{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3475", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3475, "subject": "robot slavery in NYRSF #170", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-10-06T17:12:16+00:00", "last": "2002-10-06T20:35:58+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-06T17:12:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) robot slavery in NYRSF #170", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Since I am relatively sure that Roy Lackey does not have a subscription to\n\"The New York Review of Science Fiction,\" I trust that his recent essay on\n\"Bio bias\" was not influenced by Robert J. Sawyer's \"AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh,\nMy!\" essay on the cover of the latest issue of NYRSF. Another case of\nsynchronicity (if such is really possible within the genre community, where\neverybody is talking about everything all the time!).\n\nSawyer's piece is about the treatment of AIs and robots in film and text,\nbeginning with the basic fact that \"robot\" comes from a Czech word for\nforced labor. There are a lot of neat litle details I did not know (the\nbig robot in \"The Day the Earth Stood Still\" was the master -- at least in\nthe story, if not in the movie), others I had not thought about in a long\ntime (the robots as slaves thread in \"Star Wars\"). Most surprising to me\n(and most pertinant to what Roy is saying) were the sections on Asimov's\ntreatment of robots.\n\nAsimov is the genre champion of \"robot-rights.\" Beginning in the 1940s he\nvery successfully envisioned robots being humanized by the famous Three\nLaws; he wrote of robo-psychologists (humans trained to deal with robot\nmental processes and disfunctions); he wrote of robots with child-like\nminds and a detective robot who worked with a human partner; iirc he wrote\nabout a gradual elevation of robots from \"clever tools\" to sovereign beings\nrecognized by the law (in a kinda sorta civil rights way).\n\nThat is my impression, at least.\n\nSo imagine my surprise to learn that in 1986 came one of Asimov's last\nrobot stories, \"Robot Dreams,\" in which a robot named Elvex is somehow\ndreaming (this is unusual) of a Moses figure rising up for the robots, a\nman who will speak on their behalf and say \"Set my people free.\" The famed\nrobopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin questions Elvex on this. Elvex admits\nthat it recognizes the man in the dream; that the man in the dream is\nElvex. At which point Dr. Calvin fires her electron gun and erases Elvex.\n\nWhoa!\n\nSo then, it seems to me that there are these fracture points within genre.\nThe gray area of human/robot relations examined by Roy might not be so\nnarrowly specific to Gene Wolfe's work, but rather, shared across a broad\nspectrum of genre authors. Questions of when a tool becomes an entity,\netc.\n\nI do not mean to dillute Roy's observations in any way! I only wanted to\npresent some genre context that had synchronistically washed up onto my\ndesk.\n\nMore notes on the chems of the Whorl: they may be in a reproductive\nthralldom to the bios, in as much as they require high-tech parts which the\nbios are no longer producing, which means that \"chem reproduction\" involves\na scavenger hunt for parts -- with other bios competing, since they can use\nthe parts as prosthetics! The chems are wearing down in the face of this\nbiological onslaught. The chems and their parts are all wearing down, with\nno replacements except for hidden caches . . . hmm, well wait a second:\nthere are two forms of chem production. There is bio-directed, like\nSwallow's low-tech factory, and then there is chem-directed \"reproduction.\"\n\nBut to back up a bit: it seems to me that the gray area is such that if one\nwants to say the chems are \"clever tools\" then they cannot really be\nslaves; that in order to be slaves they have to be human equivalent\n(intellectually, reproductively, and volitionally, at least; perhaps\nspiritually and other aspects as well).\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andy Robertson", "address": "andywrobertson at clara.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-10-06T17:49:17+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) robot slavery in NYRSF #170", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Michael Andre-Driussi\" \nThere are a lot of neat litle details I did not know (the\nbig robot in \"The Day the Earth Stood Still\" was the master -- at least in\nthe story, if not in the movie)," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Indeed. This is played upon in the relationship between Baldanders and Dr\nTalos.\n\nBaldanders' last words to Severian - \"You are wrong. I am the master\" are\nthe last words of the robot, in the story.\n\n\n hartshorn." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-06T20:35:58+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) robot slavery in NYRSF #170", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mantis wrote:\nMore notes on the chems of the Whorl: they may be in a reproductive\nthralldom to the bios, in as much as they require high-tech parts which\nthe\nbios are no longer producing, which means that \"chem reproduction\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "involves" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "a scavenger hunt for parts -- with other bios competing, since they can\nuse\nthe parts as prosthetics! The chems are wearing down in the face of this\nbiological onslaught. The chems and their parts are all wearing down,\nwith\nno replacements except for hidden caches . . . hmm, well wait a second:\nthere are two forms of chem production. There is bio-directed, like\nSwallow's low-tech factory, and then there is chem-directed\n\"reproduction.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I know that the subject of how chems reproduce was touched upon recently,\nbut having just reread the series I can give a little more specific\ninformation. Some of the parts must be searched for--where, the text\ndoesn't say; perhaps there is a 'graveyard' for dead soldiers, a junkyard\nwhere used but serviceable parts may be found. The army has to do\n_something_ with soldiers KIA who did not explode; people aren't exactly\nstumbling over dead chems. There may be a similar cache for dead servant\nchems. But other parts have to be made by the parent chems. A sibyl from\nBrick Street asked, in connection with how \"Molybdenum\" and Hammerstone\nwere going to build a chem child: \" . . . where are they going to buy\nthese coprocessor things?\" Incus answered: \"They must _make_ them,\nMaytera, and _I_ shall assist them.\" (EXODUS, 241)\n\nHammerstone said, somewhere, that the job of making a chem child could be\ndone in a year, if the parents were lucky, maybe twenty years if they\nweren't. I don't think the bios on the _Whorl_ were ever in a position to\nmake high-tech parts. The chems had all been built on Urth, after all, and\nTyphon had no interest in perpetuating their existence beyond the duration\nof the voyage; if he had, he would have made sure there were ample parts\navailable from the start. Chems were being built and stockpiled on Urth fo\nr twenty years before the _Whorl_ sailed. For some raw numbers: there were\nat least two-hundred cities in the _Whorl_; each city had 12,000 soldiers.\nThat comes to 2,400,000 male soldier chems, plus however many male servant\nchems there had been to start with. Hammerstone complained that there were\n7 or 8 soldiers competing for each femchem. That comes, using the higher\nnumber, to at least 300,000 females, total, or just 1,500 per city.\nAssuming equal numbers of male and female servant chems, that means that\nat least 3 million total chems had been put aboard. And all those\nmass-produced femchems looked just alike, which is how a Molybdenum could\never have been confused for a Magnesia.\n\nI don't know where Tarsier got the parts (or the know-how) to build chem\nbodies for the councillors but, according to Lemur, their original bio\nbodies were maintained by \"devoted chems\". And \"We promise them\nimmortality, and we will deliver it: a never-ending supply of replacement\nparts.\" (LS2, 12) I don't know if he was lying or not, but the implication\nis that someone would be able to build chem parts as needed, presumably\nTarsier." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But to back up a bit: it seems to me that the gray area is such that if\none\nwants to say the chems are \"clever tools\" then they cannot really be\nslaves; that in order to be slaves they have to be human equivalent\n(intellectually, reproductively, and volitionally, at least; perhaps\nspiritually and other aspects as well)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And that is the point I've been trying to make since my first chem post, a\nmonth ago. However chems may have come to be regarded by some in Viron--as\npeople--that is not the way they started out.\n\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }