Cybernetics

“ In ordinary cybernetics you can have one machine punch a tape and it can be fed into another machine, but that means you first have to know how to code and decode a tape mechanically. We don't know how to code or decode a psi effect. We know the Auerbach cylinder will store a psi impulse, but we don't know how. So we have to keep working with psi gifted people, at least until we've established some of the basic laws governing psi. ”

“ And they were also able, not so long ago, to manipulate the workings of the International Cybernetics Brain across a void millions of miles wide. That, by me, shows one power which any would-be dictator would give a hell of a lot to get ahold of: teleportation."
Baxter stared at me in furious amazement.
"But," I went on, "there seemed to be a couple of details which didn't jibe, if that were the case. If they could manage control over cosmic distances so easily, why should they go to the trouble of getting a man, me, to bump you off? Why not simply teleport you into something fatal? ”

“ Well, we needn't waste any time on philosophy. Go on, ask some questions. I admit I've hurt you—unwittingly, to be sure—but I do want to make amends."
"Your machine, then," said Fraser. "How did you get it? How does it work."
"I was practicing in Chicago," said Kennedy, "and collaborating on the side with Gavotti. How much do you know of cybernetics? I don't mean computers and automata, which are only one aspect of the [19] field; I mean control and communication, in the animal as well as in the machine." ”

“ Maybe they think we only want to escape, using these Robot bodies for a disguise."
"Perhaps. I hadn't thought ... of that." Westler lapsed into silence, his face twisted with pain. "If you can do it, if you can destroy their cybernetics center ... new start for humanity. I was going to tell you about the Plague, Johnny. The Robots ... have been using ... a particularly virulent form of the ... toxin which does not exist naturally. Spreading it in the air, all over the earth. That, combined with the ... toxin carried by a Shining One, causes illness ... and death." ”

“ But it's natural enough to think of a robot as human and take refuge in absurdity when you know that a cybernetic brain, encased in a functional body, can do just as much damage as a madman running amuck with a deadly weapon. ”

“ The addition of eyes and ears plus limbs and locomotion to the computer, foreseen now in the photocell eyes of Perceptron, the ears of Cybertron, and dexterity of Mobot and Hand, will move the computer from mere brain to robot.
Some people profess to worry about what will happen when the computer itself realizes that it is thinking, calling to mind the apocryphal story of the machine that was asked if there was a God. ”

“ Rives for confirmation; she's already pointed out that all that is required to pass those tests is ordinary adult mental capacity.
"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems," he continued. "In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinking machines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think. It only does what it's been designed and built to do, and if somebody builds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeat that mistake in practice." ”

“ In works including Butler’s Erewhon, the diabolical aspects of an intelligent machine are discussed. The Lionel Britton play, Brain, produced in 1930, shows the machine gradually becoming the master of the race. A more physical danger from the artificial brain is the natural result of giving it a body as well. We have already mentioned Čapek’s R.U.R. and the Ambrose Bierce story about a chess-playing robot without a built-in sense of humor, who strangles the human being who beats him at a game. ”

“ The purpose of this demonstration and my question was not to discredit Cyber IX, which is truly a great machine, a wonder of science.
"Cyber IX could not know the magnitudes of a dream ... because it cannot dream.
"As a matter of fact, I do not know the magnitudes of a dream, but that is not important ... because I can dream!
"The dream is the difference.... The dream born in man, as the poet said, 'with a sudden, clamorous pain' ..."
There was no movement or sound in the courtroom. ”

“ As we move into a technology that embraces communication at a distance of millions of miles, survival under death-dealing radiation, and travel at fantastic speeds, man’s natural equipment falters and he must rely on the machine both as muscle and brain. Intelligence arose from life but does not necessarily need life, in the sense we think of it, to continue. Thus the extension of man’s intellect by electronics as hailed by Dr. Ramo will lead ultimately to our extinction. ”

“ Early in the century—some fifty years back—when the cybernetic machine had been regulated to their proper functions of recording and assemblage only, of non-mathematical factors, the use of human teams, working as supplements to the machines themselves, had been conceived and formulated by the Earth Government. ”

“ The more I fight the more helpless I am. That thought at once created its corollary. The less I struggle the closer I am to control!
That was it! He had so identified his desires with the actions of his body that for one instant he meshed with it!
That, then, was the secret. The principle. But it contained within itself its own difficulty. By "wanting" to activate the Brain he could perhaps actually control some of his actions. But the instant he did something counter to the Cyberene, that control would be taken away from him, and replaced by throbbing pain. ”

“ At five o'clock Nadine looked him up and informed him that they were to report to the Cyberene at once.
"I have detected certain thoughts in your mind," the voice of the Cyberene sounded. "I would like to hear what you have to say."
Earl sensed his mind rallying its thoughts. "I've been wondering what the other Cyberene would be like. That's all. There's no guarantee that it will have any special traits that will make it what you want it to be, and once it's started it's out of your control, isn't it?"
"That's true. Time travel and even fifth dimension travel is extremely limited. ”

“ He watched him vanish around the bend of the corridor, waiting fatalistically. Would the scientist be able to wipe out this time stream? Deep within him, Earl felt it couldn't be done. The Cyberene had tried to change the past, and failed.
Perhaps the Cyberene had been wrong in what it believed had caused the split in time that produced two Earths. Maybe one part of Glassman would be unable to bring itself to destroy its Creation, the Brain. Maybe that's what had happened. Maybe Glassman, torn between two opposed decisions, had been able to act on neither.
Earl put his arm around Nadine. ”

“ With the first six models of the McGuire ships, the robotocists attempted to build in the Three Laws exactly as stated. And the first six went insane.
If one human being says "jump left," and another says "jump right," the robot is unable to evaluate which human being has given the more valid order. Feed enough confusing and conflicting data into a robot brain, and it can begin behaving in ways that, in a human being, would be called paranoia or schizophrenia or catatonia or what-have-you, depending [16] on the symptoms. ”

“ You don't know whether you can or not because you can't go into your future. You can't even go into the past in any detail. How do I know that? I'm a scientist. I'm trained to put two and two together and get four. If you could go anywhere in the past you could have explored every detail of my future and know now what happened."
"Perhaps I do know," the Cyberene said. "You forget I'm attempting to change what happened. I have changed what happened. In the time stream the way it was originally, you discovered the right nerve fluid, and suppressed it. ”

“ That caused such utter confusion in the random circuits that Mike’s friend had had to spend a week cleaning up the robot’s little mind.
But what would be the purpose of building a brain as gigantic as the one in Cargo Hold One? And why build a spaceship around it?
[47] Like a pig roasting on an automatic spit, the problem kept turning over and over in Mike’s mind. And, like the roasting pig, the time eventually came when it was done.
Once it is set in operation, a properly operating robot brain can neither be shut off nor dismantled. ”

“ Bionics is apparently a fruitful approach, both for benefiting computer technology and for learning more about the human brain. As an example, consider the fact that work with the Perceptron indicated that punishment was more effective in the learning process than punishment and reward together. This of course does not say that such a method would work best with a human subject, but if separate tests with human beings proved a similar result, it might then be safe to infer some similarity between the human and computer brain. ”

“ Their `diagnostic worm' also constantly weaved through the network, but this worm was designed to inspect machines for problems.
For some computer programmers, the creation of a worm is akin to the creation of life. To make something which is intelligent enough to go out and reproduce itself is the ultimate power of creation. Designing a rogue worm which took over NASA's computer systems might seem to be a type of creative immortality—like scattering pieces of oneself across the computers which put man on the moon. ”

“ To log on to a machine or connect to a network or {BBS}, esp. for purposes of entering a {virtual reality} simulation such as a {MUD} or {IRC} (leaving is "jacking out") . This term derives from {cyberpunk} SF, in which it was used for the act of plugging an electrode set into neural sockets in order to interface the brain directly to a virtual reality. It's primarily used by MUD & IRC fans and younger hackers on BBS systems. ”

“ It will never forget once it learns something. Before its mind integrates into a self aware ego, attach a relay to some motor outlets. Decide on some key combination of sounds that might be spoken. Repeat them into the auditory centers of the Brain, at the same time tripping the relay. Keep doing that until utterance of the sequence of sounds causes the relay to trip. When that response is automatic, connect the relay to the loudspeaker. Once you have done that, report to me. Then all I need do is contact the second Cyberene, in this age, and if I want to destroy it I can repeat the sounds. ”

“ A growing proportion of scientists take a middle-of-the-stream attitude, weighing both sides of the case for the computer, yet some read like science fiction.
Cyberneticist Norbert Wiener, more scientist than fictioneer, professes to foresee computerized robots taking over from their masters, much as a Greek slave once did. Mathematician John Williams of the Rand Corporation thinks that computers can, and possibly will, become more intelligent than men. ”

“ Earl heard himself say. He stole a glance at Nadine, who was watching him attentively. "That's why I think, for your own protection, you should be able to destroy the other Cyberene instantly—if it isn't what you hope it will be."
"How?" The Cyberene's voice was vibrant with eagerness.
"The basic device would be sound vibrations in the air, inside its braincase. A loud continuous sound of nearly all frequencies would cause billions of nerve strands to vibrate, and enough of them would break to destroy the functioning of the whole. ”

“ In each transparent vat Earl saw a human embryo, alive and growing. He "followed" the man through this place to another, where children were playing with psychological toys designed to increase mechanical and scientific aptitudes.
"This, too, is a typical scene on—this Earth," the Cyberene said. The scene vanished. Once again Earl looked into the video eyes of the Brain. "They are both Earth in the year 3042," the Cyberene said, "but not the same Earth. In 1980 there was a split. Earth followed two independent futures. ”

“ Its front wall became a window through which they were looking at the familiar Dome.
But it was a structure around which weeds grew in thick profusion, with its acres of exposed surface pitted by time, untended.
"What happened?" Earl said. "Do you mean to say that there is still something to be done?"
"There is nothing to be done," the Cyberene said dully. "I have checked in that other time stream. There is still positive record that the Brain was not activated." ”

“ So did da Vinci, Galileo and Newton, Darwin and Einstein ... all so long ago....
"Cyber IX has not dreamed a dream.... Nor have Cyber VIII, VII, VI, V, IV, III, II, I.
"But they can free men to dream.
"Remember that, if you forget all else: They can free men to dream!
"Man's knowledge has grown so vast that much of it would be lost or useless without the storage and recall capacity of the Cybers—and man himself would be so immersed in what he knows that he would never have time to dream of that which he does not yet know, but must and can know. ”

“ Tentatively he inserted a bold thought, feeling sure that the Cyberene wouldn't attribute it to him, but merely to the logical processes of his conscious mind.
What if the Brain doesn't develop along lines sympathetic to you? He elaborated upon it, feeding worry thoughts along with it. A second Brain might not follow the line of development of the first, any more than one human develops like another, even when they are twins. ”

“ Down in the chambers of the screens, Narodny laughed and laughed again. He said: “Lao, is it that we have advanced so in these few years? Or that men have retrogressed? No, it is the curse of mechanization that destroys imagination. For look you, how easy is this problem of the robots. They began as man-made machines. Mathematical, soulless, insensible to any emotion. So was primal matter of which all on earth are made, rock and water, tree and grass, metal, animal, fish, worm, and men. ”