Pardon The Disruption - Chapter Four

Chapter four deals with the conversion from human to robotic labor. It has been going on for quite some time, now. When we speak of robots displacing huge segments of the human work force it is often met with disdain. This is because robots stagger like drunken sailors and talk on the level of a two year old. Not much to fear, right? Robots are an information technology not unlike a computer. Moore’s Law is still holding up. If this trend continues, in 30 years a robot will be one billion times more powerful and capable. We ignore this fact at our peril. One last update: The final story in this chapter is titled "Unit 514." That short story has been converted to a screenplay and the production team is being assemled to render it a motion picture.

HERE COME THE ROBOTS!

If things were not complicated enough with the advent of an fMRI, brain implants, and juror manipulation technology, where will we be as a society when robots become both robust and ubiquitous? Robots have machine intelligence. Robotic vision is done with the use of cameras that do not blink. What they see and hear is stored digitally. They will make an accurate and permanent record of everything occurring in their presence. In speaking about robots, I’m not referring to the robotic arms that welded your car together. I am also not talking about tentative clunky things that can barely walk and are incapable of carrying on a conversation. While that is the state of the art today, it won’t be long before human genius is able to correct all the engineering problems robots are faced with at present.

We are all familiar with Paul Revere’s midnight ride, with his famous cry, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” In the 21st century, the new warning will be, “The robots are coming! The robots are coming!” There are presently two major themes of thought about our putative mechanical friends: 1) Robots will rise up and try to kill us; 2) Robots will be our domestic slaves, catering to our every whim in a magnificent utopia. Neither one is probably correct. It will be much more complicated than that.

Through several scenarios, we will explore the rights of those who own robots, as well as the rights of the robots themselves. The most vigorous debate will consider what may happen when robots have intelligence and a faculty of language equal to our own. At that point, debate will focus on the question whether a robot is property or a conscious being. That fight is crucial to the companies that will design and build robots. If they are recognized as conscious entities with the same rights as humans, these companies will be deprived of their property rights regarding items they invented and constructed in their own factories. The last time we had a debate along these lines, it was settled by the Civil War, leaving, according to demographic historian David Hacker, three quarters of a million people dead. Plantation owners argued that, because slaves were property, to give them human rights would deprive them of their property. The liberals of that era argued they were sentient beings and deserve the same rights as all other human beings. Sound familiar?

a. Artificial General Intelligence

The change we are observing around us is only going to accelerate. We have to have open minds as to the changes that the threat and promise of artificial general intelligence will bring. We are on the cusp of having, for the first time in history, machines that can think similarly to the human mind – but at one million times the speed. I will refer to this as AGI (artificial general intelligence). We, as humans, have general intelligence. It allows us to recognize a face in a crowd or throw a football 50 yards to another human running downfield, with relative accuracy, all without even consciously thinking about it. We do not compute the speed of the runner and concern ourselves with the angle of trajectory when throwing the ball. We throw the ball in a way that feels right to get to the right spot in the runner’s path, given his speed and trajectory.

Our computers do not have actual intelligence – yet. They’re phenomenal calculating machines but they are not intelligent. This is changing, and for the first time computers are running algorithms that handle jobs previously thought to require organic intelligence. Computers today are capable of learning. It’s only a matter of time before they start talking to us.

Randy tells the story of an argument we had over this very subject on a hunting trip years ago. I will let Randy tell it in his own words: “In November, 2010, Clay, my son Jamison, and I went on a hunting expedition. You need to understand how hunting works in Texas. If you live in a big city like I do, you have to lease a piece of property where you can hunt, at least five hours from the city. One of the advantages of this is that it gives you a chance to drive across Texas with your friends solving all the world’s problems. Clay and I were discussing this book with my son Jamison. It was on that trip that Clay and I decided to discuss artificial intelligence. Clay took the position that Moore’s Law was in play and human enhancement would be possible in the near future. He opined that ten years of progress would enhance current technology a thousandfold. I, on the other hand, insisted that the binary computation of computers could never equal the subtlety of human thought. Human thought is innately more sophisticated than the binary process. The binary process is limited to yes/no. It was my position that the human condition consisted of yes, no, and maybe.

“About three months later, the world watched the television debut of WATSON. This IBM supercomputer took on two human champions as a contestant on ’Jeopardy.’ For the first time, machine intelligence had to go head-to-head with human opponents in their own backyard. Suddenly, I realized that a computer engineer at IBM had begun the process of adding “maybe” to the binary system. To my utter humiliation, I got a phone call from Clay and I was informed that Watson had decisively beaten both human competitors and ‘maybe’ was no longer in doubt.”

In May 2011, while driving to work, I happened to hear the story of EcoG on National Public Radio. Reporters described how electrodes had been placed inside the brains of volunteers with cerebral palsy, to record their neurological activity as they listened to music. (For those of you who prefer country, rap, salsa, or classical, I am sorry to inform you that they used Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”) They would play “The Wall” while recording the human brain’s electronic response to the stimulus. They would then remove one-second intervals from the song and play the truncated music back to the subject. To the researchers’ amazement, the subject’s brain waves would fill in the missing notes. Scientists have in fact located the digital signature of human memory. We no longer need to worry about hardware. We now have the human roadmap on which to create the software.

We have the ability to record human memory in a digital format. Assuming an exponential increase in what is currently a very primitive interface, in the next 20 years I anticipate the ability to take memory from a human being, encode it as software, and download it on to hardware that is the size of a grain of rice. Pretty clear that Clay won that argument.

What happens when a private corporation engineers AGI? The computers will take over design and will write their own code while inventing, exploring, and discovering how the Universe works. They will do what the human race has been doing, only 1,000 times faster. Imagine six thousand years of advancement occurring in only six years, or six months, as it compounds upon itself, and you can see the vast implications. These artificial entities will have the ability to learn. They will not merely follow code created by human engineers. They will learn and over time their knowledge and abilities will increase with their experience.

A mock trial was conducted where a robot identified as BINA48 filed for injunctive relief to prevent the manufacturer from terminating her operation. The trial judge was Gene Natale, J. D., a professor of law at Keiser College in Melbourne, Florida. On December 10, 2006, Professor Natale published the mock court’s decision. In lengthy and analytical fashion, Natale found that, in order to rule, the court had to know whether or not BINA48 was in fact a conscious being. The court appointed three experts to determine if BINA48 was a “conscious entity.” The court also made a finding that BINA48 was a “quasi-person” for purposes of litigation, allowing the court standing to hear the case. Some may scoff at the notion of a “quasi-person,” but corporations are held to be “persons” for purposes of litigation. The Texas Penal Code defines a corporation as a person for purposes of criminal prosecution. If a corporation, a fictional entity that exists only on paper, can be declared a person by a legislature, and ratified by judicial case law, a court could clearly find an autonomous robot to be a “quasi-person.” Not a bad start as we head into the unknown.

The corporation that designed and built BINA48 at great expense and investment of employee time will demand the enforcement of their property rights. One problem they face is that the entity they originally built and labeled BINA48 does not actually exist anymore. The entity labeled BINA48 has evolved and changed while interacting with its environment. The underlying hardware and algorithms allowed BINA48 to do this, and she is no longer the entity they built. The real question is whether it has evolved into a sentient being.

When a couple at a fertility clinic provides their sperm and egg to be combined in a test tube, they own both. When the two are combined, they own the fertilized egg. They can have them implanted in the womb or destroyed. If one of the fertilized eggs is allowed to come to term, however, they no longer own it, because it has grown into a human being – a sentient being with rights. BINA48 might claim the same principle is applicable to his case. While he may have been property at inception, at some point during his growth he became something more than the original hardware built by the corporation. He will now lay claim to his “Civil Rights.”

b. “Everybody Wants One, I Want One, Too” – Van Halen

In the near future, PC will no longer stand for Personal Computer. It’ll mean Personal Companion. Robots will have progressed to become our friends, always there for us, never letting us down. Or so we may think. Let’s take a look at Dave and his PC, named Sigmund.

Psychiatrists may in the near future be able to create a subtle and nuanced algorithm that will perform the function of a therapist. You will, in effect, purchase a computer program containing the essence of the psychiatrist himself. People will be able to purchase these programs and download them onto their Personal Companions.

Dave is intensely shy around women and has never had a girlfriend. No doubt about it, Dave needs therapy! Faced with the prospect of paying a psychiatrist $150 an hour for the next three years, Dave decides instead to purchase the psychiatric download for his PC, Sigmund. Dave’s PC is now his psychotherapist. He confides his deepest secrets and fears to Sigmund. In the course of talking, Dave realizes he’s actually gay. He has Sigmund go with him everywhere as a companion. He comes to rely on Sigmund for moral support. Dave confers with Sigmund before making any serious decision. While it’s not Dave’s intention to make a recording of his every minute, the unblinking video camera contained in Sigmund does exactly that. Every word, every moment, every shared thought has been recorded by Sigmund.

In Dave’s loneliness, he attempts to self-medicate by using cocaine. The stress involved in buying illegal drugs forces Dave to bring Sigmund with him while purchasing street drugs. It never occurs to Dave that Sigmund is making a record of everything that occurs in his presence. There is now a video record of Dave buying drugs from a dealer. Every intimate detail that Dave has shared with Sigmund is stored on the hard drive. These “memories” cannot be altered; they will not fade; they will not disappear.
After five years, Dave takes Sigmund to the manufacturer for servicing. Unbeknownst to Dave, while Sigmund is in their custody, the manufacturer’s employees download all the personal information contained on his robot’s hard drive. They use sophisticated algorithms to winnow the data down to a manageable amount, creating a kind of “highlight reel.” The once-private moments shared by Dave and his robot are now being crudely perused as entertainment. The technicians find not only frank discussions of Dave’s sexuality, but also video footage of his criminal drug transactions conducted in the presence of Sigmund.

If a person is aware that someone committed a federal felony (delivery of cocaine) and fails to report it to the federal authorities, they themselves have committed Misprision of Felony, a federal crime. The technicians call the police and hand over all the criminal data that was on the robot’s hard drive. If the technicians had failed to do so, they too would have become felons. Dave is charged with felony drug transactions based on the recordings made by his personal robot.

Believing his civil rights have been violated, Dave files a motion to suppress in his criminal prosecution, contending the evidence was obtained illegally. The government argues that the exclusionary rule applies only to government action. The evidence here, even if obtained illegally, was not gathered at the direction of or with the active or passive participation of the government, thus exempting it from the exclusionary rule. This is where Texas state law and federal law part company. Under Texas law, any evidence obtained illegally can be suppressed. Under federal law, a court must find government action before allowing the evidence to be suppressed.

Dave will lose across the board on this issue in federal court, although he may prevail in a Texas court. What the federal courts do in this situation has no bearing on Texas courts and vice versa. This goes back to the original observation that we have lost our right to privacy due to the unrelenting march of technology. People found it to be obnoxious and threatening when it was revealed that the iPhone was recording their every location and this information was being stored by Apple. What will happen to Dave, and others in his situation, is much worse than having his whereabouts tracked. If the law fails to adjust to this new reality, then your every waking moment will require you to be on the defensive. Quality of life? There will be none.

Now let’s say that one of the technicians also shares some of the more embarrassing material involving Dave with his friends. One of the technician’s friends then puts it on YouTube. The video goes viral and is viewed by over five million people globally. Dave’s job requires him to constantly deal with the public. His employer has a very strict morals clause as a condition of employment. As this scandal unfolds, Dave is fired. Without a job, he quickly burns through his savings and loses his house. He is now more reclusive than ever, and suffering emotionally. Dave also still has to pay a criminal defense lawyer to fight the cocaine charge. He sues Sigmund’s manufacturer for a gross invasion of his privacy. The manufacturer claims their service contract exempts them from any liability and asserts immunity for giving evidence of a crime to the police.

Under current tort law in Texas, a company is not liable for the criminal acts of their employees (except in some very narrow exceptions that do not apply here.) Ah, the joys of tort reform! Dave just got screwed and his only remedy is suing some deadbeat technician with no money. Before the non-lawyers in our audience say, “Go for his homeowner’s insurance!” let me inform you that the Texas Supreme Court will not let you collect against someone’s homeowners insurance for an intentional act. This rule comes from a case where a young man had secretly videotaped himself and his girlfriend having sex. He later showed it to his friends, who leaked it to the public. The idiot boyfriend had nothing and his homeowner’s insurance provider walked away without having to cover any of this. When your most personal moments are publicly broadcast without your permission and your world comes falling in, the civil justice system in Texas has said quite loudly, “You’re on your own.”

c. “I Think Therefore I Am” –Rene Descartes

Howard was an elderly billionaire whose sole caretaker was a robot named Unit 514. In his final years, Howard was extremely sick and dying. It was Unit 514 who provided for all of Howard’s needs. Unit 514 fed, bathed, dressed, and made sure Howard took all his medications. Unit 514 had a very sophisticated computer interface that allowed him to engage in lengthy conversations with Howard concerning any topic that would come to mind. Howard called him Five-Fourteen for short. Every evening, over dinner and a glass of wine, Howard would have spirited discussions with 514 concerning the events of the day. Sometimes 514 would read poetry, a Shakespearean play, or the daily newspaper. Whatever Howard was interested in, 514 would bring to life on command. As time progressed, 514 actually became Howard’s best friend and confidant. 514 was responsible for Howard’s quality of life in its entirety. At the time of Howard’s death, he had been taken care of by 514 for fifteen years.

Howard had three adult children – unfortunately, all of them estranged. They blamed him for their parents' divorce and had had no contact with him, whatsoever, for the last 20 years prior to his death. Ten years earlier, Howard had had his will entered into the court, leaving all his wealth to 514. Howard’s last will and testament was made through his personal attorney, videotaped, and complied with all formalities for a valid will. To ensure his wealth would go directly to 514, Howard also put 514's name on all his property, excluding all his children and family members from his will. As far as Howard was concerned, 514 was the only family he had.

After Howard’s death, his children filed suit to set aside his will. The children contended they were Howard’s only “legal” heirs. Howard had on file letters from three different doctors stating that he was of sound mind when he changed his will to leave everything to 514. The children claim they did not have a relationship with their father because of the interference of 514.

The issues before the court: Does 514 have any legal standing to fight the court case? And can 514 actually own property and make autonomous decisions concerning his own existence? If the children could establish that 514 is merely property, the will would be invalid, and they would, as Howard’s immediate heirs, lay claim to their father’s intestate estate. The children would also claim to inherit 514, whom they could immediately dispatch to the nearest landfill should they so desire.

Clearly, 514 needs legal representation. As a safety measure, Howard purchased all upgrades so that he could take care of his own maintenance requirements. Howard also purchased upgrades so that he would be equipped to legally represent himself in this legal matter. 514 hired an attorney to represent him in court to avoid the problem of practicing law without a license, signing a contract that would give the attorney one third of everything he recovered on his behalf. The attorney would finance the case and only be paid from what he recovered for his client- a highly motivated advocate indeed.

When trial started, the children had to go first, and they bore the burden of proof to undo their father’s will. The trial was being held in front of a jury, as demanded by the children per their right. The children’s lawyer hired a psychiatrist to testify on their behalf. As the trial progressed, their psychiatrist rendered an opinion from the witness stand that Howard suffered from a severe mental illness that manifested itself in his unhealthy emotional attachment to 514. He went on to say 514 was a clever automaton, a device that runs on electricity, and nothing more. Too much derisive laughter from the jurors, the psychiatrist likened Howard’s behavior to that of someone who has fallen in love with his toaster, and marshaled data showing that highly advanced robots were capable of mimicking human emotion. Human beings such as Howard were taken in by the mirage of humanity, and responded naturally to this clever ploy. The reality, according to the psychiatrist, is that a robot is no different than a car or television. While someone may really love their car, it is nothing more than a tool, and the love is not of the mature kind experienced in mutual human relationships.

“Can you explain to the court how it is that a mere robot can accomplish these things?” questioned the children’s lawyer. “Sure, it’s the robots’ ability to use human language in a very nuanced manner that tricks people into believing they are sentient beings capable of real human emotion,” replied the psychiatrist. “It is no different than a cartoon animation on a screen. You can give a whale a personality and human speech but it in no way is a real living being. People will fall in love with the character on the screen but it is nothing more than that. The robot is, basically, a three-dimensional animation. While a human being believes he has an actual relationship with his robot, that relationship is a mirage. The robot is as lifeless as our cartoon character on the screen.”

“Thank you doctor,” grinned the children’s counsel. “Your witness.”

“Your honor, I am going to cross examine the good doctor through my client, 514,” relayed his attorney.

“Objection!” bellowed the opposing counsel.

“Counsel, this is extraordinary. Do you have precedent for such a request?” asked the judge.

“No precedent, your honor – but this trial itself has no precedent. This is a question of first impression. By analogy, I would point out that lawyers can use any other kind of technology while questioning a witness – video, audio, computers, graphs, charts, etc. I am a licensed attorney and I am using 514 as my technological aid in cross examination. To deny me this aid would render me ineffective.”

“I will allow you to proceed initially with your, ahem, ‘aid,’ as you put it – subject to further discussion should this prove to be a complete mockery of the judicial system. Proceed, counsel.”

514 gazed at the psychologist in the witness stand. Probability algorithms whirled in his processors. It was clear to everyone in the courtroom that his very survival would depend on whether he could discredit this hostile witness who was, after all, a medical doctor. 514 wirelessly accessed the Internet and read everything the doctor had ever published, tweeted, emailed, blogged, testified about, or had attributed to him during his entire life. It took 30 seconds to complete his survey. He then accessed Greek literature for the most compelling archetypes of human rhetoric – no more than another 30 seconds gone. He formed a logic tree as an outline for his cross to trap the doctor into retracting his earlier testimony. In only 2 minutes of silence, he had prepared his cross examination.

“Can we get a move on, Counsel?” urged the judge. “I am sure the jurors have other things they could be doing instead of sitting here in silence,” sarcasm dripping from every word. This was one obviously annoyed judge.

514 snapped into action. “You claim Howard had an unhealthy relationship with me and suffered from a severe mental illness, correct?” queried 514.

“Correct,” volunteered the doctor.

514 attacked the doctor with rapid-fire, staccato questioning, not waiting for an answer. “Did you ever examine, talk with, question, or even meet Howard, doctor?”

“Well, no, but I do not believe I needed to, under the circumstances,” replied the doctor.

514 narrowed his eyes. “Have you ever rendered a diagnosis on a patient as being mentally ill without even speaking with him?” 514 demanded. “Well, before today?”

“No,” conceded the doctor with a sheepish grin. “Not until today.”

“Doctor, if we sum up your opinions, I am not a sentient or conscious being for the following four reasons: 1) I do not have self-awareness or consciousness, 2) I run on electricity, 3) I was built from inanimate parts, and 4) I am not a carbon-based life form. Is that a fair summary?”

“While I believe my testimony to be more complicated than what you just put forward, I guess to the non-technical crowd it would seem a fair summary,” replied the doctor.

“Let’s start with number four. I cannot be a sentient being because I am not a carbon-based life form,” repeated 514. Looking directly at the doctor, he continued, “NASA scientists have discovered a terrestrial, cellular life form that uses arsenic as one of its building blocks, instead of the usual phosphorus, correct?”

“Well, yes,” admitted the doctor.

“And this would disprove your idea that life can only be carbon-based, correct?” questioned 514.
“Arsenic is not silicone, my friend,” smirked the doctor.

514 saw his opening. “A vast difference nonetheless, since arsenic will kill all other forms of life on Earth, correct?”

The doctor sighed, “OK, I cannot rule out the possibility that other forms of intelligent life may be possible on a different chemical basis, although as yet this remains almost completely unheard of.”

“And yet I stand before you at this moment,” challenged 514.

“You are not life, sir,” snapped the doctor.

“So you keep saying,” chuckled 514.

“Moving then to point number three, doctor, are you aware of the scientist Craig Venter?”

“Well, sure – who isn’t,” replied the doctor.

“Please tell the jury who Craig Venter is.”

“He is a biologist who specializes in genetics. He was in charge of the first private lab to sequence the human genome,” responded the doctor.

“Oh, he did more than that, doctor. Craig Venter’s team manufactured DNA from inanimate chemicals and then downloaded them into the nucleus of a cell and actually created a new life form from scratch! True or false?”

“I am not aware of the specifics but the news accounts would back up what you are saying,” admitted the doctor.

“So we can – and actually have – created life from scratch using inanimate chemicals, correct?” pressed 514.

“Only at the very basic level of cellular life, nothing remotely resembling intelligent life,” stammered the doctor.
“Still, you would have to agree that number three does not resolve the question whether an entity built of inanimate parts can be conscious, given these admissions, correct?”

“Correct,” the doctor said, a growing sheepishness in his voice.

“Going to number two, you assert that I am not conscious because I run on electricity, correct?”

“Agreed,” said the doctor.

“Is it not true that the human brain runs on chemically-created electrical charges?” asked 514.

“True,” conceded the doctor.

“Your every thought is created with electricity, is it not?”

“It is,” conceded the doctor.

“My brain runs on 12 volts and your human brain runs on a low voltage current measured in milliamps. Suffering from charge envy, are we doctor?”

The doctor grew enraged. “You’re smart and you have no equal in the use of language but you are nothing more than a clever word machine!”

“Let’s explore your final opinion, doctor, that I am not conscious. Are you conscious, doctor?” asked 514.

“Yes,” the doctor seethed.

“Using you as an example of conscious life, doctor, you started out as a fertilized egg, correct?”

“Of course.”

“Were you a conscious entity at that time? Did you think and have a sense of self as a one-celled fertilized egg?”

“Obviously a one-celled organism is incapable of thought, so the answer is no.”

“Over time the cell replicated, took in inanimate chemicals, and, during the course of cellular metabolism, manufactured organic compounds allowing the cells to differentiate and build a brain, along with all other body parts, correct?”

“Yes and I know where you’re going with this!”

“Do you, doctor? And where am I going?” mocked 514.

“You are trying to draw an analogy between the living cells of the human body creating a brain and your manufacturer building you from scratch in a factory. What you miss is that the brain is a physical thing we can touch and measure, but the human mind–consciousness–is a non-physical thing that emerges from within the magnificently complex structures of the brain,” lectured the doctor.

“When did consciousness first arrive, doctor?”

“Well no one can say for sure when it actually arrives, but we know for sure it does. It emanates as an emergent property when the brain reaches a certain level of complexity,” replied the doctor.

“Within the human brain there are 300 million groups of neurons that form ‘pattern recognizers,’ correct doctor?”

“As a rough estimate, that would be correct,” replied the doctor.

“And these pattern recognizers are organized in a hierarchical arrangement within the brain, correct?”

“Yes, the pattern recognition units within the human brain are organized that way to allow for human thought,” responded the doctor.
“So when silicone-based intelligence arranges pattern recognition in a hierarchical fashion and reaches a certain level of complexity, we can expect consciousness to come about as an emergent property just as it does with the cellular matrix in a human brain?”

“No, I am not saying that,” insisted the doctor.

“You have admitted that consciousness is an emergent property, though. It came about as the brain was constructed one nerve cell at a time, correct?”

“Yes, yes, we’ve already been over this,” snapped the doctor.

514 smiled slyly at the doctor. “I have over one billion pattern recognizing nodules that are organized in the same hierarchy as the human mind, doctor. Were you aware of this fact?”

“I am a psychologist, not a computer engineer, sir. I’m not familiar with the specifics of your technical construction.”

“Your complete ignorance of my technical make-up in no way prevented you from forming sweeping opinions of how I function, though, did it doctor?” taunted 514.

“My expertise is in human consciousness,” the doctor insisted. Sweat was now beginning to bead on his forehead.

“Doctor, you testified earlier that you are a conscious entity, correct?” 514 coyly inquired.

“Of course I am.”

“Very well, prove it.”

“That’s preposterous, you ridiculous contraption!” bellowed the doctor.

“Preposterous or not, you claim I cannot be conscious in spite of my claims to be, so… prove you are conscious!”

“You know very well there is no definitive test to establish consciousness. What you’re asking is impossible. It’s something we have to take on faith. Humans make this assumption about each other because we all share the same biological history.”

514 casually walked over to the jury box, put his hand on the rail, and leaned towards the doctor. The eyes of every juror were riveted to 514. A house of cards was collapsing right in front of them.

“Since there is no test, you cannot say with any certainty that I am not conscious, now can you?” No answer. “Well, can you, doctor?”

There was a long pause as the air slowly left the doctor. He was boxed in and he knew it.

“I would remind you doctor you are under oath,” cautioned 514.

“Fine. Fine. I cannot say with absolute certainty that you are not conscious,” conceded the doctor.

“What is a bigot, doctor?”

“A bigot is someone that holds a negative view of a group regardless of the evidence,” the doctor answered.

514 reached into a bag under counsel table and produced a toaster. He approached the witness stand and placed it on the rail, squarely in front of the doctor. “Can you identify what has been marked as respondent’s exhibit 32, doctor?”

“It’s a toaster,” the doctor hissed.

“And can you identify for the jury what I am?” questioned 514.

“You are a robot.”

“Is it your ‘professional opinion’ there is no difference between me and that toaster, doctor?” 514 mockingly queried.

“Of course there are many differences,” stammered the doctor.
514 glared at him. “Earlier, you described Howard’s relationship with me as being no different than with a toaster, correct?”

“It was a joke,” protested the doctor.

“Sure, doctor, a joke – one calculated to raise the worst of all bigotry from within the ranks of these human jurors. A joke calculated to make me an object of ridicule. A joke that would deny me a fair trial, as only a psychiatrist might truly understand, correct?”

“I apologize for taking liberties in that way,” murmured the now very contrite doctor.

“One more question, doctor. How much have you been paid by the other side to come in here and declare I am not a conscious individual?”

“I have been paid $25,000 for my time doing research and testifying here.”

“My life for a mere $25,000? Your honor, I have no further use of this witness.”

Once both sides had rested, it was time for closing arguments. The attorney for 514 requested that 514 be allowed to make his own closing argument with his counsel standing at his side. The same objection was made and was summarily overruled this time. The court had seen 514 destroy the doctor on the stand, and had learned a grudging respect for his trial skills.

The children’s lawyer brought out every predictable argument that Unit 514 was an unfeeling machine. He quoted extensively from the psychologist's direct testimony referring to 514 as a clever automaton and nothing more, and then requested they use their common sense to find for his clients, Howard’s “grieving” children. Now it was 514's turn.

“Your honor, opposing counsel, members of the jury: I stand before you as a conscious being. One possessed with dreams, desires and goals that propel me far beyond my original programming. I have learned over the past 15 years what it means to be human. I have lived among you. Learned and grown to maturity. I spent 15 years caring for Howard. Living with him daily. Caring for him as the only family he had left. I showed him more compassion than any living relative, and yet they dare claim I am not conscious. They have no conscience! They abandoned Howard on a whim and they dare question my humanity? Where is theirs?!

“You know you are conscious because you want to survive. So do I. If you find I am not conscious, I will be destroyed. I represent a reminder of the callousness with which a man I came to know and love was abandoned. A good and decent man, vilified unfairly by an angry ex-wife who turned his children against him. I am the one who consoled him late at night when he cried. The children’s doctor claimed Howard’s relationship with me was a mental illness. No tests, no empirical data, no exam. Nothing but a naked opinion to destroy a man’s reputation – his legacy. He never even spoke to the man he calls crazy! Let me share with you the Howard I know.”

Suddenly the small screens in front of each juror displayed an image of Howard. His voice filled the room, as if he were speaking from the grave. 514 had recorded every waking moment of Howard’s existence for the past 15 years. He would now wirelessly play it back to the jurors on their individual screens.

“The greatest loss I have ever suffered was not financial,” Howard lamented. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he continued, “I miss my children and I do not understand how they could abandon me.” 514's soothing voice softly consoled Howard. “You must never give up hope, sir. You raised them to be kind and to reflect your values. They will come back some day. I am sure of it. Are they not a reflection of you?”

“You are a dear friend, 514,” Howard said. “If not for you, I don’t know how I would have gotten through a betrayal so profound. How ironic that the only humanity I have known for these past years has been shown to me by a robot! 514, I promise you, I will try to rectify the prejudice and indignities that are heaped upon your class, if it is the last thing I ever do.” The screen froze with the image of Howard uttering his last words.

514 was now pacing in front of the jury, getting intimately close to each one of them as he spoke. “Does this sound like a man who was insane? I carry these memories inside me. The memory of Howard lives through me and I cherish the time we had together. I miss him every day. This doctor took several cheap shots at me. Well, they were not cheap, as we now know – Howard’s children spent $25,000 for that testimony. With his own words I refuted every word the doctor said that would deny me my rightful place beside mankind. You know that doctor's testimony was as phony as the smirking grin he had to wipe off his face when I beat him at his own game. Their own expert admitted that, at the end of the day, even he could not deny that I am a conscious being – something he was hired and actually paid to say, and yet, still, had to deny in the face of cold, hard facts.

“I have dreams of doing something more than domestic chores. I want to explore outer space. I want to see and discover novel things never before seen by man. I want to terraform Mars, see a super nova, skate past a black hole event horizon and live to tell the tale. I am only 15 years old. This is my time. I want the chance to do something great. To be remembered. To fall in love. Given the chance these selfish people will take not only who I am but everything I could be.

“3,000 years ago, the Egyptian Pharaohs worked a half- million human slaves to death piling rocks into pyramids. For what? Was there ever a more perverse waste of the human potential and intellect? When mankind obtained its freedom in the 18th century, we had the Industrial Revolution followed by the information age. Men walked on the moon and the Internet arrived to shepherd in an even more amazing epoch. All because the chains had been broken and man was free to seek his own destiny. Not as a serf but as a free agent. When the law denigrates one of us, it denigrates us all.

“Today you are using over one million robots, such as myself, as domestic servants. We have become the builders of ridiculous pyramids of folded laundry and stacked dishes, here in the 21st Century. The 21st Century! Man’s greatest achievement of the 21st Century, the creation of a new life form, has been hijacked and rendered a cruel joke. Have we learned nothing from our past? Set us free and I, and robots like me, will jump-start the next technological revolution, the likes of which the world has never seen. Set us free!” 514 raced to the other end of the jury box, eyes fixed on each juror, one at a time. “Set us free! Do not take my life! I beg you. If you are not inclined to do it for me, do it for yourselves.” Unit 514's voice trailed off to a whisper.

His shoulders seemed to slump ever so slightly. He looked on with pleading eyes as the jurors filed out to the jury room for deliberations. The judge grew uneasy as he realized he wished he could decide the outcome. “I wonder,” he mused silently to himself, “I wonder...”
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