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A story about robots

There was, at one time, a race of mechanical men. Who had originally brought them into being, none of them knew, and none of them cared. No matter. Their creator, sentient or otherwise, was not there... was not, in their sphere of knowledge, anywhere... was quite probably non-existent. The mechanical men were here and many in number.

They were surrounded by an ocean. Water? Perhaps. It was a liquid, and it was destructive to their mechanical bodies. Again, no matter. None of them had any desire to cross the ocean. Whatever might exist beyond could not possibly interest them. The things they needed were here and large in quantity.

You might ask, what does a robot need? Well, these automata were not entirely without desires, or rather instructions. Sampled en masse, they would appear to have had a survival instinct. They maintained themselves and, where it seemed likely to benefit the whole community, assisted each other. And they made more men!

You might ask, how was this possible? It was possible for two reasons. Firstly, there were deposits of the necessary building materials close to hand. Secondly, although they did not know why they worked, the mechanical men knew how they worked, and could replicate themselves with some degree of speed and efficiency.

Logically, it occurred to some of the robots that they might be able to improve their methods of working. Thus, single units would spend as much time as proved profitable carrying out personal research and development. Over an unspecified period of time — for time, except in a comparative sense, was not relevant — they had amassed, on an individual basis, knowledge that allowed them to locate and retrieve certain important minerals in better and faster ways.

This knowledge they did not share with their companions, since they were not designed to communicate in such a way — but they passed it on to those units they created. And so you might say that the race was capable of evolution. Or, having more significant things to say, you might not. No matter. This was how the mechanical men operated.

It happened at one point that the deposits of a certain material became noticeably low. Contingencies had not been made for such a situation. Things happened that had never happened before. The robots found themselves in competition over rocks containing a particular ore. Since a single example can provide a concise way to illustrate the general case, here is one such exchange which occurred.

Two mechanical men reached for a stray rock simultaneously, each one blocking the hands of the other in a manner which a less industrious species might have found comical. A third robot took the opportunity to appropriate the rock from where it lay. The first two robots, both desiring the ore for themselves, took the logical step of approaching the other to retrieve it.

Now, since these mechanical men were of equal size, strength, speed, and what we may call intelligence, this emotionless squabbling was doomed to be fruitless. Had the protagonists possessed effective communication skills, perhaps some mutually beneficial compromise might have been reached, with the ore going to whoever seemed able to make the most efficient use of it.

But such a thing was impossible! The one rock changed hands again and again... and by now, with the ore so heavily depleted, there were dozens of robots involved in the transaction.

The situation was this. Ore was required, but ore was not available. Not available where? Why, there was no ore in the known world! But this known world was a finite world, bounded by the ocean. And if you have paid attention then you will remember this ocean.

The robots remembered it. They realised that there might be other land-masses across the ocean, and that it would be worth crossing the ocean in order to find any potential ore on the other side. In fact, without ore they could not fulfil their building urges, and, the ocean being the only possible way to more ore, they must cross it.

And so they built a bridge. They rolled rocks and boulders into some arbitrary part of the ocean. Even rocks and boulders which might contain other important materials were used. Some of the mechanical men decided that they would be more useful as components than as builders, and so they built themselves into the bridge and were instantly forgotten. Many thousands more mechanical men continued to build.

It should be pointed out that the process of building the bridge took some considerable time. You might ask, can time be considerable to a robot? Well, perhaps it was considerable to the robots, or perhaps it was not. No matter. It certainly took much more time to build a bridge over the ocean than for one robot to build hundreds more robots. But, ultimately, the bridge was completed.

Completed! You see, there was land across the ocean. And so the automata began to look for ore and other useful materials on, in, or under the new land.

There were quite plentiful quantities of ore. There were also other things. There were roads, and buildings, and power lines — and there were people. Not mechanical men, but organic men and women and children.

What happened? Perhaps there was a war between the mechanical and the organic. But the mechanical men did not come to fight. Besides, the organic people knew about the mechanical men! They were far more highly evolved. They had created the robots — not long ago — and they had transported them to the island, and they had planned to return to the island at a later stage to see what the robots did.

Many people had thought that the robots would fight among themselves. Almost as many people had thought that the robots would evolve. Several people had raised ethical and moral issues. A few people had doubted the value of the whole thing. But no people at all had expected the robots to cross the ocean. Why, the ocean was vast and dangerous, and the robots were simple-minded and small!

But the robots had crossed the ocean, and they did not care about the organic people. Why should they? Organic people are not a useful source of ore, so the robots paid them no attention. It was the same situation with domestic animals and trees and cars.

Cars? Oh, but cars were of interest. They were fast. They were more efficient at moving than the mechanical men. The mechanical men could see the value of this efficiency, but they could not operate cars. They could only take a car apart and examine its components.

Well, after about a week — and it was a week of much protest and suspicion — the organic people started to see robots with wheels. Wheels and engines! They had been assembled by trial and error, and most of them were inefficient or worse. Some exploded. Some ran out of fuel. Some did not explode, and did not run out of fuel, and were able to build more robots with wheels. All this in the space of two weeks.

The daily evolution of robots was a remarkable sight, and rather disturbing. The organic people could not co-exist with these robots. You might ask, why not? Perhaps they were jealous? No. In fact, they were afraid. In one or two cases, people were injured or killed by robots taking the most efficient route to some destination. And what could they do? A robot is always innocent. It has no morals and no understanding of morality.

Well, the organic people could destroy individual robots, but they could not destroy a breeding population of millions. Such a task was simply impossible. Allegations were made, in the press and elsewhere. It was said that the people concerned had created before they knew how to destroy. It was said that they had not considered certain outcomes. It was said — but no matter. Allegations were made.

Suggestions were also made. Perhaps the mechanical men could be convinced that building more mechanical men was not the best course of action. Perhaps they could be convinced to cease all activity and rust away, fully functional but apathetic. Perhaps — and this appealed to various militaristic governments — they could be convinced to return to their island, where they could be more easily targeted by various powerful weapons.

But there was no way to communicate! So how could the organic people say anything to the mechanical? How indeed.

It was proposed in some quarters that they build new robots, with different logic systems, that could -

But nobody liked that idea. Nobody wanted more robots.

Just recently, nearly all of the new robots have had wheels, and engines, and other components that we cannot identify. But surely they have not all learned about cars. It seems more likely that they have diffused sundry pieces of knowledge among themselves. Can they communicate, then? Well — we don't know. But it is possible.

Is there an upper bound on robotic intelligence? Could a robot become as intelligent as we are? Perhaps we are not as intelligent as these robots. Again, we don't know. Will the robots have problems with overpopulation? Will they always ignore us, their creators — or will they perhaps decide that the spaces where we live could be put to more efficient use?

Why do these mechanical men keep creating more mechanical men? You might equally ask, why do we, the organic people, keep creating more organic people?

I think the mechanical men have a will to survive and breed. And I think they are better at doing it than we are.

We shall eventually find out.