Caliban

“Inevery field of human activity among the Spacers, the lines on the graph mark a slow, gentle decline as safe and sober indolence becomes the norm. We are losing ground even in the most basic and vital things. The birthrate here on Inferno fell below replacement level two generations ago. We live long, but we do not live forever. We die more than we give birth. Our population is in decline, and large parts of the city are now vacant. Those children that are born are largely raised, not by loving parents, but by robots, the same robots that will coddle our children all their lives and make it easy for them to be cut off from other humans.

“Under such circumstances, it should come as no surprise that there are many among us who find we prefer the company of robots to humans. We feel safer, more comfortable, with robots. Robots we can dominate, robots we control, robots who protect us from that most dangerous threat to our quiet contentment:other people. For contact with humans is far riskier than dealing with robots. I will note in passing the increasingly popular perversion of having sex with specially designed robots. This vice is common enough that in some circles it is no longer even regarded as odd. But it represents the final surrender of contact with another person in favor of robotic coddling. There can be no real feeling, no sane emotion, vested in such encounters, merely the empty and ultimately dissatisfying release of physical urges.

“We Infernals are forgetting how to deal with each other. I might add that our situation here in this regard is actually far healthier than on other Spacer worlds. On some of our worlds, the relatively mild taste for personal isolation we indulge here has become an obsession. There are Spacer worlds where it is considered unpleasant to be in the same room with another person, and the height of perversion to actually touch another person unless absolutely needful. There are no cities on these worlds, but merely widely scattered compounds, each home to a single human surrounded by a hundred robots. I need hardly mention the difficulties in maintaining the birthrate on such worlds.

“Before we congratulate ourselves on avoiding that fate, let me remind you that the population of the city of Hades is declining far faster than would be accounted for by low birthrate: More and more people are moving out of town, setting up compounds of exactly the type I have just described. Such solo residences seem safer, more tranquil. There are no stresses or dangers when one is by oneself.

“My friends, we must face a fact that has been staring us in the face for generations. The First Law has taught us to take no chances. It has taught us that all risk is bad, and that the safest way to avoid risk is to avoid effort and let the robots do it, whatever it is. Bit by bit, we have surrendered all that we are and all that we do to the robots.”

There was a chorus of shouts and boos and hisses from the room, and an angry chant began in the back of the room, among the Ironheads. “Settler, Settler, Settler.” In the Ironhead view of things, there was no fouler name they could call her.

Fredda let it go on for a minute or two, declining to challenge it this time, preferring to let it peter out on its own. The tactic worked-at least this once. Others in the audience turned toward the Ironheads and shushed them, and Kresh’s deputies leaned in toward a few of the rowdier ones. The Ironheads settled down.

“If I may continue, then, to the Second Law of Robotics:A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. This Law ensures that robots will be useful tools, and will remain subservient to humans, despite the many ways in which they can be physically and intellectually superior to us.

“But in our analysis of the First Law, we saw that human reliance on robots creates a human dependence upon them. Second Law reinforces this. Just as we are losing the will and ability to see to our own welfare, we are losing the capacity for direct action. We can do nothing for ourselves, only what we can direct our robots to do for us. Much technical training consists of teaching the means by which to give complex orders to specialized robots.

“The result: With the exceptions of our increasingly decadent and decorative arts, we create nothing new. As we shall see in a moment, even our art forms are not immune to robotic interference.

“We tell ourselves that the Spacer way of life frees us to build a better, higher culture, frees us from all drudgery to explore the better places of human ability. But with what result?