, wait a minute! I just spent two hours in there with
him! You cant just erase everything because. . . !"
That ticked him off. Phil slapped the desk as he rose to face
me. "D-d-d-dont t-t-tell me wh-whu-whu-what I ca-ca-ca-ca . . ."
"Damn straight I can!" I snarled back. "Thats my conditioning
routine youre screwing with here, Phil, and this is the second
time today youve told Keith to wipe the memory buffer!" I jabbed
a finger at the motionless robot on the other side of the window.
"And in case you didnt notice, that friggin thing just said
he loves me! Now theres got to be a reason for that!"
Phil stared at me in astonishment, and I cant say I wasnt rather
amazed myself. In the four years that we had worked together,
we had seldom raised our voices to one another. We werent great
friends, but even after the stress of the last six months, it
was hard for the two of us to get really mad at each other. Unlike,
of course, his stormy relationship with Darth Veder . . .
And it was then, deep within my brain, that a couple of synapses
sparked in a way those two particular synapses had never fired
before. Phil and Kathy . . .
Okay, time out for a little soap opera. True Geek Romance, or perhaps Computer Wonks In Love. Either way, here it is:
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . okay, so it was
about twelve years ago, just across the Charles River on the MIT
campus . . . there were two post-grads working in the Artificial
Intelligence Lab, both studying advanced AI as applied to robotics.
A nice couple of kids in their late twenties; neither of them
much to look at, and hardly the type youd imagine prancing hand-in-hand
through the lily fields, but hey, love isnt only blind, but its
also got a bizarre sense of humor. They found each other, they
worked together for a time as colleagues, then close friends,
then . . . well, you get the picture.
But it didnt take. Thats the problem with romances among highly
intelligent people; they think too much about what theyre doing, instead of just letting their
cojones go their own merry way. They were a mismatched couple, or at
least so they told themselves, prone to argue about every little
detail, whether it was about the theories of Norbert Wiener or
what kind of pizza to order tonight. Late one evening, after the
latest tiff, she stormed out of his Cambridge apartment, and he
retaliated by throwing her books into the street, and that was
pretty much the end of that. They both received their MIT doctorates
only a few months later, and since each of them already had jobs
awaiting them on opposite sides of the country, they left Massachusetts
with scarcely a final goodbye.
But every great affair has a touch of irony. A decade went by,
during which time LEC decided to diversify into consumer robotics.
Jim Lang hired corporate headhunters to recruit the best cybernetics
talent available, and as fortuitous circumstances would have it,
the two former lovers were lured back to Massachusetts. Imagine
their surprise when they discovered that they were now working
for the same company. Different divisions, perhaps, but the same
company nonetheless.
So now its twelve years later, and they were still trying to
iron out their relationship. Only this time, theyd built robots
which program themselves by observing human behavior and imitating
it.
"Keith, Donna," I asked, "would you mind excusing us for a moment?"
Keith stared at me before he realized that I wanted him to leave,
then he shrugged and rose from his chair. Donna gave me a quizzical
look, but didnt say anything as Keith closed the door behind
them.
Phil waited until we were alone before he spoke. "Whu-whu-whu-what
d-d-d-do you w-w-wa-wa-want t-t-t-to. . . ?"
"Phil, sit down and count to ten." He glared at me but took my
advice anyway, taking the seat Keith had just vacated. While he
was counting, I crept to the door, put my hand on the knob, waited
a couple of seconds, then yanked it open. Keith stood just outside,
pretending to scratch his nose. He mumbled something about getting
a cup of coffee and scurried down the hall. I shut the door again
just as Phil had reached ten. "Okay now?" I asked.
"Sure." He let out his breath. "All right, Jerry, what do you
want to talk about?"
"Okay, just between you and me . . . are you seeing Kathy again?"
Phils mouth dropped open, and for a moment I thought he was going
to start stammering again. I saw the denial coming, though, so
I headed it off. "Look, everyone knows you two were once an item.
Frankly, I dont care, but if it makes any difference, Im not
going to tell Jim. Just to satisfy my curiosity, though . . ."
"Ummm . . . yeah, weve started seeing each other again." He seemed
mortified by the admission. "But not on company time," he quickly
added. "Weve only gone out a couple of times."
Somehow, that sounded like a lie. I didnt keep track of Darths
hours, but I knew for a fact that Phil practically lived at the
lab, going so far as to keep a fresh change of clothes in his
office closet and a toothbrush in his desk. "Sure, sure, I believe
you. Just dinner and a movie now and then, right?"
"Yeah, t-t-thats all." He nodded, perhaps a little too quickly
. . . and that stutter of his was better than a polygraph. "P-p-please
dont let anyone know. If Jim fi-fi-fi-finds out w-w-were . . ."
"I know, I know." And thats what bothered him the most, the chance
that Jim Lang would discover that the leaders of his two rival
tiger-teams were having an affair. For a chess player, that would
be like finding out that the white queen and the black king were
sneaking off the board to fool around. "Trust me, Slim Jims never
going to learn about this . . . or at least from me, at any rate."
Phil nodded gratefully, then his face became suspicious. "So why
do you want to know?"
"Well . . ." I coughed in my hand. "You just said that you two
werent seeing each other on company time . . . and really, I
believe you, honest . . . but just for the sake of conjecture,
if you were seeing each other here at the lab, umm . . . would
you be doing it where Samson might be at the same time?"
"B-b-buh-buh . . ." Phil stared at me as if I was his father and
I had just asked if he knew how to put on a condom. And then his
eyes involuntarily traveled toward the window.
While we had been speaking, without either of us taking notice,
Samson had automatically gone into recharge mode. The robot had
walked to the nearest electrical outlet, withdrawn a power cable
from his thorax, and inserted it into the wall socket. Since Samson
now spent most of his downtime in the training suite, he knew
exactly where all the outlets were located.
It suddenly occurred to me that the outlets were all within line-of-sight
of the suites bedroom. The one which all of us had used when
we were too tired or busy to go home.
And Samson, of course, knew how to change the sheets when asked
to do so.
When I looked back at Phil, I saw that he was staring straight
at me. Nothing further needed to be said: he knew that I knew,
and I knew that he knew that I knew. Thats another thing about
highly intelligent people; no matter how smart they may be, most
of them have a hard time lying with a straight face.
Phil didnt say anything. He rotated the chair to the console,
where he found a spare disk, slapped it into the drive, and tapped
a couple of commands into the keyboard. "Sorry you had to lose
this afternoons session," he said quietly, not looking back at
me as Samsons memory buffer downloaded onto the disk, " but I
think weve got a flaw in the conditioning module . . ."
"Aw, cmon! Hes just confused. He sees you and Kathy in there . . ."
I saw the angry look on his face reflected in the window, but
I didnt stop myself ". . . and then he sees you two fighting.
No wonder his conditioning is . . ."
"Thats enough!" He ejected the disk from the drive and stood
up quickly, shoving the disk in his trouser pocket without bothering
to first put it in its case. "Th-th-this is none of your buh-buh-business,
and I-I-Id ap-ap-appreciate it if y-y-youd k-k-k-kindly stay
out of it. Samson needs to b-b-be reprogrammed. Th-th-th-thats
all."
No argument either way. Phils relationship with Kathy wasnt
any of my business, and there was no doubt that Samson conditioning
module needed drastic remodification. Like it or not, our team
had designed a third-generation robot which took all the wrong
cues from human behavior. Kathy and Phil could fight out their
problems on their own, but it wasnt right to send a robot to
market whose training inadvertently reflected their love-hate
relationship.
"Sure, Phil," I said. "Whatever you say."
Still not looking directly at me, Phil nodded as he headed for
the door. "Th-th-thats the end of t-t-t-todays exercise," he
said quietly. "I-I-Ill work on S-s-s-samson tonight, have it
r-r-ready for t-t-tomorrows test with D-d-d-d-d . . ."
"Sure you want to do that?" Tomorrow morning we had another test
scheduled with D-team. Same routine as before: Samson comes out
of the woods, offers an apple to Delilah, bows to her, offers
his hand and asks if she wants him to join her on the bench. Both
teams had agreed this as a test of whether the two robots could
work in unison without operator intervention. "Maybe we should
ask for a delay."
Phil appeared to think about it for a moment, then he shook his
head. "No," he said at last. "Well do the test tomorrow. Between
now and then, dont touch Samson. Just let me take care of this,
okay?"
"Sure," I said, and he nodded and let himself out of the booth.
It wasnt until long after he had closed the door behind him that
I realized he had stopped stuttering.
By this time, though, I had taken a seat at the console and begun
doing a little work of my own.
The two R&D programs were supposed to be isolated from one another,
but the seal wasnt airtight. Kathy and Phil werent the only
couple who were keeping company when no one was 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 didnt 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 theres always a first
time for everything, so it was with no small amount of guilt that
I used my occasional girlfriends password to gain access to D-Teams
files.
It took a couple of hours of rummaging, but after a while I managed
to locate a batch of reports regarding Delilahs trial runs. I
wasnt 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 oneat least,
not those who had written the reports; I couldnt find any from
Kathy Vederhad 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 Samsons. It didnt 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 loveeven agape, its highest expressionisnt 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
ones family. But love does nonetheless persist, and sometimes
under the strangest of circumstances.
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 didnt 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. Once again, I wondered what purpose
it served to put clothes on a robot. It didnt seem to impede
her movementsindeed, the dress had been cut so that it allowed
her double-jointed arms and legs to move more freelyyet it was
unnecessary to assign a gender-role to a machine. On the other
hand, perhaps Darth was attempting to humanize her creation; if
that was the case, it might be a good marketing strategy, yet
rather futile since Delilahs spherical, nearly featureless head
belied the femininity of her outfit.
Kathy stopped next to the bench, turning her back to us as she
waited for Delilah catch up. Donna hadnt switched on the shotgun
mike, so we couldnt hear the instructions Kathy gave the bot.
She pointed to the bench, and Delilah walked over to it, her feet
whisking beneath the hem of her dress, until she turned and daintily
sat down, once again folding her silver hands in her lap. Kathy
bent over Delilah and closely examined a panel in the side of
her slender cylindrical neck. I glanced at the clock. We were
already running fifteen minutes late . . .
The door behind me opened, and at first I thought it was Phil.
"What took you so. . . ?" I started to say until I glimpsed Keith
hastily stashing his chips beneath the console. I turned around
and saw Jim Lang entering the trailer.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked. As always, Jim was dressed in
sandals, faded Levis and a Hawaiian shirt. In all the time I had
worked for LEC, I had never seen him wear a coat and tie, not
even for stockholder meetings.
"No, Jim, not at all." I recovered fast enough to not show just
how startled I was by his unexpected arrival. "Were . . . ah,
still setting up here. If you want to take a seat. . . ?"
"Thanks, Jerry. Excuse me, Donna . . . it is Donna, isnt it?"
Ignoring her forced smile, Jim eased past her, then settled down
in Phils empty chair. "Sorry to interrupt, but I was just curious
to see how things were making out down here."
Right. Slim Jim never showed up anywhere just out of curiosity.
When he made an appearance outside the executive suite, it meant
that he had become aware that a project was having problems. "Were
doing great, Jim," Keith said, just a little too quickly. "Just
. . . uh, working out a few bugs here and there."
I looked away so that Jim wouldnt see me wince. Brilliant, Einstein.
Yet Slim Jim only nodded. He gazed through the window at Kathy
Veder and Delilah. "I dont see Phil," he said. "Wheres . . .
ah, yes, here he comes now."
I followed his gaze, spotted Phil walking through the trees on
the other side of the atrium. He saw Kathy, stopped a few yards
away from the bench as she looked up at him. Their eyes locked
for a few seconds, and for a moment or two I thought he was going
to say something to her, or she something to him. But nothing
happened; he lowered his head and strode quickly toward the trailer.
Her gaze followed him, and in that instant when her face turned
toward the trailer, I caught the briefest glimpse of an expression
I couldnt quite identify. Loathing? Longing? Hard to tell . . .
"Were lucky to have them working for us, dont you think?" Jim
asked quietly.
I didnt realize he was speaking to me until I glanced his way,
saw that he was looking at me. "Oh, yeah," I replied. "Very lucky.
Two great scientists, uh-huh." And perhaps it wasnt too late
to send my resumé to CybeServe . . .
Phil was startled to find Jim sitting in his chair when he entered
the trailer. He murmured a hasty apology for being late, which
Jim accepted with a perfunctory nod, then he squeezed past the
CEO to stand behind Keith. "G-g-good m-m-m-morning," he stammered
as he leaned over Keiths shoulder to check out the screen. "Are
w-w-w-we re-re-re-ready?"
"Im not sure." Keith cast a wary sidelong glance in Jims direction.
"When I ran a diagnostic a few minutes ago, I found a new protocol
in the conditioning module. I checked it out, and it looks like
it was written last night. Do you know anything about. . . ?"
"Y-y-yes, i-i-its a n-n-new p-p-program." His Adams apple bobbed
in his thin neck, and he seemed determined not to deliberately
look at Jim Lang. "I t-t-t-think w-w-w-were ready to pr-pr-pro-proceed."
Jim raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but said nothing as he propped
his elbows on the console and clasped his hands together beneath
his chin. Out in the atrium, Kathy Veder had just turned to walk
away from Delilah. Phil caught Donnas eye and quickly nodded
his head, and she switched on her mike. "D-Team, were ready to
roll."
"R-r-roll now," Phil said. Keith and I traded an uncertain glance.
Dr. Veder was still in the atrium; she hadnt yet returned to
her trailer. Keiths hands hesitated above his keyboard, and Phil
tapped him on the shoulder. "Commence the t-t-t-test, p-p-p-please,"
he said, and Keith shrugged as he typed in the command which would
bring Samson online.
"Arent you going to wait?" Jim asked quietly.
Phil didnt reply. Instead, he closed his eyes, and his lips moved
as he subaudibly counted to ten.
Something weird was going on here, and it wasnt the sort of weirdness
I like. While Phils eyes were shut and Jim was looking the other
direction, I opened a window from my menu bar and moused the emergency
shut-down icon. When the Y/N prompt appeared onscreen, I moved
the cursor above the Y. One tap of my index finger, and Samson
would freeze like an popsicle.
Out in the atrium, Kathy Veder was almost at the edge of the clearing
when Samson came marching through the trees. She stopped in mid-stride,
confused and startled, judging from her expression, not just a
little alarmed. My minds eye flashed upon a scene from The Day the Earth Stood Stillthe robot Gort carrying the unconscious Patricia Neal in his
armsand my finger wavered above the Return key. Oh, no, Phil
cant be that crazy . . .
But then Samson stopped. He bowed from the waist, as if he was
a gentleman who happened upon a lovely young woman while strolling
through the woods. Kathys face changed from fear to amusement;
she stepped aside, and Samson straightened up and walked past
her.
"Oh, very good," Jim murmured. "Good object recognition."
I let out my breath and moved my hand away from the keyboard.
Samson continued walking toward Delilah. As he approached the
bench where she sat, his right hand opened the cargo panel on
his chest, and reached inside. At this point, he was supposed
to pull out an apple and offer it to the other robot. He had gotten
that part right yesterday, until he decided that slamming the
apple against her head was an appropriate sign of affection. On
either side of me, I could see Donna, Keith, and Bob stiffening
ever so slightly.
But what Samson produced wasnt an apple, but a heart.
Not the organic sort, but the St. Valentines Day variety: a red
plastic toy of the sort you might place within a bouquet of roses
you send to your true love.
From the edge of the clearing, Kathy Veder watched as Samson stepped
around the bench and, with grace and tenderness, held it out to
Delilah.
Delilah remained still, her hands still folded in her lap, her
fishbowl head staring straight ahead.
"Please," I heard Phil whisper.
And then Delilahs head moved toward Samson, as if noticing his
presence for the first time. She raised her left arm, opened her
palm and turned it upward, and waited.
Samson took another step forward and, ever so carefully, placed
the heart in her hand.
Kathy folded her arms across her chest, covered her mouth with
her hand. She was watching the robots, but her gaze kept flickering
toward us, toward the window behind which Phil stood.
I glanced at Phil. He was silent, but his posture was exactly
like Kathys.
Delilah took the heart and placed it in her lap. Samson bowed
just as he had done for Kathy, but he remained rooted in his tracks
until Delilah raised her left hand and, in a very ladylike fashion,
motioned for him to join her on the bench.
Samson took two steps closer, turned around, and sat down next
to Delilah, his hands coming to rest on the bench.
Then Delilah laid her right hand upon his left hand.
And then both robots became still.
That was almost what they were supposed to do.
For a few moments, no one in the trailer said anything. Everyone
stared in astonishment at the tableau. I felt someone brush against
the back of my chair, but I didnt look up to see who had just
moved past me. My entire attention was focused upon Samson and
Delilah, the quiet spectacle of two robots holding hands on a
park bench.
"Fantastic," Jim Lang whispered. "Im . . . thats utterly . . .
my God, its so damn real." He turned around to look up at Phil.
"How did you. . . ?"
But Phil wasnt there. He didnt even bother to shut the door
behind him as he left the trailer. When I peered out the window
again, I saw that Kathy Veder had disappeared as well.
In fact, I didnt see either of them again for the rest of the
day. A little while later, during lunch hour, I casually strolled
out to the employee parking lot and noted, without much surprise,
that both of their cars were missing.
"Thats incredible conditioning," Jim said as he pushed back his
chair. "How did you guys manage this?"
Bob chuckled as he unloaded his camcorder. Donna and Keith, two
days away from their first date, just grinned at each other and
said nothing. I made the program-abort window disappear from my
screen before the boss noticed and shrugged offhandedly.
"Just takes the right conditioning," I replied.
If youre a robot-owner, or least one who has a Samson or a Delilah
in your home, then you know the rest. After considerable research
and development, and the sort of financial risk which makes the
Wall Street Journal see spots before its eyes, LEC simultaneously introduced two
different R3G models: his-and-hers robots for the home and office.
They cook dinner, they wash dishes, they answer the door, they
walk the dog, they vacuum the floor, they make the beds, and water
the roses and virtually anything else you ask them to do. Sure,
CybeServe brought their Metropolis to market first, but who wants
that clunky piece of crap? Our robots will even carry your kids
to bed and sing them a lullaby.
People sometimes ask why Samsons and Delilahs have a small heart
etched on their chest plates. The corporate line is that its
there to show that our robots have a soul, but anyone who knows
anything about cybernetics knows better than that. After all,
thats utter nonsense. Robots are just machines, right? And who
in their right mind would ever believe that a machine can learn
to love?
I dont have an easy answer to that, and Ive spent more than
fifteen years in this industry. If you want, Ill forward your
query to Dr. Phil Burton and Dr. Kathy Veder. However, you shouldnt
expect an answer very soon. Ever since they got married, weve
had a hard time getting them to come to the office.
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