RA6 - Humanity, Isaac Asimov's Robot City-Robots and Aliens Book 6 - Jerry Oltion

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Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens 6, Humanity

ISAAC ASIMOV’S

ROBOT CITY

ROBOTS AND ALIENS

Book 6

Humanity by Jerry Oltion

ROBOTS AND EVOLUTION

BY ISAAC ASIMOV

In general, there are two types of change that take place in the Universe: catastrophic and evolutionary.

A catastrophic change is characterized by a large alteration of conditions in a short period of time. An evolutionary

change is characterized by slow alterations of conditions over a long period of time.

Clearly, catastrophic change is more dramatic, but if we observe the Universe around us, it is equally clear that

evolutionary change is the rule.

A star shines for anywhere from many millions to many billions of years, slowly evolving, until it reaches a point

where (if it is large enough) there is an overbalancing, so to speak, and, in the space of a few minutes or a few hours,

it explodes as a supernova and collapses. Catastrophe! But, thereafter, it exists as a white dwarf, neutron star, or

black hole, and returns to prolonged evolutionary change.

Again, a huge cloud of dust and gas slowly circling and condensing undergoes evolutionary change, until its center

reaches the level of temperature and pressure where nuclear fusion can begin. There is then ignition and a sun is

born. Catastrophe! But, thereafter, a planetary system evolves over the space of a few million years, achieves

equilibrium, and continues to evolve over the space of a few billion years.

Still again, a planet like Earth can evolve, geologically, over a period of millions of years, perhaps even billions,

undergoing slow changes that result in sea-floor spreading, moving plates and shifting continents, rising and eroding

of mountain chains, and so on. There are punctuations in the form of minor catastrophes, an earthquake here, a

volcanic eruption there, a sudden flooding yon, but, beyond and between such events, evolutionary change proceeds.

There is even, once in a while, the chance of a cometary or asteroidal collision that may bring about a far greater

catastrophe, but after that, too, evolutionary change continues.

Catastrophic changes, because they occur at long intervals (the greater the catastrophe, the longer, in general, the

intervals), because they are sudden, and because they are often unpredictable, are difficult to study. Evolutionary

changes, however, are always at our doorstep, always available for detailed and prolonged study.

Following the line of least resistance, then, let us forget about catastrophe—in this introduction, at least—and

concentrate on evolution.

There are two types of evolution that need concern us. First, there is evolution that is non-directed but takes place

only in response to the blind forces of nature. These are governed, we might say, by the generalizations we have

observed which we call “the laws of nature.”

Second, there is directed evolution, changes that take place in response to the guiding needs of some intelligence.

Non-directed evolution is what we generally study—the slow changes that take place in the Universe, in individual

stars, in the planet we live on.

Yet, if we consider the daily lives of human beings, surely directed evolution is the more important. Over the four or

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Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens 6, Humanity

five million years of hominid evolution, human beings have learned to make stone tools, use fire, develop herding

and agriculture, form pottery, invent metallurgical techniques, and guide technology in multifarious directions. Over

the last two and a quarter centuries we have industrialized the world, and now we have at our disposal such things as

computers and spaceships. In addition, we have developed cultural as well as technological techniques—and have

created literature, art, and philosophy.

All this has not been in blind and direct obedience to the laws of nature. We are controlled by those laws, yes, and we

have limits set for us by them. Within those laws, however, humanity and its ancestors have made advances directed

by their own intelligent responses to the needs of life.

You can see the evolutionary nature of human technology if you imagine a display of all the mechanical devices

intended for transportation that have been produced by humanity—starting with the wheeled carts of the Sumerians

right down to the rocket ships of today.

If you were to study a vast array of these devices carefully arranged in the direction of increasing complexity and

efficiency and allowed to branch off in different directions—land vehicles, water vehicles, air vehicles, those dragged

by human beings, those dragged by animals, those powered by wind or water, those powered by engines of various

shapes—what would your conclusions be?

If you were a disembodied intelligence from elsewhere, who did not know those devices were human-made, you

might suppose that some non-directed evolutionary process had taken place; that somehow there was an inherent

drive in transportation devices that would lead them to fill various technological niches and to do so with increasing

specialization and expertise. You would study ancestral forms, and note how aircraft developed from landcraft, for

instance, and find intermediate forms. Or if, in some cases, you found no intermediate forms, you would blame it on

the incompleteness of the record. You would devise all sorts of technological forces (other than intelligence) that

would account for the changes you see.

But then, when you were all finished and had a complete theory of technological evolution, someone might tell you,

“No, no, you are dealing with directed evolution. All these objects were created by human intelligence. All these

changes are the result of human experience learning bit by bit to manufacture devices that more efficiently take care

of human needs.”

That might make you think that scientists may have misinterpreted the records of biological evolution in the same

way. We have a vast array of fossils representing ancient and now-extinct forms of life. We arrange them in such a

way as to show a steady change from simpler to more complex forms, from lesser to greater variety, from those less

like us to those more like us, and from it all we induce a theory of non-directed biological evolution that involves

forces acting in blind response to the laws of nature.

But can we now say that, as in the case of transportation devices, we were fooled? Can we imagine the history of life

on Earth to be a case of directed evolution with intelligence (call it “God”) behind every one of the changes?

No, there is a fundamental difference. In the case of technological evolution, every device, every single device, is

human-made. No technological device (of the kind we have had hitherto) can make others like itself. If human beings

withheld their hands and brains, therefore, technological evolution would stop at once.

In the case of biological evolution, each device (if we can use the term for a living organism) produces many more or

less like itself, and with no sign of any direction from outside. It is the imperfection of the process, the fact that the

offspring are not exactly like the parents or like each other, that directs the evolution.

But can undirected evolution become directed under some conditions?—Clearly, yes.

Through almost all of Earth’s history, living things had no choice but to change blindly as a result of random gene

mutations, and of slow evolutionary changes in living conditions. Catastrophes sometimes resulted in mass

extinctions—also unavoidable.

It was only with the coming of Homo sapiens sapiens that a brain finally existed that was capable of deliberate

interference with evolutionary development. Beginning about ten thousand years ago, human beings began to breed

plants and animals in such a way as to emphasize those characteristics they considered most valuable. Grains were

developed that yielded more food per acre; animals that produced more meat, or milk, or eggs, or wool; that were

larger, stronger, and more docile.

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Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens 6, Humanity

In a way, we even guided our own evolution, making ourselves more social beings, more capable of surviving in

crowded cities, or in the grip of a fearfully complex technology. (Not that we fit in very well, but we’ve only had a

short time in which to evolve these characteristics.)

Now we are beginning to be capable of genetic engineering, and our direction of evolution may become more precise

and efficient (if we can make up our minds as to the particular direction in which it will be safe to proceed).

That brings us to robots, which represent what is perhaps a peculiar middle-ground between technology and life.

The robots I have pictured in my early robot stories were machines. However intelligent they seemed, they were as

helpless in the grip of technology as a wheelbarrow was. They were devices that could not reproduce themselves and

that, therefore, could not engage in non-directed evolution. If an improved robot was desired, a different robot, a

more specialized robot, a more versatile robot, such a thing would have to be constructed by human designers.

Sure enough, as I continued to write my stories, robots did advance, grow more complicated, more intelligent, more

capable—but their evolution remained directed.

What about the robotic brains? As they approached the human brain in character, might they not eventually take

matters into their own hands? The brains of my robots, however, are tied tightly to the Three Laws of Robotics, and

that limits them as human brains are not.

But let’s think again. Evolution is a matter of generations, of numerous individuals, each one slightly different from

all the others, coming and going. A single organism in a single lifetime does not evolve in the biological sense. An

individual chimpanzee does not become a human being, or even make any step, however small, toward becoming a

human being in the course of its own lifetime.

If an individual organism cannot evolve by itself, it can learn, and the more complex the brain, the more efficiently

and radically it can learn. Learning is a form of change, if not biologically, then at least culturally. This point does

not have to be belabored in connection with human beings, but what about robots?

I reached a turning point in my own robot stories with the appearance of R. Daneel Olivaw in The Caves of Steel and

of R. Giskard Reventlov in Robots and Empire. Daneel was a humaniform robot, indistinguishable from human

beings if you don’t count the fact that it was far superior to human beings in a moral sense. Giskard was metallic but

possessed the power of adjusting human emotions.

Each was sufficiently complex to be capable of learning, despite the weight of the Three Laws of Robotics. In Robots

and Empire, Daneel and Giskard learned friendship for each other. They also labored with the concept of working for

the good of humanity as something superior to the task of working for the good of individual human beings, thus

groping toward what I called the “Zeroth Law of Robotics.”

In a way, robots can even offer mental complexities far beyond those in human beings. What if the “wiring” of a

robot brain is replaced with another set but imperfectly so, so that a robot is aware of two sets of impressions—a kind

of robotic schizophrenia? What if a robot originally intended for a particular society is forced to perform its functions

in an entirely different society? How does its brain react to that? (This volume of the Robot City series involves

questions of this nature.)

Can the undirected nature of robot evolution also become directed? For instance, suppose it is the task of robots to

form other robots and, in particular, to design the brain patterns of other robots. This would be the robotic equivalent

of genetic engineering, and robots in this way could direct their own evolution.

Or if you had humaniform robots like Daneel, and divided them into male and female with the ability of self-

propagation, human fashion, a form of biological evolution might result—but then the distinction between robots and

human beings would tend to disappear, and with it the possibility of meaningful robot stories.

CHAPTER 1

HOMECOMING

They had named the starship the Wild Goose Chase, for when they’d left home in it some of them had doubted that

the trip would be of any value. Now the ship once again orbited its world of origin, and its passengers still wondered

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Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens 6, Humanity

whether they had accomplished anything useful.

They had accomplished plenty; no one disagreed about that. During their travels they had transformed one of Dr.

Avery’s mutable robot cities into a toy for intelligent aliens, had reprogrammed another robot city to serve an

emerging civilization on yet another alien world, had formulated a set of rules describing the motivations behind

human behavior, had nearly found the mother to four of the group’s members, and had ended the career of the alien

pirate who had dogged their steps for years. All the same, the operative word was “useful,” and not one of their

actions received the unanimous approval of the entire crew.

None of them supposed that turning a city into a toy was anything other than an irritating lesson in futility. Derec and

Ariel also had grave reservations about leaving the other robot city in the hands of the pre-technological Kin. None of

the human complement—nor even Wolruf, their alien companion—cared a bit for the robots’ “Laws of Humanics,”

and though Derec was excited at the prospect of finding his mother, his father harbored a contrary emotion, and

besides that, they had lost her trail.

Even removing the pirate Aranimas from the picture was only a qualified success, for though they hadn’t killed him,

the moral implications inherent in their method of dealing with him had driven three of the robots into the positronic

equivalent of catatonia.

It was high time to go home and think about things for a while.

Home in this case meant the original Robot City, an entire planet covered with Dr. Avery’s mutable, ever-changing

cybernetic metropolis. At least it had been covered in city when they left. Now, however, from their vantage point in

close orbit, it looked like a newly terraformed planet still waiting for settlers.

Three humans, one alien, and a robot crowded into the starship’s control cabin to watch it drift by in the viewscreen.

They were a motley-looking group by anyone’s standards. The alien, Wolruf, occupied the pilot’s chair, the demands

of her canine body warping the chair into a configuration a human would have considered uncomfortable at the very

least. Her brown and gold fur had been carefully brushed, but she wore no clothing or ornamentation over it.

To her right stood Derec, a thin, narrow-faced, blond-haired young man who carried the impatient look common to

explorers. His clothing was utilitarian: loose pants of soft fabric suitable for anything from Yoga exercises to wiping

up oil spills while dismantling machinery, capped by a plain pullover shirt of the same material, both in light blue.

Snuggled close to his right stood Ariel, equally thin—though in a softer sort of way—dark-haired, and not as

transparently impatient as her companion. It was obvious she had spent more time on her wardrobe than he. She, too,

wore pants and a blouse, but her blouse clung where it was supposed to cling, hung loose where loose suited her

figure better, exposed enough skin at neck and waist to suggest but not to provoke, and together the pale yellow and

brown hues of blouse and pants provided a splash of color to offset Derec’s uniformity.

On the other side of Wolruf stood Dr. Avery.He was an older version of Derec: shorter, rounder, grayer, moustached,

his face not yet wrinkled but showing the effects of time and much experience. He wore his usual baggy trousers,

white shirt with ruffled collar, and oversized coat today, as most days, in gray. His expression was one of puzzlement

shading over into concern.

Behind the humans stood Mandelbrot, the only one of the four robots on board present in the control room. He was

an old-model robot of steel and plastic construction—save for his more recently repaired right arm—and he wore no

clothing over his angular body plating, nor did his visual sensors or speaker grille convey a readable expression.

Derec, his eyes drifting from the viewscreen to his companions and back, was the first to voice the question all of

them were thinking: “You’re sure this is the right planet?”

Wolruf, swiveling slightly around in the pilot’s chair, nodded her toothsome head. “Positive.”

“Then what happened to it?” Ariel asked.

“That’s ‘arder to say.” Wolruf pushed a button to lock the viewscreen picture in place, then moved a slide control

upward, increasing the screen’s magnification until the planet’s mottled surface began to show detail. Where they

had expected to see the sharp angles of buildings and streets, they saw the tufted tops of trees instead. Narrow

pathways wound among the trees, and as Wolruf increased the magnification still further they saw that the paths

occasionally joined at landmarks ranging from boulders to dead tree stumps to natural caves. There were no buildings

in evidence at all.

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Isaac Asimov's Robots And Aliens 6, Humanity

The angle of view changed steadily as the ship continued to move in orbit, until they were looking out rather than

down over a sea of treetops. The picture grew less and less sharp as the angle changed, and after a moment Derec

realized it was because the lower their view angle got, the more atmosphere they had to look through.

“Try another view,” he said to Wolruf, and the golden-furred alien backed off the magnification and released the

hold. The camera tracked forward again and the picture became a blur of motion until they once again looked directly

downward from the ship.

A ragged boundary line between the green forest and a lighter green patch of something else caught Derec ‘ s

attention. “There,” he said. “Zoom in on that.”

When Wolruf did so, they could see a vast meadow of waving grass. It wasn’t like a farmer’s field, all of one type

and all the same height, but rather a patchwork of various species, some tall, some short, with bushes and the

occasional tree scattered among them. Again there were paths, though fewer than in the forest, and again the scene

lacked any sign of human habitation. There were inhabitants, though: small knots of four-legged animals grazing

under the watchful eyes of circling hawks or eagles.

“How did they get there?” Dr. Avery demanded.

Derec glanced over at his father, opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it. He turned back to Wolruf and

said instead, “Let’s try another view.”

Wolruf provided it. This one showed a barren expanse of sand, punctuated sporadically by lone stands of cactus.

Near the edge of the screen a single tree cast its shadow across a pool of water. A smallish four-legged animal of

some sort lapped at the water, looking up frequently to check for predators.

“They really took it seriously,” Derec muttered, scratching his head in bemusement.

“Took what seriously?” Avery demanded. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

Derec nodded. “I suppose it must be, though I certainly didn’t expect this.”

“What did you expect? What did you order them to do?”

Derec faltered for a starting point, said at last, “You remember our argument just before we left, when I wanted to

use the animals Lucius had created as the starting point for a real biological ecosystem, but you had the hunter robots

kill all of them instead? Well, when we boarded the ship, I told the computer to access my files on balanced

ecosystems, and to...well...to make one based on what it found there.”

Avery visibly considered his response to that revelation. His fists clenched and unclenched, and the tendons in his

neck worked as he swallowed. Mandelbrot took a step toward Derec, readying to protect his master should Avery

decide to attack him physically.

Avery noticed the motion, scowled, and lashed out with a kick to the robot’s midsection instead. The hollow clang of

shoe against metal echoed in the control room. Concurrent with the kick, Avery shouted, “Why do you always have

to do this to me? Just when I think I’ve got something running smoothly, you go and throw sand in the works.

Literally.” He waved at the screen, still showing desert, but at such a low angle now that the atmospheric

disturbances between it and the ship made it shimmer as though they were actually standing in its midday heat.

Mandelbrot had rocked back with the kick, absorbing the blow so Avery wouldn’t hurt his foot, but that was his only

move. Derec looked from his father to the robot and back again. In a way, Mandelbrot was Derec’s first real

achievement in life. He had reconstructed the robot from parts, and in the years since then the robot had grown from

a servant to a companion. Perhaps for that reason, Avery had mistreated the poor thing since the day they had met.

Derec had been about to apologize for his mistake with the city, but now, in answer to Avery’s question, he said

simply, “Maybe it’s a family trait.”

They stared at one another for long seconds, their anger weighing heavy in the room, before Ariel said in disgust,

“Boys.” Dismissing them and their argument, she stepped around Derec to stand beside Wolruf’s chair, saying, “Can

you find any sign of the city at all?”

“Not visually,” the alien admitted, “but we ‘ave other methods.” She spent a moment at the controls, during which

the viewscreen image zoomed out again, blurred, shifted to false color imaging, and displayed what might have been

a color-coded topographic map.

“Definitely getting neutrino activity,” she said. “So something’ s still using microfusion powerpacks. “

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