“But all that trouble just to read proof?”
“The uses would be infinite. Professor. Robotic labor has so far been used only to relieve physical drudgery. Isn’t there such a thing as mental drudgery? When a professor capable of the most useful creative thought is forced to spend two weeks painfully checking the spelling of lines of print and I offer you a machine that can do it in thirty minutes, is that picayune?”
“But the price-”
“The price need not bother you. You cannot buy EZ-27. U. S. Robots does not sell its products. But the university can lease EZ-27 for a thousand dollars a year-considerably less than the cost of a single microwave spectograph continuous-recording attachment.”
Goodfellow looked stunned. Lanning followed up his advantage by saying, “I only ask that you put it up to whatever group makes the decisions here. I would be glad to speak to them if they want more information.”
“Well,” Goodfellow said doubtfully, “I can bring it up at next week’s Senate meeting. I can’t promise that will do any good, though.”
“Naturally,” said Lanning.
The Defense Attorney was short and stubby and carried himself rather portentously, a stance that had the effect of accentuating his double chin. He stared at Professor Goodfellow, once that witness had been handed over, and said, “You agreed rather readily, did you not?”
The Professor said briskly, “I suppose I was anxious to be rid of Dr. Lanning. I would have agreed to anything.”
“With the intention of forgetting about it after he left?”
“Well-”
“Nevertheless, you did present the matter to a meeting of the Executive Board of the University Senate.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So that you agreed in good faith with Dr. Lanning’s suggestions. You weren’t just going along with a gag. You actually agreed enthusiastically, did you not?”
“I merely followed ordinary procedures.”
“As a matter of fact, you weren’t as upset about the robot as you now claim you were. You know the Three Laws of Robotics and you knew them at the time of your interview with Dr. Lanning.”
“Well, yes.”
“And you were perfectly willing to leave a robot at large and unattended.”
“Dr. Lanning assured me-”
“Surely you would never have accepted his assurance if you had had the slightest doubt that the robot might be in the least dangerous.”
The professor began frigidly, “I had every faith in the word-”
“That is all,” said Defense abruptly.
As Professor Goodfellow, more than a bit ruffled, stood down, Justice Shane leaned forward and said, “Since I am not a robotics man myself, I would appreciate knowing precisely what the Three Laws of Robotics are. Would Dr. Lanning quote them for the benefit of the court?”
Dr. Lanning looked startled. He had been virtually bumping heads with the gray-haired woman at his side. He rose to his feet now and the woman looked up, too-expressionlessly.
Dr. Lanning said, “Very well, Your Honor.” He paused as though about to launch into an oration and said, with laborious clarity, “First Law: a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Second Law: a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third Law: a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”
“I see,” said the judge, taking rapid notes. “These Laws are built into every robot, are they?”
“Into every one. That will be borne out by any roboticist.”
“And into Robot EZ-27 specifically?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You will probably be required to repeat those statements under oath.”
“I am ready to do so, Your Honor.” He sat down again.
Dr. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist-in-chief for U. S. Robots, who was the gray-haired woman sitting next to Lanning, looked at her titular superior without favor, but then she showed favor to no human being. She said, “Was Goodfellow’s testimony accurate,
Alfred?”
“Essentially,” muttered Lanning. “He wasn’t as nervous as all that about the robot and he was anxious enough to talk business with me when he heard the price. But there doesn’t seem to be any drastic distortion.”
Dr. Calvin said thoughtfully, “It might have been wise to put the price higher than a thousand.”
“We were anxious to place Easy.”
“I know. Too anxious, perhaps. They’ll try to make it look as
though we had an ulterior motive.”
Lanning looked exasperated. “We did. I admitted that at the University Senate meeting.”
“They can make it look as if we had one beyond the one we admitted.”
Scott Robertson, son of the founder of U. S. Robots and still owner of a majority of the stock, leaned over from Dr. Calvin’s other side and said in a kind of explosive whisper, “Why can’t you get Easy to talk so we’ll know where we’re at?”
“You know he can’t talk about it, Mr. Robertson.”
“Make him. You’re the psychologist, Dr. Calvin. Make him.”
“If I’m the psychologist, Mr. Robertson,” said Susan Calvin coldly, “let me make the decisions. My robot will not be made to do anything at the price of his well-being.”
Robertson frowned and might have answered, but Justice Shane was tapping his gavel in a polite sort of way and they grudgingly fell silent.
Francis J. Hart, head of the Department of English and Dean of Graduate Studies, was on the stand. He was a plump man, meticulously dressed in dark clothing of a conservative cut, and possessing several strands of hair traversing the pink top of his cranium. He sat well back in the witness chair with his hands folded neatly in his lap and displaying, from time to time, a tight-lipped smile.
He said, “My first connection with the matter of the Robot EZ-27 was on the occasion of the session of the University Senate Executive Committee at which the subject was introduced by Professor Goodfellow. Thereafter, on the tenth of April of last year, we held a special meeting on the subject, during which I was in the chair.”
“Were minutes kept of the meeting of the Executive Committee? Of the special meeting, that is?”
“Well, no. It was a rather unusual meeting.” The dean smiled briefly. “We thought it might remain confidential.”
“What transpired at the meeting?”
Dean Hart was not entirely comfortable as chairman of that meeting. Nor did the other members assembled seem completely calm. Only Dr. Lanning appeared at peace with himself. His tall, gaunt figure and the shock of white hair that crowned him reminded Hart of portraits he had seen of Andrew Jackson.
Samples of the robot’s work lay scattered along the central regions of the table and the reproduction of a graph drawn by the robot was now in the hands of Professor Minott of Physical Chemistry. The chemist’s lips were pursed in obvious approval.
Hart cleared his throat and said, “There seems no doubt that the robot can perform certain routine tasks with adequate competence. I have gone over these, for instance, just before coming in and there is very little to find fault with.”
He picked up a long sheet of printing, some three times as long as the average book page. It was a sheet of galley proof, designed to be corrected by authors before the type was set up in page form. Along both of the wide margins of the galley were proofmarks, neat and superbly legible. Occasionally, a word of print was crossed out and a new word substituted in the margin in characters so fine and regular it might easily have been print itself. Some of the corrections were blue to indicate the original mistake had been the author’s, a few in red, where the printer had been wrong.
“Actually,” said Lanning, “there is less than very little to find fault with. I should say there is nothing at all to find fault with, Dr. Hart. I’m sure the corrections are perfect, insofar as the original manuscript was. If the manuscript against which this galley was corrected was at fault in a matter of fact rather than of English, the robot is not competent to correct it.”