Caliban

“It is barely an exaggeration to say that robots protect against a million-to-one danger of minor injury with every bit as much fervor as they guard against the risk of near-certain death. Because minor and major risks are treated the same, we come to think that theyare the same. We lose our ability to judge risk against possible benefit. I am sure that every person in the audience tonight has had the experience of a robot leaping in to protect against absolutely trivial risks and dangers. Robots overreact, and in doing so teach us to fear risk inordinately. On a cultural level, that fear of risk has spread over from the merely physical to the psychological. Daring and chance-taking are seen as at the very least distasteful and unseemly, not the done thing. At every turn, our culture teaches us it is foolish to take chances, however small.

“It is, however, a truism that all things that are worth gaining require some risk in the effort to get them. When a climber goes to the top of a mountain to see the view, there is the risk of falling off, ever present, no matter how many robots are along. When a scientist strives to learn something new, the risks include loss of face, loss of resources, loss of time. When one person offers true love to another, there is the danger of rejection. In all things, in all efforts, this element of risk is there to be found.

“But our robots teach us that risk,every risk,all risk, is bad. It is their duty to protect us from harm,not their task to do us good. There is no law sayingA robot shall help a human achieve his or her dreams. Robots, by their caution, train us to think only of safety. They are concerned with the dangers, not with the potential benefits. Their overprotective behavior and their constant urgings that we be cautious teach us at a very early age that it is wiser not to take chances. No one in our society ever takes risks. Thus, the chance for success is eliminated right along with the chance for failure.”

By now the silence in the room was gone altogether, replaced by a low, angry, buzzing hum. People were talking with their neighbors, shaking their heads, frowning. There was a disturbing intensity in the air.

Fredda paused and looked about the auditorium. It suddenly seemed to her that the room had grown smaller. The rear seats had moved in, and were remarkably close to her. The people in the front rows seemed to be only a few centimeters away from her face.

She looked down at Alvar Kresh. He seemed so close that it would take an effort of will to avoid touching him. The air seemed bright and charged with energy, and the straight lines and careful geometry of the room seemed to have curved in on themselves. All the colors in the room seemed richer, the lights brighter.

Fredda felt her heart thumping against her chest. The emotions in the room, the anger, the excitement, the curiosity, the confusion, were all palpable things, there for her to reach out and touch. She had them! Oh, she knew there was little hope of mass conversions on the spot-and she did not even know what she would want them all convertedto-but she had caught their emotions, forced them to look at their own assumptions. She had opened the debate.

Now if she could only finish out the evening without starting a riot. She glanced down at her notes and started back into her talk.

“We fear risk, and look at the results. In every scientific field except robotics, we have surrendered leadership to the Settlers. And, of course, we win out in the field of robotics by default, because the Settlers are foolish enough to fear robots.” Was there irony in her voice as she said that? Fredda herself was not sure.

“But it is not just science that has fallen asleep. It is everything. Spacers make no new types of spacecraft or aircar. The new buildings that the robots put up are based on old designs. There are no new medicines to further extend our lives. There is certainly no new exploration out into space. ‘Fifty planets are enough’ has the power of a proverb. We say it the same way we say ‘enough is as good as a feast. ‘ Except now Solaria has collapsed, and we are only forty-nine worlds. If Inferno goes on the way it has in the past, we will be forty-eight. With many living things, the cessation of growth is the first step toward death. If this is true for human societies, we are in grave danger.