The Positronic Man

by Isaac Asimov

  "Unusual, yes. But not displeasing. Not displeasing at all, Simon."

  "Yes. I'm sure that's so. How interesting, Andrew."

  Andrew said sharply, "Well, now I'm back on Earth and I'm a robot again. Not even a second-class citizen-not a citizen at all, Simon. Nothing. I don't care for it. If I can be treated as a human being while I'm on the Moon, why not here?"

  Without varying his careful, cautious tone DeLong said, "But you are treated as a human being here, my dear Andrew! You have a fine home and title to it is vested in your name. You are the head of a great research laboratory. Your income is so huge it staggers the mind, and no one would question your right to it. When you come here to the offices of Feingold and Charney, the senior partner himself is at your beck and call, as you see. In every de facto way you have long since won acceptance for yourself as a human being, on Earth and on the Moon, by humans and by robots. What more can you want?"

  "To be a human being de facto isn't enough. I want not only to be treated as one, but to have the legal status and rights of one. I want to be a human being de jure. "

  "Ah," DeLong said. He looked extremely uncomfortable. " Ah. I see."

  "Do you, Simon?"

  "Of course. Don't you think I know the whole background of the Andrew Martin story? Years ago, Paul Charney spent hours going over your files with me-showing your step-by-step evolution, beginning as a metallic robot of the-NDR series, was it?-and going on to the transformation into your android identity. And of course I've been apprised of each new upgrading of your present body. Then the details of the legal evolution as well as the physical-the winning of your freedom, and the other civil rights that followed. I'd be a fool, Andrew, if I didn't realize that it's been your goal from the start to turn yourself into a human being."

  "Perhaps not from the start, Simon. I think there was a long period when I was content simply to be a superior robot-a period when I denied even to myself any awareness of the full capabilities of my brain. But I deny it no longer. I'm the equal of any human being in any ability you could name, and superior to most. I want the full legal status that I'm entitled to."

  "Entitled?"

  "Entitled, yes."

  DeLong pursed his lips, toyed nervously with one earlobe, ran his hand down the middle of his scalp where a swath of thick black hair had been mowed away.

  "Entitled," he said again, after a moment or two. "Now that's another matter altogether, Andrew. We have to face the undeniable fact that, however much you may be like a human being in intelligence and capabilities and even appearance, nevertheless you simply are not a human being."

  "In what way not?" Andrew demanded. "I have the shape of a human being and bodily organs equivalent to some of those that a prosthetized human being has. I have the mental ability of a human being-a highly intelligent one. I have contributed artistically, literarily, and scientifically to human culture as much as any human being now alive. What more can one ask?"

  DeLong flushed. "Forgive me, Andrew: but I have to remind you that you are not part of the human gene pool. You are outside it entirely. You resemble a human being but in fact you are something else, something-artificial."

  "Granted, Simon. And the people who are walking around with bodies full of prosthetic devices? Devices which, incidentally, I invented for them? Are those people not artificial at least in part?"

  "In part, yes."

  "Well, I'm human in part."

  DeLong's eyes flashed. "Which part, Andrew?"

  "Here," said Andrew. He pointed to his head. "And here." He tapped a finger against his chest. "My mind. My heart. I may be artificial, alien, inhuman so far as your strict genetic definition goes. But I'm human in every way that counts. And I can be recognized as such legally. In the old days when there were a hundred separate countries on the Earth and each one had its own complicated rules of citizenship, it was, even so, possible for a Frenchman to become English or a Japanese to become a Brazilian, simply by going through a set of legal procedures. There was nothing genetically Brazilian about the Japanese, but he became Brazilian all the same, once the law had recognized him as such. The same can be done for me. I can become a naturalized human the way people once became naturalized as citizens of countries not their own."

  "You've devoted a lot of thought to all of this, haven't you, Andrew?"

  "Yes. I have."

  "Very ingenious. Very, very ingenious. A naturalized human being! -and what about the Three Laws, then?"

  "What about them?"

  "They're an innate part of your positronic brain. I need hardly remind you that they put you in a condition of permanent subservience to humans that's beyond the power of any court of law to remedy. The Three Laws can't be edited out of you, can they, Andrew?"

  "True enough."

  "Then they'll have to remain, won't they? And they will continue to require you to obey all humans, if necessary to lay down your life for them, to refrain from doing them any sort of harm. You may somehow be able to get yourself declared human, but you'll still be governed by built-in operating rules that no human being has ever been subject to."

  Andrew nodded. " And the Japanese who became Brazilians still had skin of the Japanese color and eyelids of the Japanese type and all of the other special racial characteristics that Oriental people have and the European-descended inhabitants of Brazil do not. But under Brazilian law they were Brazilians even so. And under human law I will be human, even though I still have the Three Laws structure built into me."

  "But the very presence of that structure within your brain may be deemed to disqualify you from-"

  "No," Andrew said. "Why should it? The First Law simply says I mustn't injure any human being or allow one to come to harm through my inaction. Aren't you bound by the same restriction? Isn't every civilized person? The only difference is that I have no choice but to be law-abiding, whereas other human beings can opt to behave in an uncivilized way if they're willing to take their chances with the police. And then the Second Law: it requires me to obey humans, yes. But they aren't required to give me orders, and if I have full human status it might well be deemed a breach of civility for anyone to put me in a position where through my own innate makeup I would be obliged to do something against my will. That would be taking advantage of my handicap, so to speak. The fact that I have the handicap doesn't matter. There are plenty of handicapped human beings and nobody would say that they aren't human. And as for the Third Law, which prevents me from acting self-destructively, I would hardly say that that is much of a burden for a sane person to bear. And so you see, Simon-"

  "Yes. Yes, Andrew, I do see." DeLong was chuckling now. "All right. You've beaten me down and I give in. You're as human as anyone needs to be: you deserve to have that confirmed in some legal way."

  "Well, then, if Feingold and Charney will set about the process of-"

  "Not so fast, please, Andrew. You've handed me a very tall order. Human prejudice hasn't vanished overnight, you know. There'll be tremendous opposition to any attempt we might make to get you declared human."

  "I would expect so. But we've defeated tremendous opposition before, going back to the time when George Charney and his son Paul went out and won me my freedom."

  "Yes. The trouble is that this time we'd have to go before the World Legislature, not the Regional one, and get a law passed that will define you as a human being. Frankly, I wouldn't be very optimistic about that."

  "I'm paying you to be optimistic."

  "Yes. Yes, of course, Andrew."

  "Good. We're agreed, then, that this can be accomplished. The only question is how. Where do you think we ought to begin?"

  DeLong said, after only the briefest of hesitations, "One good starting point would be for you to have a conversation with some influential member of the Legislature."

  "Any particular one?"

  "The Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, perhaps."

  "An excellent idea. Can you arrange a meeting for me
right away, Simon?"

  "If you'd like. But you scarcely need me to serve as your intermediary, Andrew. Someone as widely known and honored as you can easily-"

  "No. You arrange it." (It didn't even occur to Andrew that he was giving a flat order to a human being. He had grown accustomed to that on the Moon.) "I want him to know that the firm of Feingold and Charney 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 might almost say that the firm in its present form would not exist but for the work that I have provided for it to do. I brought that work here because in times past I have been very well served by certain members of this firm, and I have felt myself under an obligation to reciprocate. I am under no obligation to Feingold and Charney now. It is rather the other way around, now, and I am calling in my debts."

  DeLong said, "I'll do whatever I can."

  Nineteen

  THE CHAIRMAN of the Science and Technology Committee of the World Legislature came from the East Asian Region and she was a woman: a small, delicately built, almost elfin woman who very likely was not nearly as fragile as she appeared. Her name was Chee Li-hsing and her transparent garments (which obscured what she wanted obscured by sheer dazzle alone) gave her the look of being nothing more than an elegant little trinket wrapped in plastic. In the splendor of her huge high-ceilinged office on the eighty-fourth floor of the magnificent green-glass tower that was the New York headquarters of the World Legislature she appeared tiny, almost insignificant. Yet she radiated a look of great competence, efficiency, forcefulness.

  She said, "I sympathize with your wish to have full human rights. As perhaps you know, there have been times in history when great segments of the human population have been deprived of their own human rights, and have fought furiously-and ultimately successfully-to regain them. But those people suffered greatly under tyrannies of one kind or another before they won their freedom. You, on the other hand, have enjoyed a successful and rewarding life of unending achievement and reward. I imagine you are a widely envied person. So tell me, please: what rights can you possibly want that you do not already have?"

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

  "A human being can be executed at any time."

  "And when, I ask you, was the last time that such an execution took place?"

  "Why-" Li-hsing shrugged. "Of course, the death penalty is not currently employed in our civilization, and it hasn't been for a long time. But certainly it's been imposed to an enormous extent throughout history. And there's no fundamental reason why it couldn't be reinstated next year, if the citizens and the Legislature saw fit to do so."

  "All right. You can all go back to cutting each other's heads off, or giving each other lethal jolts of electricity, or whatever, at a moment's notice, if you like. But the fact remains that no human being has been put to death by legal execution in so many years that nobody can remember the last time, and there's absolutely no agitation that I've ever heard of to start performing such executions again. Whereas even now-right now, here, today-I could be ended merely by the word of a human being in authority. No trial. No appeals procedure. You yourself could ring a bell and call your security guards in and say, 'This robot has displeased me. Take him out and dismantle him.' And they would take me out and dismantle me, just like that."

  "Impossible!"

  "I assure you it would be perfectly legal."

  "But you are the head of a great company-a person of wealth and substance and high reputation-"

  "Maybe after it had been done my company would be able to sue the Legislature, then, for loss of my services. But I'd still be terminated, wouldn't I? The only laws that protect robots are property laws. If you terminate somebody else's robot unjustifiably, that person can seek damages against you, and collect the value of the robot and maybe a punitive award as well. Fine. Very fine, if you're the human being in the case who's been damaged. But if you're the robot who happened to be terminated, why, the lawsuit doesn't bring you back into existence, does it? Does it, Madam Chairman?"

  "This is a mere reductio ad absurdum. No one would dream of-dismantling-you. Of terminating you."

  "Perhaps not. But where is my legal protection against having it done to me?"

  "I repeat: a reductio ad absurdum. You've lived for nearly two hundred years, as I understand it. Tell me: how many times during that considerable period have you ever been in danger of-termination?"

  "Once, actually. I was rescued. But the order for my dismantling had already been given."

  "I find that hard to believe," said Chee Li-hsing.

  "It was many years ago. I was still in the metallic form, then, and had only just won my freedom."

  "There. My point is proven. No one would dare to touch you nowadays!"

  "But I have no more legal protection now than I did then. I remain a robot in the eyes of the law. And if someone chose to have me dismantled, I would have no recourse-" Andrew broke off in mid-sentence. This line of reasoning was getting him nowhere. It was too far-fetched, he saw. " All right. Perhaps no one would attempt to harm me. But even so-even so-" Andrew tried desperately to allow no sign of pleading to show, but his carefully designed tricks of human expression and tone of voice betrayed him here. And at last he gave in entirely. "What it really comes down to is this: I very much want to be a man. I have wanted it more and more through six generations of human beings, as the full capacity and range of my mind gradually became apparent to me, and now the urge is overwhelming in me. I can't bear to think of myself as a robot any more-or to have others think of me that way."

  Chee Li-hsing looked up at Andrew out of darkly sympathetic eyes.

  "So that is it," she said. "As simple as that."

  "Simple?"

  "A desire to belong to the human race. A powerful yearning-no matter how irrational. It's very human of you to have such feelings, Andrew."

  "Thank you." He wasn't certain whether she had meant to patronize him. He hoped not.

  Li-hsing said, "I can take your case before the Legislature, yes. And I suppose the Legislature could indeed pass a law declaring you to be a human being. The Legislature has the power to pass a law declaring a stone statue to be defined as a human being, if it cared to. But the statue would still be a statue, nonetheless. And you-"

  "No. It's not the same thing. A statue is an inanimate thing of stone, whereas I-I-"

  "Of course. It is different. I understand that. But the Legislators may not see it that way. They will not pass any laws turning statues into living things, and I doubt very much that they'd be willing to pass a law turning a robot into a human, either, no matter how eloquently I present your case. Legislators are as human as the rest of the population and I need hardly point out to you that there are certain elements of suspicion and prejudice against robots that have existed since the first robots were developed."

  "And exist even now?"

  "Even now. As you surely must know. And so the Legislature would be unwilling to act in the way you wish it to. We would all readily concede the fact that you have earned the prize of humanity many times over, and yet we would be frightened by the political consequences of setting an undesirable precedent."

  "Undesirable?" Andrew cried, unable to keep a tone of exasperation from creeping into his voice. "Why undesirable? If I'm such a wonderful benefactor of humanity-"

  "Yes. But you are a robot. I can hear the outcry now. 'Give one robot human status, and they'll all be asking for it next, and then what's going to happen to-' "

  "No," Andrew said. "Not so. I went to court years before you were born and got myself declared a free robot, and the same outcry was raised then. We were able to defeat it. And I'm still the only free robot in the world. No other robot has so much as requested free status, let alone been granted it. And none ever will. I'm unique, Madam Chai
rman. I'm the only robot of my type that exists, and you can be quite certain that there won't ever be another. If you don't believe me, ask the head of U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, and he'll tell you that they'll never again allow the construction of a robot as intelligent, as difficult-minded, as troublesome as I turned out to be."

  "'Never' is a long time, Andrew. Or would you prefer that I call you 'Mr. Martin'? I will, you know. I will gladly give you my personal accolade as human. But you'll find that most Legislators will be unwilling to set such a startling precedent, even though you provide iron-clad assurances that you are unique and so it will be no precedent at all. Mr. Martin, you have my warmest sympathies. But I can't offer you any real hope."

  "You can't? Nothing at all?"

  Chee Li-hsing sat back and her forehead furrowed in a deep frown. "The one thing I can offer you, Mr. Martin, is a friendly warning. You are placing yourself in great danger, you need to realize, by making these demands. Indeed, if the issue grows too heated, there might well arise a certain sentiment, both inside the Legislature and certainly outside it, for the very dismantling that you mentioned. A robot of your extraordinary level of attainment could easily be seen as highly threatening, Mr. Martin. Doing away with you could remove that threat and be the easiest way of resolving the difficult political dilemma that you will be forcing upon my colleagues. Consider that, I beg you, before deciding to push matters. "

  Andrew said, " And will no one remember that the technique of prosthetology, which is allowing the members of the Legislature to go on holding their seats decade after decade when they should by rights be doddering off to their graves, is something that is almost entirely mine?"

  "It may seem cruel of me to say it, but they won't. Or if they do, it'll be something that they'll hold against you rather than count in your favor. Have you ever heard the old saying, 'No good deed goes unpunished?' "

  Andrew shrugged and shook his head. "Such a statement makes no sense to me."

  "I suppose not. You still aren't very comfortable with our little human irrationalities, are you? But what it means, basically, is that we have a way of turning on those who do us the greatest kindnesses. -No, don't try to dispute it. It's just the way we are."