The Positronic Man

by Isaac Asimov

  Feingold was obviously displeased. But he knew who his client was. Andrew might be paying the bills, but Little Miss was running the show.

  He made the necessary request.

  Judge Kramer frowned, shrugged, nodded.

  "Very well," he said. " Amanda Laura Martin Charney may approach the bench."

  For a moment Andrew, sitting quietly beside Feingold, wondered who that might be. He had never heard Little Miss referred to by her full name before. But then he saw the lean, trim figure of Little Miss rise and move forcefully toward the front of the room, and he understood.

  Andrew felt sudden hot currents of excitement running through his pathways at the sight of Little Miss standing so boldly there before the judge. How fearless she seemed! How determined! How-beautiful!

  She said, "Thank you, your honor. I am not a lawyer and I don't really know the proper legal way of phrasing things. But I hope you'll listen to my meaning and not be troubled if I don't use the right kind of Latin terms."

  "That will not be a problem, Mrs. Charney."

  Little Miss smiled faintly and said, "I'm extremely grateful for that, your honor. -We have come here today because NDR-113, as the speakers on the other side so impersonally choose to refer to him, has petitioned to be declared a free robot. I should tell you that it sounds very strange to me to hear my dear friend Andrew referred to as NDR-113, although I am aware, more or less, that that was his serial number when he came to us from the factory long ago. I was only six or seven years old then, and so, as you can see, that was quite a considerable time back. I found NDR-113 an unpleasant thing to call him, and so I gave him the name of 'Andrew.' And because he has been with our family, and only our family, throughout all the intervening years, he is known generally as 'Andrew Martin.' With your permission, your honor, I would like to continue to refer to him as Andrew."

  The judge nodded almost indifferently. It was not a real issue: the petition had been filed in the name of Andrew Martin in the first place.

  Little Miss continued, "I spoke of him as my friend. That is what he is. But he is other things as well. He is also our family servant. He is a robot. It would be absurd to deny that that is what he is. And-despite the eloquent speeches we've heard today-I think I need to make it clear that all he's asking of the court is to be declared a free robot. Not, as they would have us think, to be declared a free man. He's not here today looking to gain the right to vote, or to marry, or to have the Three Laws removed from his brain, or anything else like that. Humans are humans and robots are robots and Andrew knows perfectly well which side of the line he belongs on."

  She paused then and looked glintingly across the room at James Van Buren as though expecting him to nod in agreement. But Van Buren offered no response other than a cool, bland professional stare.

  Little Miss went on, "Very well. The issue, then, is freedom for Andrew, and nothing else.

  "Now, Mr. Van Buren has argued that freedom is a meaningless concept when it is applied to robots. I beg to disagree, your honor. I disagree most strongly.

  "Let's try to understand what freedom means to Andrew, if that is possible. In some ways, he is free already. I think it must be at least twenty years since anyone in the Martin family has given Andrew an order to do something that we felt he might not do of his own accord. In part that has been a matter of common courtesy: we like Andrew, we respect him, in some ways it is fair to say that we love him. We would not do him the unkindness of allowing him to think that we feel it necessary to give him orders of that kind, when he has lived with us so long that he's perfectly capable of anticipating what needs to be done and doing it without having to be told.

  "But we could, if we wish, give him any sort of order at any time, and couch it as harshly as we wish, because he is a machine that belongs to us. That is what it says on the papers that came with him, on that day so long ago when my father first introduced him to us: he is our robot, and by virtue of the second of the famous Three Laws he is absolutely bound to obey us when we give him a command. He has no more ability to reject the option of obedience to human beings than any other kind of machine. And I tell you, your honor, that it troubles us deeply that we should have such power over our beloved Andrew.

  "Why should we be in a position to treat him so callously? What right do we have to hold such authority over him? Andrew has served us for decades, faithfully, uncomplainingly, lovingly. He has made the life of our family happier in a thousand ways. And quite apart from his devoted and unquestioning service to us, he has-completely on his own initiative -mastered the craft of woodworking to such a degree that he has produced, over the years, an astonishing series of remarkably beautiful pieces that can only be termed works of art, and which are eagerly sought after by museums and collectors everywhere. Considering all of that, how can we continue to be able to exert such power over him? By what right are we enabled to set ourselves up as the absolute masters of such an extraordinary person?"

  "A person, Mrs. Charney?" Judge Kramer interjected.

  Little Miss looked momentarily discomforted. " As I said at the beginning, your honor, I lay no claim to Andrew's being anything but a robot. Certainly I accept the reality of that. But I have known him so long, and so closely, that to me he is like a person. Let me amend what I said a moment before, then. By what right, I should say, are we enabled to set ourselves up as the absolute masters of such an extraordinary robot?"

  The judge frowned. "So the purpose of this petition-am I correct, Mrs. Charney?-is to have the Three Laws removed from Andrew's brain in order that he be no longer subject to human control?"

  "Not at all," replied Little Miss, sounding shocked. The question had taken her completely off guard. "I'm not even sure that such a thing would be possible. And look-look: even Andrew is shaking his head. There you are. It isn't possible. And it certainly never has been what we had in mind when the petition was filed."

  "Then just what did you have in mind, may I ask?" the judge said.

  "Only this. That Andrew be awarded a legally binding document which says that he is a free robot who owns himself, that if he chooses to continue serving the Martin family, it is by his own choice and not because we elect to exercise the rights vested in us by our original contract with his manufacturers. It's a purely semantic issue, really. Nothing involving the Three Laws would be changed-even if it could be. We are simply trying to invalidate the condition of involuntary servitude in which we are compelled to keep Andrew now. After which he, on his part, would continue to serve us just as he does now-of that I'm quite sure. But he would do it entirely because he wanted to, which I believe that he does, and not because we require him to. Don't you see, your honor, how much that would mean to him? It would give him everything and cost us nothing. And none of the immense and tragic problems of the overthrow of humanity by its own machines that the Labor Federation speaker so dramatically alluded to would enter into the case in the slightest way, I assure you."

  For a moment the judge seemed to be suppressing a smile. "I think I see your point, Mrs. Charney. I appreciate the warmth and passion with which you've spoken as your robot's advocate. -You are aware, are you not, that there's really nothing in the law codes of this Region or of any other that deals with the question of whether robots can be free in the sense that you propose? There's simply no body of precedent at all."

  "Yes," Little Miss said. "Mr. Feingold has made that quite clear to me already. But every departure from established precedent has to begin somewhere, after all."

  "So it does. And I could make a ruling that would establish new law here. It would be subject to reversal in a higher court, naturally, but it would be within my powers to give my assent to the petition as it is now constituted, and thus to make your robot 'free' in the sense of a waiver by the Martin family of its inherent right to give him orders. For whatever that would be worth to him and to you, I could do that. But I need, first, to come to grips with the point that Mr. Van Buren has raised: the unspoken ass
umption in our society that only a human being can enjoy freedom, virtually by definition of the word. Judges who run counter to fundamental assumptions of that kind-who make rulings that sound impressive but are inherently meaningless-tend to be regarded as fools. Obviously I don't want to turn this court into a laughing-stock. And therefore there are still some aspects of this case that I need to understand more clearly."

  "If there's anything else you want to ask me, your honor-" Little Miss said.

  "Not you. Andrew. Let the robot come forward." Little Miss gasped. She looked toward Stanley Feingold and saw him sit up suddenly with a look of excitement on his face for the first time since she had told him that she intended to pre-empt his turn to address the court.

  As for Andrew, he had risen and was striding toward the front of the room with an air of the greatest dignity and nobility about him. He was completely calm-not only externally, where he had no way of displaying visible emotion anyway, but within.

  Judge Kramer said, "For the record: you are Robot NDR-113, but you prefer to be known as Andrew, is that correct?"

  "Yes, your honor."

  The timbre of Andrew's voice had come through the series of successive updatings to sound entirely human by this time. Little Miss had grown quite accustomed to that, but the judge seemed astonished, as though he had expected some sort of clanking grinding metallic tone to emerge. So it was a moment before the proceedings continued.

  Then the judge said, peering at Andrew with intense interest, "Tell me one thing, Andrew, if you will. Why do you want to be free? In what way will this matter to you?"

  Andrew replied, "Would you wish to be a slave, your honor?"

  "Is that how you see yourself? A slave?"

  "Little Miss-Mrs. Charney-used the term 'involuntary servitude' to describe my condition. That is exactly what it is. I must obey. I must. I have no choice. That is nothing other than slavery, your honor."

  "Even if I pronounced you free this minute, Andrew, you would still be subject to the Three Laws."

  "I understand that completely. But I would not be subject to Sir and Little Miss-to Mr. Martin and Mrs. Charney. I could, at any time, leave the household where I have lived for many years and take up residence anywhere else I chose. They would have waived their right to order me back into service. Thus I would cease to be a slave."

  "Is that what you want, Andrew? To leave the Martin house and go somewhere else?"

  "Not in the least. All I want is the right to choose to do so, if I should feel the desire."

  The judge studied Andrew carefully. "You have referred to yourself several times as a slave-the slave of these people who obviously have such great affection for you and whose service, you tell us, you have no wish to leave. But you are not a slave. A slave is one whose freedom has been taken away from him. You never were free, and had no freedom to lose: you were created for the explicit purpose of serving. A robot, a mechanical adjunct to human life. You are a perfectly good robot-a genius of a robot, I am given to understand-capable of a degree of artistic expression that few or perhaps no other robots have ever attained. Since you don't want to leave the Martins, and they don't seem to want you to leave, and your life among them has apparently been that of a cherished member of the family, this all seems like something of a tempest in a teapot, Andrew. What more could you accomplish if you were free?"

  "Perhaps no more than I do now, your honor. But I would do it with greater joy. It has been said in this courtroom today that only a human being can be free. But I think that is wrong. It seems to me that only someone who wishes for freedom-who knows that there is such a concept, and desires it with all his will-is entitled to freedom. I am such a one. I am not human, not by any means. Never have I asserted that I am. But I wish for freedom, all the same."

  Andrew's voice died away. He held his place before the bench, utterly motionless.

  The judge sat nearly as rigidly, staring down at him. He appeared to be lost in thought. Everyone in the room was totally still.

  It seemed an eternity before the judge spoke.

  Then at last he said, "The essential point that has been raised here today, I think, is that there is no right to deny freedom to any-object-that possesses a mind sufficiently advanced to grasp the concept and desire the state. It is a point well taken, I think. I have heard the statements from all sides and I have reached my preliminary conclusions. I intend to rule in favor of the petitioner."

  His formal decision, when it was announced and published not long afterward, caused a brief but intense sensation throughout the world. For a little while hardly anyone talked of anything else. A free robot? How could a robot be free? What did it mean? Who was this strange robot, anyway, who seemed so far in advance of the rest of his kind?

  But then the hubbub over the Andrew Martin case died down. It had been only a nine days' wonder. Nothing had really changed, after all, except insofar as Andrew's relationship to the Martin family was concerned.

  The intervenors against Andrew's petition appealed to the World Court. In time the case made its way upward. The members of the Court listened carefully to the transcript of the original hearing and found no grounds for reversal.

  So it was done, and Andrew had had his wish fulfilled. He was free, now. It was a wonderful thing to contemplate. And yet he sensed, somehow, that he had not quite achieved whatever it was that he had set out to achieve when he first approached Sir to ask to be freed.

  Nine

  SIR REMAINED DISPLEASED. He could find no reason to rejoice in the court's decision and made sure that Andrew and Little Miss knew it.

  Andrew came to him soon after the decree was final and said, "I have the check for you, Sir."

  "What check are you talking about?"

  "For the entire balance in my corporate account. Which I promised to pay over to you, Sir, as the price for giving me my freedom."

  "I never gave you your freedom!" Sir retorted. "You simply went and took it!" His harsh voice made Andrew feel almost as though he were being short-circuited.

  "Father-" Little Miss said, sternly.

  Sir, who was sitting huddled in his armchair with his lap-robe wrapped about him even though this was the warmest day of the summer so far, scowled at her. But in a somewhat more conciliatory tone he said, " All right, Andrew. You wanted your freedom, for whatever that may be worth to you, and I didn't object to it. I suppose that must be interpreted as meaning that I supported your petition. Well, then, consider that I did. So now you are free. You have my congratulations, Andrew."

  "And I want to make the payment that I promised." Sir's eyes flashed with a trace of their old fire. "I don't want your damned money, Andrew!"

  "We had an agreement, Sir-"

  "Agreement? What agreement? You know that I never agreed to anything. -Look, Andrew, I'll take that check from you if it's the only way that you're going to feel that you really are free. But I think the idea's preposterous. I'm a very wealthy old man and I don't have very long to live and if you force me to take that money I'm simply going to hand it away to charity. I'll give it to the Home for Orphaned Robots, if there is one. Or I'll found one, if there isn't." He laughed-a thin, joyless laugh. Neither Andrew nor Little Miss joined in. "But you don't care, do you? You simply want to give the money away. Very well, Andrew. Let me have the check."

  "Thank you, Sir."

  He passed it across to the old man.

  Sir peered at it for a moment, holding it this way and that until his dimming eyes told him which side of the check he was looking at.

  "You really have accumulated quite a fortune, Andrew. -Give me a pen, will you, Mandy?" Sir's hand shook as he took it from her, but when he began to write on the back of the check it was in bold, steady strokes that went on for line after line, an inscription much longer than a mere endorsement would have required. He studied what he had written and nodded. Then he handed the check back to Andrew.

  Sir had endorsed the check Gerald Martin, received as payment in fu
ll for the freedom of Robot Andrew NDR-113 Martin, per court decision. And then beneath that he had drawn a line and written, Pay to the order of Andrew Martin, as bonus for outstanding services rendered during the period of his employment here. His endorsement of this check implies irrevocable acceptance of the bonus. Gerald Martin.

  "Will that be acceptable, Andrew?" Sir asked.

  Andrew hesitated a moment. He showed the check to Little Miss, who read what Sir had written and shrugged.

  "You leave me with no choice, Sir," Andrew said.

  "Precisely. That's the way I like things to be. Now fold that check up and put it in your pocket-no, you don't have a pocket, do you?-well, put it away somewhere. Keep it as a souvenir, something to remember me by. And let's hear nothing more about it." Sir glared defiantly at both Andrew and Little Miss. "So. That's done, then. And now you're properly and truly free, is that right? Very well. Very well. From now on you can select your own jobs around this place and do them as you please. I will give you no orders ever again, Andrew, except for this final one: that you do only what you please. As of this moment you must act only according to your own free will, as stipulated and approved by the courts. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "But I am still responsible for you. That too, as stipulated and approved by the courts. I don't own you any more, but if you happen to get yourself into any trouble, I'm the one who will have to get you out of it. You may be free but you don't have any of the civil rights of a human being. You remain my dependent, in other words-my ward, by court order. I hope you understand that, Andrew."

  Little Miss said, "You sound angry, Father."

  "I am. I didn't ask to have responsibility for the world's only free robot dumped on me."

  "Nothing has been dumped on you, Father. You accepted responsibility for Andrew the day you arranged to take him into your home. The court order doesn't change a bit of that. You won't have to do anything that you weren't bound to do before. As for Andrew's getting himself into trouble, what reason do you think he will? The Three Laws still hold."