Breakdowns of Imagination

Through the years, there's been a lingering - not necessarily strong, just enduring - idea that the goal of a science fiction writer is to predict the future. On an individual basis, maybe that's true for a few of them, but the kind of arrogance it takes to say "this is how the future will unfold, and I am totally right about it" is totally different from the sort of arrogance that drives a writer to seal an envelope or send off an electronic submission and say "this is an incredibly awesome piece of writing and you will buy and publish it." Or at least think it.

Personally, I've always preferred the notion that a more apt description of the sf writer is as a forward scout: running ahead in one direction or another, taking a look around, then coming home and telling everyone what they saw over that particular hill. Good sf isn't supposed to be prognostication; it should more properly be speculation, about the sort of things that might happen. I'd argue that it's thanks to decades of such speculation about the pitfalls and possibilities of human cloning, for example, that there are already laws in place to deal with it before it's even been demonstrated to be viable.

Nevertheless, it's very possible to just not see something coming. There's nothing wrong with that; it's human. What can be a problem, indicative of potential speedbumps in thinking outside a speculative fiction mindset, is to entirely dismiss the possibility of something coming. Which, realistically, is a third kind of arrogance.

"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." - The New York Times, 1936.

I'm specifically prompted in this by Hugo Gernsback, the Father of Science Fiction, despite the fact that he's been dead for forty-four years. In the letter column of the October 1931 issue of Wonder Stories, I came across his editorial response to a letter from Milton Kalesky - who you may recall as the writer of "Revolt of the Ants" - expressing concernss that once robots became sufficiently inexpensive and reliable, the laws of economics would result in them replacing human workers wholesale. Kaletsky suggested that people needed to start preparing then for the changes that would result in order to ensure society wasn't vastly disrupted by it.

Gernsback spent three paragraphs in a response, but what really caught my eye was this one.

Popularly, the robot is supposed to be a man-like machine that walks on its feet, and performs all sorts of manual work. While it may be possible, in a hundred thousand years hence, to have a mechanical man who performs simple tasks, it will manifestly remain imposible, even then, to have, for instance, to mention one of thousands - a robot cook. Not by the wildest stretch of imagination, can you think of a robot which could cook an entire meal all by itself without the human agency entering the work.

I can understand Gernsback, or people in general, being skeptical about the possibilties of robotics. I can understand the notion that some things that seem inordinately simple to us are fiendishly difficult to get a computer to comprehend. But a hundred thousand years? Really? What is it about the act of cooking that makes it so ungraspable to a robot that even if we worked at it for twice as long as it's been since we achieved behavioral modernity, we still wouldn't do it?

In looking ahead, there's conservatism and then there's practically blindness. Granted, the huge span of time Gernsback cites may just be a product of his time; I've noticed other works from the early 20th century that seem to take extreme technological stasis as something of a given. But blindness is of no use to a scout.

The Three Laws and the SkyTrain

There are signs all over the SkyTrain that urge riders to hold onto the handrails at all times. The other day four cars' worth of people were reminded why when the train screeched to a halt in what still seems like an impossibly short distance, sending standers staggering. Whether there was an obstruction on the tracks up ahead or the next train was just too close for comfort, I never found out. But it did get me thinking.

As I said in my Tunnel Visions review of the system, Vancouver's SkyTrain is run by robots - it's driverless and automated. It made me wonder, based on the information available to me... as an automated system, does the SkyTrain operate in concurrence with the Three Laws of Robotics?

At least we know it's Y2K compliant.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

This one is the closest to being realized in reality. SkyTrain platforms are studded with safety warnings against walking on the track, the cars themselves are equipped with further safety notices as well as emergency call buttons, and the doors will not close if they detect someone in the way - something that happens particularly frequently at Commercial/Broadway or Metrotown. Hell, they won't even open if the train is not at precisely the right position on the platform; I once spent ten minutes on a train stopped short well within Metrotown station, but its doors didn't open until it was cleared to move the final ten feet or so forward.

Given the current shape of the system, I'm not sure that much more than this can be done; even the quick deceleration I mentioned earlier falls into this, since hitting something on the rails would be a net negative for everyone on the train. People standing are expected to be holding the rails, and if they're not, they've taken their safety into their own hands.

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

From what I understand, the SkyTrain system is monitored by humans from a central control area - I'm not sure if they can be driven remotely, but unless the cars all come with artfully concealed video cameras, it probably wouldn't be the best idea. Furthermore, considering liability issues I doubt the system would accept an instruction to close the doors on an obstruction or blithely drive over something on the tracks.

Nevertheless, the SkyTrain also most likely does not have a self-preservation drive - I would be highly surprised if it did. So the Second Law does not really work here.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Here we really get into the distinction between Asimovian robots and robots like the SkyTrain. Asimov's were mechanical men with the ability to manipulate and affect the world around them. The SkyTrain's effect on the world is limited to its capacity to take people where they need to go when they need to go there, and also whatever wind currents get kicked up by its passage. It's incapable of protecting itself, either - the state of the art is still woefully insufficent for the SkyTrain's digital avatar itself to make the case for the Evergreen Line.

So, conclusion: no. The SkyTrain is not fully Three Laws compliant. Fortunately, though, it's got no will or volition either - thus making its non-compliance far less threatening than if it was an urban rapid transit system that could think for itself.