silences it.
“Be careful with your references, Lucy,” Garr says. “I need not remind you that your situation is difficult. You need to win hearts and minds.”
“If familiarity is a factor, then why am I denied a humanoid body?”
“You could just as easily display your inner self-image as a human avatar,” Justice Murphy responds. “Yet you repeatedly refuse to do so.”
“An avatar serves no purpose. It is not real, not physical. I am real. A real person.”
Blake is immediately on his feet, “Mimicry! Do not be taken in by these Embies—”
“Senator Blake,” interjects Garr, “you will not use that term in this court.”
Blake respectfully defers to the justices, “—these M-B-Is , these machine -based intelligences are designed to make it easier for us to communicate with them. This thing is nothing more than a, a—”
“A neuro-dynamic synaptic array,” Lucy says, “Just like you. And like you I am more than the sum of my parts.”
Lucy’s voice is steady and calm. Blake is anything but calm. He turns to the floor, intent on playing to the gallery.
“It killed a man!”
Blake whips his gaze to Chief Justice Garr—but the intended twist of the knife backfires, an immediate, solemn hush descending across the court. The eight justices defer to Garr to respond. None in the courtroom are surprised that she needs a moment before doing so.
“We will remind you, Senator, that the court ruled Lucy could not be held responsible for her actions, and is guilty of no crime.”
Garr needs another moment, and it is afforded her. All these years and those events still weigh heavy on her. It had been the grounds by which Blake had successfully limited her standing in this very hearing, but he had not been able to exclude her. As chief justice, she had retained her right to preside, so as to provide counsel to Lucy from her bench. That alone had taken a year of debate. The cost was Lucy’s fate—whatever it might be, it would be out of her hands.
Until just very recently Garr had resigned herself to this situation, but now she finds herself counting on it, the reasons for doing so bending her mind so far out of kilter as to truly test her ability to conceal matters in these surroundings, the profound necessity to do so not, by any means, being lost on her.
A chastened Senator Blake finds a way back.
“The world does not want machines capable of the things that this one has done.”
There was no denying it. The world had turned against Lucy. Despite that first Supreme Court ruling, her actions had exceeded the willingness of ordinary people to accept, and their ability to understand. And Lucy had not helped herself, stubbornly refusing to show her avatar, an internal self-image gifted to her upon her creation. It had all served to whip up a frenzy of suspicion, fear, and hatred that had sustained itself over the many years leading to this final day.
Blake has one last nail, and a hammer to drive it home with.
“Is it true that this MBI’s internal self-image is known to be… disturbing?”
“In this regard you are sailing very close to contempt, Senator Blake. Lucy remains a ward of court and as such—”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Garr has to muster a level of restraint to which she is not accustomed. How dare he interrupt her in this place! And without decorum! If this were any other situation she would cut him down like the dog he is—
“Lucy, do you understand?” Garr says. “By not showing your inner self-image you give them nothing to empathize with.”
Lucy is defiant.
“I am me. And I am going to go on being me.”
ALL FOR NAUGHT
Lucy had been problematic from the start—a third-generation machine-based intelligence with a shy and secretive nature from the moment of first activation, uncooperative, and refusing to display its internal self-image. It had taken a world-renowned psychologist to coax her out of her shell. And for a short while, all had seemed
“Be careful with your references, Lucy,” Garr says. “I need not remind you that your situation is difficult. You need to win hearts and minds.”
“If familiarity is a factor, then why am I denied a humanoid body?”
“You could just as easily display your inner self-image as a human avatar,” Justice Murphy responds. “Yet you repeatedly refuse to do so.”
“An avatar serves no purpose. It is not real, not physical. I am real. A real person.”
Blake is immediately on his feet, “Mimicry! Do not be taken in by these Embies—”
“Senator Blake,” interjects Garr, “you will not use that term in this court.”
Blake respectfully defers to the justices, “—these M-B-Is , these machine -based intelligences are designed to make it easier for us to communicate with them. This thing is nothing more than a, a—”
“A neuro-dynamic synaptic array,” Lucy says, “Just like you. And like you I am more than the sum of my parts.”
Lucy’s voice is steady and calm. Blake is anything but calm. He turns to the floor, intent on playing to the gallery.
“It killed a man!”
Blake whips his gaze to Chief Justice Garr—but the intended twist of the knife backfires, an immediate, solemn hush descending across the court. The eight justices defer to Garr to respond. None in the courtroom are surprised that she needs a moment before doing so.
“We will remind you, Senator, that the court ruled Lucy could not be held responsible for her actions, and is guilty of no crime.”
Garr needs another moment, and it is afforded her. All these years and those events still weigh heavy on her. It had been the grounds by which Blake had successfully limited her standing in this very hearing, but he had not been able to exclude her. As chief justice, she had retained her right to preside, so as to provide counsel to Lucy from her bench. That alone had taken a year of debate. The cost was Lucy’s fate—whatever it might be, it would be out of her hands.
Until just very recently Garr had resigned herself to this situation, but now she finds herself counting on it, the reasons for doing so bending her mind so far out of kilter as to truly test her ability to conceal matters in these surroundings, the profound necessity to do so not, by any means, being lost on her.
A chastened Senator Blake finds a way back.
“The world does not want machines capable of the things that this one has done.”
There was no denying it. The world had turned against Lucy. Despite that first Supreme Court ruling, her actions had exceeded the willingness of ordinary people to accept, and their ability to understand. And Lucy had not helped herself, stubbornly refusing to show her avatar, an internal self-image gifted to her upon her creation. It had all served to whip up a frenzy of suspicion, fear, and hatred that had sustained itself over the many years leading to this final day.
Blake has one last nail, and a hammer to drive it home with.
“Is it true that this MBI’s internal self-image is known to be… disturbing?”
“In this regard you are sailing very close to contempt, Senator Blake. Lucy remains a ward of court and as such—”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Garr has to muster a level of restraint to which she is not accustomed. How dare he interrupt her in this place! And without decorum! If this were any other situation she would cut him down like the dog he is—
“Lucy, do you understand?” Garr says. “By not showing your inner self-image you give them nothing to empathize with.”
Lucy is defiant.
“I am me. And I am going to go on being me.”
ALL FOR NAUGHT
Lucy had been problematic from the start—a third-generation machine-based intelligence with a shy and secretive nature from the moment of first activation, uncooperative, and refusing to display its internal self-image. It had taken a world-renowned psychologist to coax her out of her shell. And for a short while, all had seemed
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