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"I went back to science fiction to try a few experiments …and my first experiment was a disaster…"
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Machine Suicide | ||
| A self-aware computer system wants to destroy itself. |
From another story about Multivac.
| Gulliman pounded his desk in fury. "But why, why, why? Damn you, why? What is wrong with it? Can't it be fixed?"
"I don't think so," said Othman, in soft despair. "I've never thought about this before. I've never had the occasion to until this happened, but now that I think of it, it seems to me we have reached the end of the road because Multivac is too good. Multivac has grown so complicated, its reactions are no longer those of a machine, but those of a living thing." "You're mad, but even so?" "For fifty years and more we have been loading humanity's troubles on Multivac, on this living thing. We've asked it to care for us, all together and each individually. We've asked it to take all our secrets into itself; we've askedit to absorb our evil and guard us against it. Each of us brings his troubles to it, adding his bit to the burden. Now we are planning to load the burden of human disease on Multivac, too." Othman paused a moment, then burst out, "Mr. Gulliman, Multivac bears all the troubles of the world on its shoulders and it is tired." |
| Technovelgy from All the Troubles in the World,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Super-Science Fiction in 1958 Additional resources -
|
Compare to robot suicide from Adam Link’s Vengeance (1940) but Eando Binder. Also, see this description of a self-aware computer suicide from All the Troubles in the World (1958), by Isaac Asimov, the depressed robot Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams and the deeply troubled robot cab driver from A Present for Pat (1952) by Philip K. Dick.
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'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
