“I Know It’s Hard for You To Accept, but the Most Noble Emotion in Man Is the Greatest Sin in a Robot"

THERE are many ways for humans to harm one another—the law books are bulging with them—but what happens when it comes to robots? What if they exceed their programming? What if they commit . . .

"The Sin."

By Winston Marks (1915-78; the ISFDb HERE; the SFE HERE; and Project Gutenberg HERE).

Illustration by Emsh (Ed Emshwiller, 1925-90; ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: Startling Stories, Fall 1955.

Short short story (8 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE) and Archive.org (HERE; text faded).

   "A robot could get away with murder, but one crime was unpardonable."

  "In that first thousandth of a second every nerve fiber in his body should have shrivelled, fusing all synapses and reducing the mesonic brain to a molten froth."

   Now, is that any way to treat a robot?

Principal characters:

~ Dr. Irwine ("As the only fully accredited Doctor of Robotics in the Pacific Northwest, Irwine, age 142, was already beginning to show traces of gray at the temples, testimony of his rigorous schedule of six hours a day, four days a week"), Eva ("had been with him for almost 30 years and he was deeply attached to her. She knew his needs, his moods, his irritations, and his appetites. She administered to him with an efficiency and faultless loyalty that all his millions of dollars could never replace, were he to lose her"), the first patient ("Muscular coordination is seriously impaired"), a male robot ("There was only the one homicidal impulse, but it was so overpowering that it would be foolish to risk its reoccurence"), the third patient ("an almost totally useless male robot rendered psychotically apathetic by deep manic depression"), and Max ("sooner or later he'll kill someone").

References:

- "mesonic brain": This is our author's sly alternate name for Asimov's "positronic brain" (HERE).

- "he remained at the console studying the brain wave-patterns" (HERE); also see (HERE).

- "vaguely analogous to the human hypothalamus" (HERE).

- "the two little silver-alloy bus-bars" (HERE).

Resources:

- The go-to guy about the behavior of robots is, of course, Isaac Asimov (HERE).

- The IEEE has a substantial guide to real-world robots (HERE).

- The third patient and Max aren't the only fictional robots to suffer from emotional problems (WARNING! SPOILERS! Go HERE).

- Several years before this story, Ray Bradbury explored how artificial people might detour around their programming in "Marionettes, Inc.," "Changeling," and "Punishment Without Crime" (all HERE).

- We've contemplated only two samples of Winston Marks's work so far, "Slay-Ride" (HERE) and the unforgettable "Bleedback" (HERE).

The bottom line:

  Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

    - Measure for Measure

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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