Cyber Rogues by James P. Hogan Read Free Book Online Page B

that Hector does that affects his environment and computes the consequences accordingly. If Hector slams the egg down too hard PROPS will cause it to smash. Hector doesn’t know why it smashed but PROPS does. All Hector knows is that it did and not to do it that way again.”
    “Ah, I’m beginning to see now . . .” Laura’s voice trailed away for a moment. “Hector, in other words FISE, is simply confronted by an environment that’s full of things that behave in particular ways that it has to find out about. What he has to do is connect causes with effects and make general inferences from what he learns.” She looked at Dyer expectantly. “Am I right?”
    “Pretty much,” Dyer nodded. “Actually he’s very rational when it comes to purely physical interactions with his environment. After all, that kind of thing only involves well-defined physical laws, and he is a computer. Where he has problems is with understanding what he shouldn’t do, not what he can’t do. Again, it’s this question of common sense.”
    “What do you mean . . . ethics or something?” Laura frowned at him.
    “You’ll see,” he replied. They returned their attention to the tank. Hector had by now put a pan on the stove and switched the stove on, an achievement which, judged by Ron’s whoop of approval, represented a new pinnacle of intellectual development that Hector had been struggling valiantly to attain for some time. He then picked up a stick of butter and stood looking at it, giving every impression of bringing profound powers of concentration to bear on some problem.
    “What’s he doing?” Laura asked.
    Ron shook his head and emitted a sigh of exasperation.
    “He knows how much butter is needed to fry an egg, but he can’t figure out how to get that much out of the wrapper,” he said. “The first time he tried it, he sliced a piece off of the end with the knife and threw it in the pan, wrapper and all. We told the dummy you don’t fry pieces of wrappers with food and to come up with something better next time. He’s thinking about it.”
    Ron’s ruddy face took on a sudden look of wonder. He leaned forward and peered down into the tank excitedly. “He’s actually unwrapping it!” he roared in unconcealed delight, though with a strong undertone of sarcasm. “Go on, Hector. Attaboy, Yeah . . . see, it’s easy. You can do it.” Ron’s face creased abruptly into a frown. “Oh my God!” He turned his eyes away in anguish and pointed disbelievingly at the tank. Hector had carefully placed the intact egg inside the pan.
    “Chris,” Ron pleaded. “Ask him what the f—” He caught sight of Laura just in time. “Ask him what he thinks he’s doing, willya?” Chris remained expressionless and input a stream of symbols to the computer. A baritone voice issued at once from the audio grille set to one side of the main panel.
    “I’m frying the egg,” it said.
    Laura jerked around in surprise.
    “It’s okay,” Dyer reassured her. “That’s only FISE. We only use voice channels one-way. By using the touchboard to talk to him, at least we can be sure that he understood exactly what we said. If you added possible semantics problems on top of all this, the whole thing would become ridiculous.”
    Ron was pacing back and forth before the tank, opening and clenching his fists as if struggling to fight down rising impatience.
    “FISE,” he said, in a voice that had to be forced to remain slow and reasonable, the kind of voice one would use when talking to a persevering but hopelessly backward child. “How are you going to eat the egg when you’ve fried it?” At the console, Chris silently translated Ron’s question into touchboard commands.
    “With the knife and fork, off the plate, on the table,” FISE replied proudly.
    “Very good, FISE,” Ron approved in dulcet tones. Then his voice began on a slightly higher note and rose rapidly to end in a shriek. “How are you going to cut the egg with the knife