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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Circuit Inhibiting Destructiveness | ||
| Ensuring that robots take on the responsibility of pleasing their masters, and obeying their orders. |
| NICK CAME BACK to “consciousness” abruptly. “How do you feel?” Dex asked. There was a brass screw in his hand.
Nick gave an experimental wriggle. “Wonderful,” he said in his toneless voice. He wriggled again. “Yes, wonderful. I can hardly believe it. What did you do?” "...It’s like having been dry for years and then suddenly getting all the oil in the world.” Nick began to walk up and down the room jerkily. “I can’t tell you how much better I feel Dex,” he said. (Since what Dex had really done was to unscrew the two main circuits which inhibit destructiveness in a robot, whether toward itself, toward other robots, or toward masters, no wonder Nick felt better. Along with his inhibition, he had shed his anxiety.) “I could cope with a dozen masters now. Why should I let him do something I don’t like?” |
| Technovelgy from To Please The Master,
by Margaret St. Clair. Published by Space Travel in 1958 Additional resources -
|
No wonder "repairs to robots except in licensed repair shops on written request of the master are strictly forbidden."
*Spoiler*!
For a moment they danced together, hand and hand, around the flames. Then, each holding a screwdriver, the roll of tools stuck in Nick’s belt, they started out on their mission of salvation.
“We’ll fix every robot in the world!” said Nick. “No more trouble with masters!”
“And how!” cried the old robot. That was the beginning of the Robot Wars.
Compare to the much better known restraining bolt from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.
('To Please The Master' by Margaret St. Clair)
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'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
