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"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Compassion Circuit | ||
| A special robotic component that allows the robot to weigh harm and benefit in carrying out commands. |
The events of this short story are placed not too far ahead in our own future, where domestic robots are the norm; practically everyone has a household robot.
Janet, though, didn't like them; however, an illness forced her to accept the idea of a robot in the house, one with a new feature.
Doctor-recommended, of course.
| "...what I'd really recommend for her is the type they have here. It's something pretty new, this Nurse James model. A specially developed high sensibility job with a quite novel contra-balanced compassion-protection circuit. A very tricky bit of work, that.
Any direct order which a normal robot would obey at once is evaluated by the circuit, weighed against the benefit or harm to the patient, and unless it is beneficial, or at least harmless, it is not obeyed..." |
| Technovelgy from Compassion Circuit,
by John Wyndham. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1954 Additional resources -
|
SF readers will recognize in the compassion-circuit some measure of the Three Laws of Robotics introduced by writer Isaac Asimov in his 1942 story Runaround.
See also the robot emotions from Lester del Rey's 1938 story Helen O'Loy.
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
