Topnotch collection by Brian Aldiss, one of the leading innovators of British New Wave SF, right up there with J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison.
Get those brain cells fizzing, read these stories! Two of my personal favorites:
WHO CAN REPLACE A MAN?
Brian Aldiss’ 1958 Who Can Replace a Man? is classic science fiction, squarely addressing those 1950s concerns revolving around robots replacing humans, beginning with industrial robots replacing humans in factories and ending with robots taking over the world.
Arthur C. Clarke addressed the same question about robots replacing man back in 1968 in his 2001: A Space Odyssey. As we all know, HAL tried to replace a man but failed – after all, HAL possessed a super computer for a brain (and perhaps human-like consciousness) but HAL lacked anything resembling a human body capable of movement or an ability to defend itself. Sorry, HAL, all you could do when attacked was sing Daisy.
It was a much different story in the 2014 film Ex Machina where AI takes the form of Ada, a young female beauty capable of nearly all things human, including arousing human emotion and the will to strike out on its own. Watch out guys! - AI as the ultimate femme fatale.
Each and every year we move deeper into the 21st century, scientists, philosophers and many members of the general thinking public send up warning signals - the potential dangers AI presents to not only humans but all of life. Way back in 1942, Isaac Asimov anticipated these very dangers. Therefore, wise Isaac created his "Three Laws of Robotics:"
First Law - A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law - A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
So, the big question looms: Can we technically proficient humans program the most sophisticated AI to make sure they abide by Asimov's Three Laws? Reading Who Can Replace a Man?, this might not only be a big question but THE question relating to futuristic artificial intelligence.
MAN ON BRIDGE
A harrowing 1964 tale that's set in a future Europe following widespread devastation, not caused by an invasion or nuclear war or plague but a prevailing chaos since "the intelligent have been overwhelmed by the dull." This backward, brutal system has been in place for centuries, reminiscent of the European Dark Ages.
More specifically, we're in a drab concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire, electrified fences, uniformed guards and ray-gun posts (keep in mind this is science fiction). The inmates of this camp (the tale's narrator calls them inhabitants) all have a big yellow C stuck to their backs. And that's C for Cerebral.
Three men stand in a bleak camp room. One of the men, Adam X, stands expressionless, mute, feeling brief bits of emotion, mostly tinged with sadness, that come and go quickly. Adam X is entirely indifferent to the universe since he has had half his brain removed.
Adam X was once a C like any other C, born Adran Zatrobik, while the other two men, Winther and Grabowicz, are C's with that yellow C on their respective backs. Winther and Grabowicz argue over Adam X's operation: Grabowicz for, Winther against, claiming Grabowicz lacks a shred of humane feelings.
Meanwhile, via electrical equipment, Camp Commander Trabann listens in on their conversation. Trabann is "interested to hear a C using the very accusation the Prole Party brings against all the C's. Since the world's C's were segregated in camps, the rest of the world has run much more smoothly - or run down much more smoothly, you may prefer to say - and the terrible rat-race known to both the old communist and capitalist blocks as "progress" has given way to the truly democratic grandeur of the present staticist utopia, where not only all men but all intelligences are equal."
I'll pause here to note a trio of SF tropes Brian Aldiss folds into his tale:
Future Dystopia - Back in the 50s and 60s, the Cold War raged on. The story envisions a resolution: locking away the "brainy" types - eggheads, oddballs, nonconformists - so the Proles, that is, the "normal" people, can be left in peace to share the same nonintellectual lifestyle, free from analysis and reflection. If society for the next thousand years turns out to be exactly the same society as today, so much the better.
Brainwashing and Mind Control - Commander Trabann and other leaders at the camp use mind-altering drugs in an attempt to bring Cerebrals under their complete control. Back in 1964 when Brian Aldiss wrote his story, brainwashing techniques were frequently employed by such countries as Korea, Japan and the Soviet Union in addition to secret mind control experiments carried out by the US's CIA, most notably giving LSD to unknowing subjects.
Body Modification - This futuristic society takes drastic measures: removing half the brain of a C to see what the results will look like. Who knows, maybe they can create an entire race of men and women like Adam X, humans who can think but are incapable of emotion or acts of will. Shudder, shudder, but how removed is this future world from our own recent past? The 30s, 40s and 50s were the heyday of performing lobotomies in the US and England (about 50,000 operations total). Also, think of those horrendous experiments with dogs and other animals in the USSR back in those years.
These are only two of the stories from the collection. There's another dozen to discover. Go for it - get with Brian Aldiss.
British author Brian Aldiss, 1925 - 2017
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