THE BICENTENNIAL MAN

by Isaac Asimov

  Andrew’s face had limited means of expression, but impatience showed plainly in his voice. “Dr. Magdescu, you miss the entire point: You have no choice but to accede to my request. If such devices can be built into my body, they can be built into human bodies as well. The tendency to lengthen human life by prosthetic devices has already been remarked on. There are no devices better than the ones I have designed or am designing. As it happens, I control the patents by way of the firm of Feingold and Martin. We are quite capable of going into business for ourselves and of developing the kind of prosthetic devices that may end by producing human beings with many of the properties of robots. Your own business will then suffer.

  “If, however, you operate on me now and agree to do so under similar circumstances in the future, you will receive permission to make use of the patents and control the technology of both robots and of the prosthetization of human beings. The initial leasing will not be granted, of course, until after the first operation is completed successfully, and after enough time has passed to demonstrate that it is indeed successful.”

  Andrew felt scarcely any First Law inhibition to the stern conditions he was setting a human being. He was learning to reason that what seemed like cruelty might, in the long run, be kindness.

  Magdescu was stunned. “I’m not the one to decide something like this. That’s a corporate decision that would take time.”

  “I can wait a reasonable time,” said Andrew, “but only a reasonable time.” And he thought with satisfaction that Paul himself could not have done it better.

  16.

  It took only a reasonable time, and the operation was a success.

  “I was very much against the operation, Andrew,” Magdescu said, “but not for the reasons you might think. I was not in the least against the experiment, if it had been on someone else. I hated risking your positronic brain. Now that you have the positronic pathways interacting with simulated nerve pathways, it might have been difficult to rescue the brain intact if the body had gone bad.”

  “I had every faith in the skill of the staff at U.S. Robots,” said Andrew. “And I can eat now.”

  “Well, you can sip olive oil. It will mean occasional cleanings of the combustion chamber, as we have explained to you. Rather an uncomfortable touch, I should think.”

  “Perhaps, if I did not expect to go further. Self cleaning is not impossible. In fact, I am working on a device that will deal with solid food that may be expected to contain incombustible fractions-- indigestible matter, so to speak, that will have to be discarded.”

  “You would then have to develop an anus.”

  “Or the equivalent.”

  “What else, Andrew--?”

  “Everything else.”

  “Genitalia, too?”

  “Insofar as they will fit my plans. My body is a canvas on which I intend to draw--”

  Magdescu waited for the sentence to he completed, and when it seemed that it would not be, he completed it himself. “A man?”

  “We shall see,” Andrew said.

  “That’s a puny ambition, Andrew. You’re better than a man. You’ve gone downhill from the moment you opted to become organic.”

  “My brain has not suffered.”

  “No, it hasn’t. I’ll grant you that. But, Andrew, the whole new breakthrough in prosthetic devices made possible by your patents is being marketed under your name. You’re recognized as the inventor and you’re being honored for it-- as you should be. Why play further games with your body?”

  Andrew did not answer.

  The honors came. He accepted membership in several learned societies, including one that was devoted to the new science he had established-- the one he had called robobiology but which had come to be termed prosthetology. On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his construction, a testimonial dinner was given in his honor at U.S. Robots. If Andrew saw an irony in this, he kept it to himself.

  Alvin Magdescu came out of retirement to chair the dinner. He was himself ninety-four years old and was alive because he, too, had prosthetized devices that, among other things, fulfilled the function of liver and kidneys. The dinner reached its climax when Magdescu, after a short and emotional talk, raised his glass to toast The Sesquicentennial Robot.

  Andrew had had the sinews of his face redesigned to the point where he could show a human range of emotions, but he sat through all the ceremonies solemnly passive. He did not like to be a Sesquicentennial Robot.

  17.

  It was prosthetology that finally took Andrew off the Earth.

  In the decades that followed the celebration of his sesquicentennial, the Moon had come to be a world more Earthlike than Earth in every respect but its gravitational pull; and in its underground cities there was a fairly dense population. Prosthetized devices there had to take the lesser gravity into account. Andrew spent five years on the Moon working with local prosthetologists to make the necessary adaptations. When not at his work, he wandered among the robot population, every one of which treated him with the robotic obsequiousness due a man.

  He came back to an Earth that was humdrum and quiet in comparison, and visited the offices of Feingold and Martin to announce his return.

  The current head of the firm, Simon DeLong, was surprised. “We had been told you were returning, Andrew”-- he had almost said Mr. Martin-- “but we were not expecting you till next week.”

  “I grew impatient,” said Andrew briskly. He was anxious to get to the point. “On the Moon, Simon, I was in charge of a research team of twenty human scientists. I gave orders that no one questioned. The Lunar robots deferred to me as they would to a human being. Why, then, am I not a human being?”

  A wary look entered DeLong’s eyes. “My dear Andrew, as you have just explained, you are treated as a human being by both robots and human beings. You are, therefore, a human being de facto.”

  “To be a human being de facto is not enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to be legally identified as one. I want to be a human being de jure.”

  “Now, that is another matter,” DeLong said. “There we would run into human prejudice and into the undoubted fact that, however much you may be like a human being, you are not a human being.”

  “In what way not?” Andrew asked. “I have the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being. My organs, in fact, are identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being. I have contributed artistically, literally, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?”

  “I myself would ask nothing more. The trouble is that it would take an act of the World Legislature to define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn’t expect that to happen.”

  “To whom on the Legislature could I speak?”

  “To the Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps.”

  “Can you arrange a meeting?”

  “But you scarcely need an intermediary. In your position, you can--”

  “No. You arrange it.” It didn’t even occur to Andrew that he was giving a fiat order to a human being. He had grown so accustomed to that on the Moon. “I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Martin is backing me in this to the hilt.”

  “Well, now--”

  “To the hilt, Simon. In one hundred and seventy-three years I have in one fashion or another contributed greatly to this firm. I have been under obligation to individual members of the firm in times past. I am not, now. It is rather the other way around now and I am calling in my debts.”

  “I will-- do what I can,” DeLong said.

  18.

  The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee was from the East Asian region and was a woman. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments-- obscuring what she wanted obscured only by their dazzle-- made her look plastic-wrapped. “I sympathize with your wish for full human rights,” she said. “There have been times in history when segments of the human populatio
n fought for full human rights. What rights, however, can you possibly want that you do not have?”

  “As simple a thing as my right to life,” Andrew stated. “A robot can be dismantled at any time.”

  “A human being can be executed at any time.”

  “Execution can only follow due process of law. There is no trial needed for my dismantling. Only the word of a human being in authority is needed to end me. Besides-- besides--” Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. “The truth is I want to be a man. I have wanted it through six generations of human beings.”

  Li-hsing looked up at him out of darkly sympathetic eyes. “The Legislature can pass a law declaring you one. They could pass a law declaring that a stone statue be defined as a man. Whether they will actually do so is, however, as likely in the first case as the second. Congress people are as human as the rest of the population and there is always that element of suspicion against robots.”

  “Even now?”

  “Even now. We would all allow the fact that you have earned the prize of humanity, and yet there would remain the fear of setting an undesirable precedent.”

  “What precedent? I am the only free robot, the only one of my type, and there will never be another. You may consult U.S. Robots.”

  “`Never’ is a long word, Andrew-- or, if you prefer, Mr. Martin-- since I will gladly give you my personal accolade as man. You will find that most congress people will not be so willing to set the precedent, no matter how meaningless such a precedent might be. Mr. Martin, you have my sympathy, but I cannot tell you to hope. Indeed--”

  She sat back and her forehead wrinkled. “Indeed, if the issue grows too heated, there might well arise a certain sentiment, both inside the Legislature and out side, for that dismantling you mentioned. Doing away with you could turn out to be the easiest way of resolving the dilemma. Consider that before deciding to push matters.”

  Andrew stood firm. “Will no one remember the technique of prosthetology, something that is almost entirely mine?”

  “It may seem cruel, but they won’t. Or if they do, it will be remembered against you. People will say you did it only for yourself. It will be said it was part of a campaign to roboticize human beings, or to humanify robots; and in either case evil and vicious. You have never been part of a political hate campaign, Mr. Martin; but I tell you that you would be the object of vilification of a kind neither you nor I would credit, and there would be people to believe it all. Mr. Martin, let your life be.”

  She rose, and next to Andrew’s seated figure she seemed small and almost childlike.

  “If I decide to fight for my humanity, will you be on my side?”

  She thought, then replied, “I will be-- insofar as I can be. If at any time such a stand would appear to threaten my political future, I might have to abandon you, since it is not an issue I feel to be at the very root of my beliefs. I am trying to be honest with you.”

  “Thank you, and I will ask no more. I intend to fight this through, whatever the consequences, and I will ask you for your help only for as long as you can give it.”

  19.

  It was not a direct fight. Feingold and Martin counseled patience and Andrew muttered, grimly, that he had an endless supply of that. Feingold and Martin then entered on a campaign to narrow and restrict the area of combat.

  They instituted a lawsuit denying the obligation to pay debts to an individual with a prosthetic heart on the grounds that the possession of a robotic organ removed humanity, and with it the constitutional rights of human beings. They fought the matter skillfully and tenaciously, losing at every step but always in such a way that the decision was forced to be as broad as possible, and then carrying it by way of appeals to the World Court.

  It took years, and millions of dollars.

  When the final decision was handed down, DeLong held what amounted to a victory celebration over the legal loss. Andrew was, of course, present in the company offices on the occasion.

  “We’ve done two things, Andrew,” said DeLong, “both of which are good. First of all, we have established the fact that no number of artificial parts in the human body causes it to cease being a human body. Secondly, we have engaged public opinion in the question in such a way as to put it fiercely on the side of a broad interpretation of humanity, since there is not a human being in existence who does not hope for prosthetics if they will keep him alive.”

  “And do you think the Legislature will now grant me my humanity?” Andrew asked.

  DeLong looked faintly uncomfortable. “As to that, I cannot be optimistic. There remains the one organ which the World Court has used as the criterion of humanity. Human beings have an organic cellular brain and robots have a platinum iridium positronic brain if they have one at all-- and you certainly have a positronic brain. No, Andrew, don’t get that look in your eye. We lack the knowledge to duplicate the work of a cellular brain in artificial structures close enough to the organic type as to allow it to fall within the court’s decision. Not even you could do it.”

  “What should we do, then?”

  “Make the attempt, of course. Congresswoman Li-hsing will be on our side and a growing number of other congress people. The President will undoubtedly go along with a majority of the Legislature in this matter.”

  “Do we have a majority?”

  “No. Far from it. But we might get one if the public will allow its desire for a broad interpretation of humanity to extend to you. A small chance, I admit; but if you do not wish to give up, we must gamble for it.”

  “I do not wish to give up.”

  20.

  Congresswoman Li-hsing was considerably older than she had been when Andrew had first met her. Her transparent garments were long gone. Her hair was now close-cropped and her coverings were tubular. Yet still Andrew clung, as closely as he could within the limits of reasonable taste, to the style of clothing that had prevailed when he had first adopted clothing more than a century before.

  “We’ve gone as far as we can, Andrew,” Li-hsing admitted. “We’ll try once more after recess, but, to be honest, defeat is certain and then the whole thing will have to be given up. All my most recent efforts have only earned me certain defeat in the coming congressional campaign.”

  “I know,” said Andrew, “and it distressed me. You said once you would abandon me if it came to that. Why have you not done so?”

  “One can change one’s mind, you know. Somehow, abandoning you became a higher price than I cared to pay for just one more term. As it is, I’ve been in the Legislature , for over a quarter of a century. It’s enough.”

  “Is there no way we can change minds, Chee?”

  “We’ve changed all that are amenable to reason. The rest-- the majority-- cannot be moved from their emotional antipathies.”

  “Emotional antipathy is not a valid reason for voting one way or the other.”

  “I know that, Andrew, but they don’t advance emotional antipathy as their reason.”

  “It all comes down to the brain, then,” Andrew said cautiously. “But must we leave it at the level of cells versus positrons? Is there no way of forcing a functional definition? Must we say that a brain is made of this or that? May we not say that a brain is something-- anything-- capable of a certain level of thought?”

  “Won’t work,” said Li-hsing. “Your brain is manmade, the human brain is not. Your brain is constructed, theirs developed. To any human being who is intent on keeping up the barrier between himself and a robot, those differences are a steel wall a mile high and a mile thick.”

  “If we could get at the source of their antipathy, the very source--”

  “After all your years,” Li-hsing said, sadly, “you are still trying to reason out the human being. Poor Andrew, don’t be angry, but it’s the robot in you that drives you in that direction.”

  “I don’t know,” said Andrew. “If I could br
ing myself--”

  1. (Reprise)

  If he could bring himself--

  He had known for a long time it might come to that, and in the end he was at the surgeon’s. He had found one, skillful enough for the job at hand-- which meant a surgeon-- robot, for no human surgeon could be trusted in this connection, either in ability or in intention.

  The surgeon could not have performed the operation on a human being, so Andrew, after putting off the moment of decision with a sad line of questioning that reflected the turmoil within himself, had put First Law to one side by saying “I, too, am a robot.”

  He then said, as firmly as he had learned to form the words even at human beings over these past decades, “I order you to carry through the operation on me.”

  In the absence of the First Law, an order so firmly given from one who looked so much like a man activated the Second Law sufficiently to carry the day.

  21.

  Andrew’s feeling of weakness was, he was sure, quite imaginary. He had recovered from the-- operation. Nevertheless, he leaned, as unobtrusively as he could manage, against the wall. It would be entirely too revealing to sit.

  Li-hsing said, “The final vote will come this week, Andrew. I’ve been able to delay it no longer, and we must lose. And that will be it, Andrew.”

  “I am grateful for your skill at delay. It gave me the time I needed, and I took the gamble I had to.”

  “What gamble is this?” Li-hsing asked with open concern.

  “I couldn’t tell you, or even the people at Feingold and Martin. I was sure I would be stopped. See here, if it is the brain that is at issue, isn’t the greatest difference of all the matter of immortality. Who really cares what a brain looks like or is built of or how it was formed. What matters is that human brain cells die; must die. Even if every other organ in the body is maintained or replaced, the brain cells, which cannot be replaced without changing and therefore killing the personality, must eventually die.