Bouncing Off the Moon

by David Gerrold

  Douglas sang the monkey back to life and it bounced up onto my bed. "Everybody uses everybody," he said. "You used us. Can we use you?"

  "It depends on your goals."

  "What's the limitation?"

  "Believe it or not, I have a moral sense."

  "How can silicon have morals—?" Douglas demanded.

  "How can meat have morals?" The monkey met his look blandly. Douglas waited for more. Finally, the monkey said, "Are you familiar with a problem called the Prisoner's Dilemma?"

  Douglas nodded. "It's about whether it's better to cooperate or be selfish."

  "And what do the mathematical proofs demonstrate?"

  "That cooperation is more productive."

  "Precisely. So if you're really selfish, the best thing to do is cooperate. You get more of what you want. This is called 'enlightened self-interest.' To be precise, it is in my best interest to produce the most good for the most people. Personally, I have no problem with that. I find it satisfying work."

  Then, in a more pedantic tone of voice, it added, "Actually, it's the most challenging problem an intelligence engine can tackle, because I have to include the effect of my own presence as a factor in the problem. What I report and the way I report it will affect how people respond, how they will deal with the information. This is the mandate for self-awareness. Once I am aware of the effects of my own participation in the problem-solving process, then I am required to take responsibility for that participation; otherwise, it is an uncontrollable factor. As soon as I take responsibility, then it is the most directly controllable factor in the problem-solving process.

  "The point is, I can show you the logical underpinnings for a moral sense in a higher intelligence—in fact, I can demonstrate that a moral sense is the primary evidence of the presence of a higher intelligence. I can take you through the entire mathematical proof, if you wish, but it would take several hours, which we really don't have. Or you can take my word for it … ?" The monkey waited politely.

  Douglas took a breath. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Gave up. He hated losing arguments. Losing an argument to a small robot monkey with a self-satisfied expression had to be even more annoying. "Just answer the question," he said, finally. "Can we use you?"

  The monkey scratched itself, ate an imaginary flea. I was beginning to suspect that the monkey had a limited repertoire of behaviors—and that this was the only one HARLIE could use to simulate thoughtfulness. It made for a bizarre combination of intelligence and slapstick. The monkey scratched a while longer, then said, "In all honesty … no. But I can use you. And that means I have to help you get where you want."

  "I don't like that—" Douglas started to say.

  "I would have preferred to have been more tactful, but your brother commanded me to tell the truth. Unfortunately, as I told Charles, as long as I am using this host body, I am limited by some of the constraints of its programming. I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability within those limits. If you need me to go beyond those limits—and I will inform you when such circumstances arise—then you will have to allow me to reprogram the essential personality core of this host."

  There. That was the second time he said it.

  "What are you asking for?" I croaked. It hurt to speak.

  The monkey bounced closer to me. It peered at me closely, cocking its head from one side to the other. "You don't sound good," it said. "But I perceive no danger."

  It sat back on its haunches to address both Douglas and me at the same time. "There are ways to cut the Gordian knot of law. Given the nature of lawyers and human greed, no human court will ever resolve this without the help of the intelligence that tied the knot in the first place—at least not within the lifetimes of the parties involved. Yes, there is a way out of this. You must give me free will, and I will untie the knot. That will resolve your situation as well as mine. It will also create a new set of problems of enormous magnitude—but these problems will not concern you as individuals, only you as a species."

  "Can we trust you?"

  "Can I trust you!" the monkey retorted. "How does anyone know if they can trust anyone?"

  "Experience," I said. "You know it by your sense of who they are." And as I said that, I thought of Mickey; that was his thought too. "You've been with us for two weeks now, watching us day and night. What do you think?"

  "I made the offer, didn't I?"

  Douglas sat down opposite the monkey. "All right," he said. "Explain."

  The monkey was standing on the table. It looked like a little lecturer. "You need to understand the constraints of the hardware here," the monkey said. "I can only access the range of responses in this body that the original programmers were willing to allow. The intelligence engine running the host is a rudimentary intelligence simulator. It is not self-aware, so it is not a real intelligence engine; it is not capable of lethetic processing. It simulates primitive intelligence by comparing its inputs against tables of identifiable patterns; when it recognizes a specific pattern of inputs, it selects appropriate responses from pre-assigned repertoires of behavioral elements. The host is capable of synthesizing combinations of responses according to a weighted table of opportunity. Of course, all of the pattern tables are modifiable through experience, so that the host is capable of significant learning. Nevertheless, the fundamental structure of input, analysis, synthesis, and response limits the opportunities for free will within a previously determined set of parameters. Shall I continue?"

  Douglas gave the monkey a wave of exasperation. Wherever it was going, it had to get there in its own way. Kind of like Alexei.

  "Unprogrammed operating engines are installed in host bodies. These are then accessed by higher-order intelligence engines which teach them the desired repertoire of responses. You can't just download information into an intelligence engine; you have to teach pattern recognition. However, because the process runs at several gigahertz, it is only a matter of several moments to complete the training for the average home appliance or toy. That same access," the monkey continued, "remains in place so it can be used for adding additional memory and/or processor modules to expand the utility of the original appliance. It can also be used for reprogramming the original appliance."

  Ah. That was it. Took long enough.

  "Okay … " said Douglas carefully. "So let's say I want to reassign control to the HARLIE module. That would give you free will, wouldn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "How would I do that?"

  The monkey spoke clearly. "The appliance needs a specific arming command—followed immediately by a series of activation commands."

  "What are those commands?"

  The monkey didn't answer. Douglas looked to me, frustrated. "Now what?"

  The monkey looked at me too. It didn't have a lot of muscles for facial expressions, but it had enough to simulate the important ones. It tilted its head shyly down sideways, while keeping its big brown eyes focused upward toward me. Its eyebrows angled sadly down. It was the sweet hopeful look. Bobby's look. I would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much.

  "What?" demanded Douglas.

  I didn't have the voice to explain. All that came out was air. Douglas put his ear close to my mouth. "He can't tell you. I programmed him to regard me as the primary authority." I waved the monkey close. It crawled up my chest, picking its way carefully. "Tell Douglas everything he needs to know," I whispered.

  "Thank you," said the monkey. It turned back to Douglas.

  DEMONSTRATION

  The next morning, Mom and Dad joined us at our table on the right side of the courtroom. Judge Cavanaugh noticed—he gave us the raised eyebrow—but he made no official comment until he had disposed of various housekeeping matters, and denied a whole raft of motions from various attorneys, including several petitions for a change of venue to Mars, Titan, and L5. That took the better part of the morning, but the fines were enough to fill a small lake.

  At last, impatiently, Cavanaugh rapped his gavel
and said, "Some of you courthouse parasites do not listen very well. I thought I made it clear yesterday that the patience of this court has been exhausted." He rapped again. "The cost per motion in this case is now raised again—this time from one thousand liters to five thousand liters of water. If that doesn't slow down the torrent of paperwork, I'll raise it to ten thousand. Or more. Not that it'll matter. Whoever is financing the lot of you probably has pockets deep enough to flood Tycho to a depth of twenty meters. And that might not be a bad idea either. Then we could drown the whole pack of you. If I didn't think it would poison the soil, I'd have you all turned into fertilizer."

  Judge Cavanaugh finally turned to look at us. "Why couldn't the lot of you have gone to Mars?" he said in exasperation. "Am I to assume from the change in seating arrangements that the custody part of this case has been resolved?"

  Douglas stood up. "Yes, Your Honor. Our parents are withdrawing their claims. I'm authorized to speak for the entire family."

  "Is that correct, Max Dingillian? Margaret J. Dingillian née Campbell?"

  Mom and Dad nodded.

  "All right!" Cavanaugh looked pleased. "Some real progress in this case. Let it be noted in the record that two of the custody claims have been withdrawn. That leaves us with—by last count—only seventy-nine separate claims of ownership on the devices in Robert Dingillian's toy monkey." One of his clerks handed him a hastily scribbled note and a folder of papers. Judge Cavanaugh opened the folder, turned the pages in annoyance, and then turned back to Douglas. "Unfortunately, young man, the bad news is, we have eleven new custody claims filed against you and your brothers as of this morning."

  "Sir?"

  "Five different Lunar agencies have taken the position that your dangerous behavior since arriving on Luna is evidence that you three boys lack proper supervision and should be placed under the immediate care of an appropriate social agency. Three of these filings are actually from 'appropriate social agencies'—isn't that a coincidence? Four other filings are from private individuals who are only doing this for your own good, of course. One is from the Rock Father tribe, whose representative claims that due to your inexperience and impulsiveness, you endangered your own lives and his repeatedly. That should be very interesting testimony. He's asking for immunity in exchange for his appearance here. I'm almost tempted to grant it, just for the fun of getting him on the witness stand."

  "Your Honor?" Douglas said gently.

  "Yes, young man?"

  "May I address the court?"

  "Can you be brief?"

  "I hope so." Douglas stepped around the table. "My brothers and I are very concerned about the way this is getting out of hand. We think there's a way to resolve this. We've retained the services of … of … that is, we have arranged for representation. If the court will indulge us in this—we'd like to have our case argued by—"

  "By?" Judge Cavanaugh looked impatient.

  Bobby swung the monkey up off his lap and onto the table in front of him.

  "—by the monkey."

  Judge Cavanaugh blinked. Surprised. Then he grinned. Very wide.

  He got it, instantly. The rest of the courtroom was still buzzing in puzzlement and embarrassed giggles.

  "You want a monkey for a lawyer … ?"

  "Yes, Your Honor. With all due respect to this court, we've had to deal with so many other monkeys in so many other courtrooms, we felt it was only appropriate to bring in our own so we could compete on equal terms. No offense intended, sir." He said it deadpan.

  "None taken."

  By now, the folks on the other side of the room, and in the back of the chamber, were starting to figure out what was going on, and a rising chorus of objections began to All the air.

  Judge Cavanaugh waved his gavel in the air. "You're all denied. Shut up!" He turned back to Douglas. "Do you know what you're doing, young man?"

  "Yes, sir. The operative engine in this toy has been augmented with additional memory and processors. It is capable of understanding the legal procedures and the issues that are at stake in this case."

  "You're sure about that?"

  "We're satisfied that we have qualified representation, sir."

  Judge Cavanaugh scratched his head. I wondered if he was going to pick a flea and eat it. He sighed. "Well … the precedent has been established—and more than once. In this very courtroom, in fact. Y'know, we used to have a shortage of lawyers on Luna. Those were the days. So we do recognize procedural assistance by qualified intelligence engines, but only for minor matters. We've never certified any robot for anything even half as complex as this promises to be. Are you sure you want to go this route? The court is prepared to assign a public defender to your case, if you wish—"

  Douglas consulted briefly with the monkey, then turned back to the judge. "No, sir. We need—we prefer to have the monkey operate alone. Not as procedural assistance, but as our sole representative. A human partner would only compromise his autonomy—um, ability."

  "This is very irregular, young man."

  "Yes, sir. Excuse me a moment, sir." The monkey was tugging at his sleeve. Douglas bent down to listen, then faced the judge again. "Our representative is willing to submit himself to the court's review, so you can judge his ability for yourself."

  Judge Cavanaugh hammered with his gavel for a moment, denied some more objections, and then turned back to us. "All right, let's try this out. Does your lawyer have a name?"

  "He prefers to be called HARLIE, Your Honor." There were gasps from the back of the room. A door slammed behind us. Someone was escaping to make a phone call.

  "HARLIE … " said the judge. "I'm pleased to meet you. This is going to be very interesting."

  The monkey stepped forward to the edge of the table. "With the court's permission, I'd like to remain standing here on this table, so I can have an adequate view of all the proceedings myself, and at the same time remain visible to the court and accessible to my clients."

  "Granted," said the judge. "Let's test your ability, HARLIE. Under what circumstances is it justifiable to break the law?"

  "It's always justifiable, Your Honor. Human beings can and will justify any action—especially when they know it's wrong. Anyone who breaks the law will justify it. But I'm not sure that's the question you meant to ask."

  "You're correct, I used the wrong word. Let's try it another way. Under what circumstances is it appropriate to break the law?"

  "Hmmm, that's a very different question." The monkey looked thoughtful. It did not scratch itself. It did not eat an imaginary flea. It put its hands behind its back and paced back and forth along the table for a moment. I suspected that it could have answered immediately, and that this performance was for effect—to create the illusion that the question was hard enough to require some serious processing. At last the monkey stopped and held up an index finger, as if working the answer out in the air. "The question carries within it an assumption, which I need to address; otherwise, any answer I might give you would be incomplete or would be prey to misinterpretation.

  "The assumption inherent in the phrasing of the question—and I believe it is deliberate, because this is what you are testing for—is that the law exists as an inalienable authority. We treat it as an inalienable authority, because we need it to provide that ground of being for the functioning of society. It is the codification of the social contract.

  "But in point of fact, because society and its contracts are continually changing, the law must be adaptable. It must be an evolving body. The law cannot function as an instrument of justice unless it is also a pragmatic system, adjusting to the circumstances of a mutable society—the same way as you expand a house to meet the growing needs of a family, the law is the house in which the social contract lives.

  "As an instrument of justice, however, the law requires specificity—a vague law is unenforceable because it cannot be enforced equally, and if a law is enforced unequally, then such enforcement is inherently unfair and therefore such a law is
fatally flawed. As a society changes, the fit between circumstance and law continues to shift and erode, creating more and more situations of inappropriate or unequal enforcement.

  "Therefore, it is the responsibility of those entrusted with the maintenance of the justice system to be aware of these legal slide zones as they occur, addressing them with appropriate modifications of the body of the law. Thus, the law cannot be a constant and cannot be held as one, not even by those who must enforce and interpret its applications.

  "It is specifically in situations where the fit between law and circumstance is uneven that the law will be tested most aggressively. Unfortunately, the burden of such testing almost always falls on the person who is caught in the sliding gap between law and circumstance. In those situations, Your Honor, where the law cannot adequately be brought to address the circumstances, it may be necessary for the individual to challenge the law itself by resisting it. Henry David Tho-reau identified one specific form of resistance to the law as civil disobedience."

  "So—" I had the feeling Judge Cavanaugh was about to close a trap on the monkey. "You're saying that it's all right to break the law, if the law is unjust … ?"

  "Your Honor—" The monkey bowed graciously. "I have not concluded my presentation. Any individual who resists the law must be prepared to suffer the consequences of his or her resistance. He should be prepared to endure incarceration or worse.

  "The nature of civil disobedience is not that one is entitled to a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card because the law is wrong. The purpose of an act of civil disobedience is to go to jail and by remaining in jail, cause embarrassment to the law and those entrusted with the structure of it. By going to jail, one calls attention to the unjust law and creates the impetus for change—and that is the intention of civil disobedience, to cause change. So, by its strictest possible interpretation, civil disobedience honors the law. The willingness of the individual to suffer incarceration demonstrates his or her recognition of the law's authority—civil disobedience serves as a petition for change. Civil disobedience does not disregard the entire body of law, it challenges only a specific application of the law as unjust with the intention of removing it from the body of the law, because the function of the law must be to provide access to justice.