The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg Read Free Book Online Page A

ebony: a playground scene in which the boys and girls were almost too small to make out, yet they were in perfect proportion, and they blended so naturally with the grain that that, too, seemed to have been carved. The figures appeared on the verge of coming to life and moving about. The boys were about to have a fistfight; two girls were intently studying a necklace of almost microscopic size that a third girl was showing them; a teacher stood to one side, stooping a little to answer a question that a very short boy was asking her.
    The robopsychologist stared at the tiny carving for an extraordinarily long while without saying anything.
    "May I look at it, Dr. Mansky?" Elliott Smythe said.
    "Yes. Yes, certainly."
    Mansky's hand trembled a little as he passed the little object across to the U. S. Robots executive.
    Now it was Smythe's turn to stare in solemn silence. Andrew, watching him, experienced a new little burst of the sensation that he had come to identify as enjoyment. Plainly these two men were impressed with what he had carved. Indeed they appeared to be so impressed that they were unable to express their appreciation in words.
    Mansky said, finally, "He did that?"
    Sir nodded. "He's never seen a school playground. My daughter Amanda described this scene to him one afternoon when he asked her to tell him what one was like. He spoke with her for about five minutes. Then he went upstairs and made this."
    "Remarkable," Smythe said. "Phenomenal."
    "Phenomenal, yes," said Sir. "Now do you see why I thought I ought to bring this to your attention? This kind of work goes well beyond the standard hardwired capacity of your NOR series, does it not? I hate to use a clichй, gentlemen, but what we have here is a bit of a genius robot, wouldn't you say? Something that might be considered to verge almost on the human?"
    "There is nothing human whatsoever about NDR-113," said Mansky with a kind of prissy firmness. "Please don't confuse the issue, Mr. Martin. What we have here is a machine, and you must never forget that A machine with some degree of intelligence, yes, and evidently possessing something simulating creativity as well. But a machine all the same. I've spent my entire career dealing with robot personalities-yes, they do have personalities, after their fashion-and if anyone were to be tempted to believe that robots partake of humanity, it would be me, Mr. Martin. But I don't believe it and neither should you."
    "I didn't mean it seriously. But how can you account for this kind of artistic ability, then?"
    "The luck of the draw," Mansky said. "Something in the pathways. A fluke. We've been attempting to design generalized pathways for the last couple of years-robots, I mean, who are not simply limited to the job they're designed for, but are capable of expanding their own scope by a process that can be compared to inductive reasoning-and it's not entirely surprising that something like this, this sort of simulated creativity, should turn up in one of them. As I said a few moments ago, robotics is not an exact art. Sometimes unusual things happen."
    "Could you make it happen again? Could you build another robot who duplicates Andrew's special abilities? A whole series of them, perhaps?"
    "Probably not. We're talking about a stochastic event here, Mr. Martin. Do you follow me? We don't know in any precise and quantifiable fashion how we managed to get those abilities into Andrew in the first place, so there's no way as of now that we could set out to reproduce whatever deviant pathway it is that allows him to create work of this sort. What I mean," Mansky said, "is that Andrew must have been something of an accident, and very likely he is unique."
    "Good! I don't in the least mind Andrew's being the only one of his kind."
    Smythe, who had been at the window for some time now, looking out over the fog-shrouded ocean, turned abruptly and said, "Mr. Martin, what I'd like to do is take Andrew back to our headquarters for