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"Retire? Yeah, I want to die with my head in the typewriter. That's my idea of retirement."
- Alfred Bester
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| Inorganic Evolution | ||
| A process by which robots could alter their own structure, or the ways that they interact with other robots, to adapt to a changing world. |
Lem is not suggesting that robots could create themselves from metal and other materials spontaneously. In the novel, he hypothesizes how an adaptable swarm of very simple machines could have evolved from the homeostatic robots of a highly advanced society.
He begins by hypothesizing that the original ancestors of the swarm of nanomachines were various robots from a Lyre scout ship.
| "The robots were unharmed and left the ship. They were highly specialized homeostatic mechanisms, capable of withstanding the most difficult environmental conditions...
We'd have to assume, of course, that these machines were capable of producing other machines according to their specific needs of the moment. ...the robots would have perfectly adapted to life on the continents of the planet. ...Hundreds of generations later the 'offspring' of the first mechanisms were no longer anything like the first products created by the Lyre civilization. Do you follow me? It was the beginning of an evolution of nonliving things, an evolution of machines." |
| Technovelgy from The Invincible,
by Stanislaw Lem. Published by Poland in 1954 Additional resources -
|
Lem also argues that, in the event of machine evolution, the larger and more complex robots created by organic beings (like ourselves) would fare poorly against simpler machine forms, at least partly because of energy requirements:
"In this battle, the 'intellectually' superior mechanisms, which needed considerable amounts of energy (not least, because of their size), were no match for the more economical and more productive machines -"
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
