Android Falling - Chp 01 - 'Lecture' (Draft)

“You know I can’t help you, Stevenson.”

Stevenson leaned back dangerously far on the plastic chair opposite Dr. Redmond, hands clasped in frustration over his temples. “I know, I know. You’ve told me that ever since the first day I approached you with the idea. Every single alternative I bring up, every option I muster out of the mists of despair, you shoot it down like an Olympic skeet shooter. You know,” he leaned closer, bringing his fists heavily but cautiously unthreateningly onto the good doctor’s desk, “you know how important this project is for me, and you also know you are literally the only person I can turn to for help. Why must you insist on being the obstacle to my success?”

“Bah. You and your projects have gained a reputation, you know. Students all around the campus make a mockery of you. You think they’re all looking up to you with their bright, twinkling eyes as you lecture them about the importance of the classical Laws of Robotics and their influences on modern technological development of robots – but what you don’t seem to realize is that they’re twinkling from the tears in their eyes, holding back the laughter that would shame a comedian off his stage. I’m your last barrier of sanity, James, and you know it. That’s why I have to say no.”

The two men glared at each other for a few, loud ticks of the clock before a nurse came rushing into the office. “Sir, we’ve had an emergency admission and they need your expertise,” the nurse panted, holding up a thin anodized aluminum sheet. The patient’s medical history and recent activities glowed a sharp green a few millimeters above the surface of the sheet, and a quick glance would reveal a rather obtrusive line of red. Redmond leapt to his feet and stormed across the room past Stevenson, snatching the slate while turning to cast a final word towards the Professor.

“I have no time to quibble with you anymore. I expect you to know your way out – since you always seem to find your way in.”

The door slammed, and Professor James Stevenson found himself alone in a glass office, with no one to rant to but his own self-conscience. He remained seated, half turned towards the door on the wall behind him, half facing the mahogany desk whose surface was littered with paperwork and medals. A bronze nameplate, dulled by time, declared that everything belonged to an esteemed Doctor Frank Redmond.  

Stevenson had originally come here to offer a lunch break with Redmond at the quaint sandwich shop that had opened just a couple of weeks ago, three blocks down the main University street. Sure, he fully admitted it; he was planning on asking again about the medical reference number. But he meant it in earnest this time, not as a side thought to his project of his. He desperately needed the assistance of someone in the medical field, someone well-known, perhaps, so as to not raise suspicion. Was Redmond really his only option? He shook himself of the doubt. Of course Redmond was the sole person that could be of any help here – but all of these encounters were going to gray his head even faster than it was already going.  

He scratched his pitiful excuse for a beard. There had to be something he could do, and he would figure out what that was soon. Steeling his resolve, Stevenson lifted himself from the squeaking chair and went for the door. He would find another day to convince his friend to join him on this venture – the stubborn Professor would have it no other way.




“Alright, settle down. Class began two minutes ago so I don’t know why you lot are still rambling on like a flock of parrots. Quiet!” Stevenson set his Robotics 392 course binder on the table at the front of the lecture hall, the dusty pages landing with a little cloud of history puffing up around it. The enormous hall, mostly devoid of life except the hundred or so students, was enveloped in silence as a slide was projected upon the back wall – on it, only three words: ‘Laws of Robotics’. The title loomed over the stocky professor, the unusual size catching the eyes of a few.

“Before I begin, let me remind you once more that your essay will be due by tomorrow night at nine, and I strictly will not accept a single essay that arrives a moment later than that.”

Whatever attention gained was immediately lost.

“Our topic of lecture today will be the classic three Laws of Robotics, forever ingrained into our society by the great author Isaac Asimov. As we develop and grow, so have the words of his Laws. Today, we know the laws as such:

“One; a robot may never cause bodily injury to a biological part of a human being.

“Two; a robot must follow every command given to it by a biological human being, except in the case where the first law would be violated, of which the robot is to dismiss immediately.

“The third law was created on the basis that a robot would be expensive to create and maintain, and thus; a robot must protect itself from damage of any sort, except where to do so would violate the first and second laws, during which the robot must dismiss the health of itself.

“These are, by no means, the same words that Asimov wrote. But these are the practical projections of the laws upon our greatly advanced society, and what matters more than the trivialities of nostalgia is the ability to apply these ideas in real-world scenarios.”

Stevenson pointed at the slide in a dramatic fashion, as it faded into three new words: ‘The Zeroth Law’.

“Who here knows of the Zeroth law?” Stevenson called out, gesturing outward towards his students. Most of them remained quiet, meekly writing down notes that were pointless outside of a need to demonstrate that they were simply too busy writing down all the information to answer his question. A couple of hands slowly rose, never high enough to exude confidence, but not quite so low that his pleading eyes wouldn’t find them.

“You!” he pointed abruptly at a student sitting at the very far back and right from him. “What is the Zeroth law?”

A sentence was spoken but not heard, but the intonation implied a question. A hand cupped to the Professor’s ear, the student tried again. “The classical law or the modern one?”

“Good question! Whichever one you prefer the wording of. And loudly, so that the unenlightened may learn a thing or two before their notebooks fill of garbage!”

“The classical Zeroth law states that a robot must not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

Stevenson clapped loudly once, and several students whose attention spans were waning jerked to attention. “Very good! That will be fifteen extra credit points. See me after lecture. A robot must not harm humanity. What does that mean? At what point is a robot allowing humanity to harm itself, if the robot is not capable of foretelling the future? To what extent may a robot assist humanity in its endeavors before it may be sending us to our demise? Such was the frustration of Asimov’s fictional robot, R. Daneel Olivaw.

“Do such questions pose any meaning to us, today? Of course they do - and that’s why we had to adapt the laws for our technology. For instance, robots are crucial in the surgery of human beings. Without them, we would take hours for an operation that may only have required thirty minutes. But what good would a robot be if, in the traditional sense, they could not through inaction allow a human being to come to harm? The scalpel of a surgeon, the drill of a dentist, or even the needle of a pediatrician can be seen as harmful, particularly if the recipient is uncomfortable with the operation! A robot of that nature would throw itself in front of every attempt to perform these operations.

“In the early days of fully-aware robots, the three laws were heavily questioned. Could we pull back the laws a little bit for certain professions of robots? Maybe we could allow a robot to accept the harm if ordered harshly enough, or if they were convinced that the minor harm would lead to greater health. Does that not make these robots more likely predisposed to assault and battery?

“So the laws were changed, and with gusto. What is a human, to a robot? Is it a behavior? Is it the appearance? And with bionic enhancements developing to the point that one in twenty adults have a limb replaced with a fully metal one, should the robot be allowed to exert a greater force upon the robotic limb, uninhibited by the First Law? Thus came the phrase, biological human being. It had a physical aspect, a scientific aspect, and a philosophical aspect. No robot would be able to confuse a human with another robot.

“But the Zeroth Law remains. What would the modern equivalent be? There is much divide about the answer, which is why I asked for an answer. Different people partake in a different interpretation of the Law. Some say it should not exist, as no robot should be granted that much power over humanity. Some say it should only exist within the most powerful artificial intelligences that run the very basis of our economy, our city infrastructures, our transportations. And although few, there are voices that call for every robot to consider the Zeroth Law in every action they take, like a shield against all attack upon humanity.”

Stevenson paused here, judging the weary faces of the students before him. Most of them were juniors, having decided on the major only he was qualified to teach, but only getting slight glimpses of the brilliant topic they had chosen. He smiled, and presented his third slide of the lecture. On it was one word - a word that, within moments, roused the entire room up in cheers.