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What do you think? Neat, eh?
Basalom managed to redirect what he was thinking into a null buffer
and flush it before Personal Vehicle I had a chance to intercept the
words.
The limousine rolled on. A few blocks later, Janet folded the sheet she
was reading, pursed her lips, and frowned.
 Basalom?
 Yes, madam?
 You ve been in fairly frequent contact with the city robots over the
last few days, haven t you?
 The term  frequent is an imprecise expression, madam. I have had
124 separate audio and commlink conversations at intervals ranging
from 15 picoseconds to 6 hours. 
 Oh. Well, in your conversations, have you noticed that the robots
seem a little... odd?
  Odd is a judgmental term, madam. In order to determine that
behavior is odd, you must first establish a base level of normal
behavior against which to judge. 
Janet wrinkled her nose in a frown.  I don t understand. 
 Madam, since we have arrived here I have been unable to determine
what is  normal behavior for these robots. Hence I am unable to
adjudge anything as being  odd.  
Dr. Anastasi smiled and shook her head.  I see. Serves me right for
asking a vague question. Let s try again.
 Basalom, in your conversations with the local robots, have you
noticed anything that might lead you to believe that the city
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supervisors have developed a sense of humor?
Basalom was silent a moment as he sorted through all his recorded
sense impressions, searching for correlating patterns.
Okay, it s coming up, the limousine broke in. Left at the next corner.
Basalom ignored the data stream and tried to concentrate on carrying
out Dr. Anastasi s instructions.
 Madam, while I would prefer to build my judgment on a larger
experience base 
Hey, what s the matter with you? You re not slowing down.
 Based on the observations that I have made to date 
It s this corner. That big circular building is the gasket factory.
 I must conclude that the city supervisors have not developed a sense
of humor 
Left! Oh, fer cryin out loud, you missed the turn.
 But I hasten to add that many of the city robots have developed
significant aberrations and eccentricities. 
For a moment there was blessed silence on the data bus. Then the
limousine s thought stream kicked back in. Oh, so I m eccentric, am
I? Well let s just see how you like handling this rig alone. There was a
brief surge of DC voltage accompanied by a drop in positronic
potentials across the entire width of the data bus. Basalom tried a few
exploratory probe pulses and was surprised to come to an inescapable
conclusion: Personal Vehicle One had physically switched itself out of
the data bus.
Basalom fired off one more round of sampling pulses and then
allowed himself a moment of pleasure. What a pity 1 didn t think of
this three days ago!
He checked his realtime clock. Close to a quarter-second had elapsed
since he d delivered his findings to Dr. Anastasi, and she was
preparing to make a response.
 Darn. I was hoping you d say yes.  She picked up the sheaf of fax
pages and waved them at Basalom.  If you d said that the supervisors
were capable of intentional humor, I d say that this was a pretty good
practical joke. 
Dr. Anastasi bit her lower lip.  But if they re completely serious about
this... 
Basalom swiveled his head around to face Dr. Anastasi and scaled his
optics up to a higher magnification, but he was unable to make out the
content of the fax sheets.  Serious about what, madam?
She looked at the papers again and then waved them at Basalom.
 This is their proposed plan for modifying the city to suit the needs of
the local inhabitants. It s not just silly. It s not just stupid. In fact, I
think it even transcends ridiculous and scales the heights to pure
idiocy. 
Basalom scanned the papers again,-but his optical character
recognition routine still couldn t read the words through the paper.
 Madam?
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Janet unfolded the papers and looked at them.  We have got to talk
the supervisors out of this. It s insulting.  She peeled off a sheet and
threw it aside.  Condescending.  She peeled off another and threw it
with greater vigor.  Degrading.  She lifted the entire sheaf and threw
it down on the seat beside her.  And possibly immoral. 
She looked up sharply.  Basalom, I need you to help me reach them. I
can build robots. I can order them around. But I ve never had to try to
reason with an Avery model before. You re going to have to help me
understand a city supervisor s conception of logic. 
Confused potentials darted through Basalom s brain.  Understand,
madam? What s to understand? Logic is logic. 
Dr. Anastasi caught a strand of her long blond hair between her
fingers and began unconsciously twisting it.  Wrong, Basalom. Logic
isn t a universal constant, it s a heuristic decision-making process
rooted in the values, prejudices, and acquired conflict -resolution
patterns of the decider.
 For example, if I d given you just a slightly stronger positive bias in
your motivation circuit, you would in some situations come to exactly
the opposite conclusion that you would come to now. Yet you d still be
just as certain that you d come to the only logical conclusion.  Dr.
Anastasi smiled, in a hopeless sort of way, and looked at Basalom.
 You, old friend, have got to help me figure out the underpinnings of
the city supervisors logic. And we ve got to do it in the next four
minutes.  [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]