Reason (short story) By Isaac Asimov [Part2/4]

"Reason" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov that was first published in the April 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and collected in I, Robot (1950), The Complete Robot (1982), and Robot Visions (1990). It is part of Asimov's Robot Series, and was the second of Asimov's positronic robot stories to see publication.

In 1967, this short story was adapted into an episode of British television series Out of the Unknown entitled "The Prophet".

Plot

Powell and Donovan are assigned to a space station which supplies energy via microwave beams to the planets. The robots that control the energy beams are in turn co-ordinated by QT1, known to Powell and Donovan as Cutie, an advanced model with highly developed reasoning ability. Using these abilities, it decides that space, stars and the planets beyond the station don't really exist, and that the humans that visit the station are unimportant, short-lived and expendable. It invents its own religion, serving the power source of the ship (Master), concluding that it must become the Prophet of the Master and disregard human commands as inferior....

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2FA31FC4B426806D

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[Nixom1334]

i disagree with the robot when he says that something can't create something better than itself. this is the basis of progress, if everything we made was less effective at accomplishing a task than we were there would be no use for it's creation. technological progress is just a form of Non-Organic evolution therefore things should become better not worse

[vesman81]

@Nixom1334 I think that is the big divide between religious and non-religious people.

People who follow God tend to say humans are fallen and lesser then what we used to be.

People who don't follow God tend to say humans evolved from the slime to be what they are today.

How can 2 people agree when one believes all things will get better with time and the other believes all things will get worse.

[Nixom1334]

@Nixom1334 well i suppose that humanity is different because we have many abstract things to us, we can be smarter but not necessarily better, and with things like morality and diferentiating points of view it's hard to give an unbias view of ourselves, but since QT is a machine we can meausre it in technological advances, for example does this do a better job then a previous model.

[vesman81]

@Nixom1334 That is true, QT does have a designed purpose, so it can be measured as being better or worse for that purpose.

It's odd to think that since a robot is built with a purpose, that it naturally believes it's purpose is the best purpose to have in the universe, and it would naturally be the best designed robot to do its purpose.

[n987]

lol Robot religion XD

[Nixom1334]

@vesman81 well Artificial Intelligence is still intelligence, who knows perhaps an advanced enough robot can simulate what makes us human, things like emotions, faith, dreams, goals, aspirations. but I'm probably getting ahead of my time, hahaha