Asimov's robots have the knowledge for the jobs that they have to do built into them. It is an innovation when a robot is produced that has to learn and is to that extent like a human baby - the baby that robopsychologist Susan Calvin never had.
A humanoid robot in Anderson's story of the above title has most of his knowledge built into him but also has a period of psychological stabilization when he is very impressionable, again like a baby. The robot, designed to mine on Mercury, is impressed by casual conversation with literary criticism and remains on Earth to read novels.
The laws in Anderson's story are more humane than those in Asimov's series. As an intelligent conscious being, the robot, Izaak, has legal rights and cannot simply be destroyed or deactivated because he refuses to mine.
The solution (far fetched) is a literary hoax:
first, write rave reviews of a nonexistent novel about space exploration;
secondly, start to generate a text for the novel by plagiarizing a 1950's sf novel but rewriting it in purple prose;
thirdly, stall Izaak and anyone else who requests a copy;
finally, let Izaak read a copy when one has been generated with the result that he is inspired to go to Mercury, but wants to be kept informed of this new literary genre -
- which does come into existence because the rave reviews inspire others to request copies, which have to be mass-produced, and still others to write more in the same vein.
Like the interstellar feudalism of The High Crusade, a joke surely!
4 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Considering what human nature is like, I don't think either the interstellar feudalism we see in THE HIGH CRUSADE or cranking out a fake novel which unexpectedly becomes a run away success in "The Critique of Impure Reason" that implausible. I only need to remind you of how frauds like the Piltdown Man or Orson Welles take on H.G. Wells THE WAR OF THE WORLDS bamboozled enormous numbers of people. And Ordon Welles wasn't even trying to fool people!
Sean
"The Critique of Impure Reason" is not an appropriate title because the story is about literature, not about philosophy.
You're incorrect. Anderson's story is a humorous response to and critique of an older Isaac Asimov robot story, "Reason".
In Asimov's story, his two blue collar worker characters, Powell and Donovan, are residents on a power satellite, which collects solar energy and beams it to the surface of the Earth via microwave. They receive a new robot to handle the chores, but they have to put it together and activate it. And when they do, it "reasons" its way to humorous, then terrifying, conclusions. Like that Powell and Donovan are inferior to him, because they are so soft and weak (and possibly crazy, since they claim to have made him). And that The Creator obviously has some purpose for him. He locks up Powell and Donovan, because they were about to interfere with his supposed mission, and a solar storm hits. The men are terrified, because the mis-aimed microwaves could fry an entire city, and the robot has no reason to keep it aimed correctly. When they get released, they find that the 'bot did have reason, that The Creator "obviously" wanted all the dials and switches to be kept at certain positions for inscrutable reasons, and he complied.
So Anderson's story is a critique of "Reason", which he found to be impure, and he very amusingly used old pulps as a prop in the same sort of situation to create a solution that was more, well, reasonable, than good old uncle Isaac.
Kaor, Mr. Fleming!
VERY interesting these comments of yours! I esp. like how you connected Anderson's "Critique" to Asimov's "Reason," which I possibly read so long ago that I don't remember reading it.
Ad astra! Sean
Both,
That Anderson's "Critique" refers to Asimov's "Reason" is a genuine insight.
Paul.
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