“It’s really not as difficult as it sounds. You’ve all seen autoscribers, which can translate spoken words into printed symbols. An autoscriber is simply a machine which does what you tell it to—literally. Now, suppose a second computer is connected intimately with the first in such a manner that the second can, on order, change the circuits of the first. Then, all that is needed is....”
Mike looked around him while the roboticist went on. The men were looking pretty bored. They’d come to get a briefing on the reason for the trip, and all they were getting was a lecture on robotics.
Mike himself wasn’t so much interested in the whys and wherefores of the trip; he was wondering why it was necessary to tell anyone—even the crew. Why not just pack Snookums up, take him to wherever he was going, and say nothing about it?
Why explain it to the crew?
“Thus,” continued Fitzhugh, “it became necessary to incorporate into the brain a physical analogue of Lagerglocke’s Principle: ‘Learning is a result of an inelastic collision.’
“I won’t give it to you symbolically, but the idea is simply that an organism learns only if it does not completely recover from the effects of an outside force imposed upon it. If it recovers completely, it’s just as it was before. Consequently, it hasn’t learned anything. The organism must change.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked out over the faces of the men before him. A faint smile came over his wrinkled features.
“Some of you, I know, are wondering why I am boring you with this long recital. Believe me, it’s necessary. I want all of you to understand that the machine you will have to take care of is not just an ordinary computer. Every man here has had experience with machinery, from the very simplest to the relatively complex. You know that you have to be careful of the kind of information—the kind of external force—you give a machine.
“If you aim a spaceship at Mars, for instance, and tell it to go through the planet, it might try to obey, but you’d lose the machine in the process.”
A ripple of laughter went through the men. They were a little more relaxed now, and Fitzhugh had regained their attention.