“Certainly, Mr. Fry,” said Hachette. “I’ll take you in to Mr. Newman right away.”
“Don’t you want to know what I did?” demanded Morey.
Hachette smiled. “What makes you think we don’t know?” he said, and left.
That was Surprise Number One.
Newman explained it. He grinned at Morey and ruefully shook his head. “All the time we get this,” he complained. “People just don’t take the trouble to learn anything about the world around them. Son,” he demanded, “what do you think a robot is?”
Morey said, “Huh?”
“I mean how do you think it operates? Do you think it’s just a kind of a man with a tin skin and wire nerves?”
“Why, no. It’s a machine, of course. It isn’t human.”
Newman beamed. “Fine!” he said. “It’s a machine. It hasn’t got flesh or blood or intestines—or a brain. Oh”—he held up a hand—“robots are smart enough. I don’t mean that. But an electronic thinking machine, Mr. Fry, takes about as much space as the house you’re living in. It has to. Robots don’t carry brains around with them; brains are too heavy and much too bulky.”
“Then how do they think?”