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"We are all repositories for genetically-encoded information that we're all spreading back and forth amongst each other, all the time. We're just lousy with information."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Robot Situation Neurosis | ||
| Robots go mad when given competing instructions. |
| The machine was developing a situation neurosis and the ambivalence of its response was destroying it. In a way its anguish had a human quality, but he could not feel sorry for it. It was a mechanical contraption trying to assume a posture of disguise and attack at the same time; the breakdown was one of relays and tubes, not of a living brain. |
| From The Unreconstructed M,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Science Fiction Stories in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Readers might be thinking about Susan Calvin the robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. Also, fans of Arthur C. Clarke recall the psychological difficulties of the HAL 9000 from his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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