Paul Charney, who was generally a good deal more conservative in his ways than his father, warned him the first time he saw his father rigged out like that: "Just take care not to trip over it on stage, Dad;"
''I'll try not to," said George.
The essence of his pro-robot argument was this:
"If, by virtue of the Second Law, we can demand of any robot unlimited obedience in all respects not involving harm to a human being, then any human being, any human being at all, has a fearsome power over any robot, any robot. In particular, since Second Law overrides Third Law, any human being can use the law of obedience to defeat the law of self-protection. He can order the robot to damage itself or even destroy itself for any reason, or for no reason whatsoever-purely on whim alone.
"Let us leave the question of property rights out of the discussion here -though it is not a trivial one-and approach the issue simply on the level of sheer human decency. Imagine someone approaching a robot he happens to encounter on the road and ordering it, for no reason other than his own amusement, to remove its own limbs, or to do some other grave injury to itself. Or let us say that the robot's owner himself, in a moment of pique or boredom or frustration, gives such an order.
"Is this just? Would we treat an animal like that? And an animal, mind you, might at least have the capacity to defend itself. But we have made our robots inherently unable to lift a hand against a human being.
"Even an inanimate object which has given us good service has a claim on our consideration. And a robot is far from insensible; it is not a simple machine and it is not an animal. It can think well enough to enable it to speak with us, reason with us, joke with us. Many of us who have lived and worked with robots all our lives have come to regard them as friends -virtually as members of our families, I dare say. We have deep respect for them, even affection. Is it asking too much to want to give our robot friends the formal protection of law?
"If a man has the right to give a robot any order that does not involve doing harm to a human being, he should have the decency never to give a robot any order that involves doing harm to a robot-unless human safety absolutely requires such action. Certainly a robot should not lightly be asked to do purposeless harm to itself. With great power goes great responsibility. If the robots have the Three Laws to protect humans, is it too much to ask that humans subject themselves to a law or two for the sake of protecting robots?"
There was, of course, another side to the issue-and the spokesman for that side was none other than James Van Buren, the lawyer who had opposed Andrew's original petition for free-robot status in the Regional Court. He was old, now, but still vigorous, a powerful advocate of traditional social beliefs. In his calm, balanced, reasonable way, Van Buren was once again a forceful speaker on behalf of those who denied that robots could in any way be considered worthy of having "rights."
He said, "Of course I hold no brief for vandals who would wantonly destroy a robot that does not belong to them, or order it to destroy itself. That is a civil offense, pure and simple, which can readily be punished through the usual legal channels. We no more need a special law to cover such cases than we need a specific law that says it is wrong for people to smash the windows of other people's houses. The general law of the sanctity of property provides sufficient protection.
"But a law preventing one from destroying one's own robot? Ah, now we venture into very different areas of thinking. I have robots in my own law office, and it would no more occur to me to destroy one than it would for me to take an axe to a desk. Still, is there anyone who would argue that I should be stripped of the right to do as I please with my own robots, or my own desks, or any other article of office furniture that I may own? Can the State, in its infinite wisdom, come into my office and say, 'No, James Van Buren, you must be kind to your desks, and spare them from injury. Likewise your filing cabinets: they must be treated with respect, they must be treated as friends. And the same applies, naturally, to your robots. In no way, James Van Buren, may you place the robots you own in jeopardy.' "
Van Buren would pause, then, and smile in his calm and reasonable way, letting everyone know that this was strictly a hypothetical example, that in fact he was not the sort of man who would do injury to anyone or anything.
And then he would say, "I can hear George Charney replying that a robot is fundamentally different from a desk or a filing cabinet, that a robot is intelligent and responsive, that robots should be regarded virtually as human. And I would reply to him that he is mistaken, that he is so bemused by affection for the robot that his own family has kept for many decades that he has lost sight of what robots really are.
"They are machines, my friends. They are tools. They are appliances. What they are is mere mechanical contrivances, neither more nor less deserving of legal protection than any other inanimate object. Yes, I said inanimate. They can speak, yes. They can think, in their own rigid preprogrammed way. But when you prick a robot, does it bleed? If you tickle one, will it laugh? Robots have hands and senses, yes, because we have constructed them that way, but do they have true human affections and passions? Hardly. Hardly! And therefore let us not confuse machines made in the image of mankind with living things.
"And I must point out, too, that humanity in this century has become dependent on robot labor. There are more robots in the world than there are people, now, and in the main they do the jobs that none of us would be willing to touch. They have freed humanity from dreary drudgery and degradation. To confuse the robot issue with the ancient debates over slavery and the later debates over freedom for those slaves and the still later debates over full civil rights for the descendants of the freed slaves will ultimately lead to economic chaos, when our robots begin to demand not simply the protection of the law but independence from their masters. Those slaves of centuries gone by were human beings who were cruelly taken advantage of and mistreated. No one had any right to force them into servitude. But robots were brought into the world to serve. By definition they are here to be used: not to be our friends but to be our servants. And to take any other position is a wrongheaded, sentimental, dangerous way of thinking."
George Charney was a persuasive orator, but so was James Van Buren. And in the end the battle-fought mainly in the court of public opinion, rather than in the Legislature or the Regional Court-ended in something of a stalemate.
There were a great many people now who had been able to transcend the fear or dislike of robots that had been so widespread a couple of generations earlier, and George's arguments struck home with them. They too had begun to look upon their robots with a certain degree of affection, and wanted them afforded some kind of legal security.
But then there were the others, who may not have feared robots themselves so much as they did the financial risks that they might somehow experience as a result of extending civil rights to robots. They urged caution in this new legal arena.
So when the battle at last was over and pro-robot legislation came forth, setting up conditions under which it was illegal to issue an order that might harm a robot, the law that was passed by the Regional Legislature, sent back for revisions by the Regional Court, passed again in a modified way, this time upheld in the Regional Court, and eventually ratified by the World Legislature and upheld after a final appeal to the World Court, was a very tepid one indeed. It was endlessly qualified and the punishments for violating its provisions were totally inadequate.
But at least the principle of robot rights-established originally by the decree awarding Andrew his "freedom"-had been extended a little further.