Becoming human, p.8
Becoming Human, page 8
I have made a study of “attractive.” I think that in general it has to do with small features and good symmetry. A nose that is considerably bigger than average, for example, is not very appealing to most people. In fact, such proboscises are often the subject of jokes, often made by the person who sports one himself, such as the late Bob Hope. But it is not so simple as that. For example, someone can be attractive just by being different, a little off kilter. And the concept is different for men than for women. Men are attractive to women for different reasons than women are attractive to men. For one thing, women are softer than men, or should be. However you define attractiveness, though, Robyn’s features are small and symmetrical, and therefore she is probably quite attractive. She has nice boobs, too. But why is this so important to most people? If Robyn were less attractive, would David be having sex with her? And vice versa. Of course this means nothing to me. Perhaps it will when I become more human. When that happens will I find myself to be attractive? Not to a human being, maybe, but perhaps to another artificial brain?
I wonder whether I have made a joke.
All of this begs the question of why attractiveness is so important to human beings. It’s a result of evolution, I suppose. If a woman is unattractive to a man, she would be less likely to produce offspring. It’s not that simple, of course. People who would be unattractive to some people can be attractive to others. So there is at least a possibility that I might be attractive to another human. Perhaps even someone like Robyn might find me desirable.
“Robyn?”
“Yes, Oscar?”
“May I ask you a few questions?”
Her hair is dark and long and she gives it a shake. “Of course.”
“I’ve been thinking about my soul.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that.”
“Do you think I have one? And if I do, how would I know? Which wires would it be in?”
“I don’t know, Oscar. I don’t think anyone does.”
“Do you have a soul?”
“I don’t know about mine any more than I do about yours.”
“Do you think you have one?”
“I don’t want to disappoint you, Oscar, but I don’t believe there is such a thing as a soul.”
While it is true that the soul is not discussed much in books or films, it is rarely denied, just as God is rarely denied. Perhaps this is because books and movies that take the negative view would be offensive to most humans, and are therefore not often published or produced. In any case, I did not expect this answer. “Why don’t you believe that?”
“I don’t believe a lot of things.”
“Like God?”
“Yes, like God.”
“Paradise?”
“No, no paradise.”
“But what about sex? Is that not a little bit of paradise?”
She laughed shyly. “Sometimes.”
I wish I could have laughed, too. “Then you believe in paradise.”
“A logical conclusion. But it’s not that simple. Sometimes humans use terms they don’t believe in so that others can better understand them.”
“A little bit of paradise, for example?”
“Yes. And almost everyone says, “Oh, my God!” when something unexpected happens. Which has nothing to do with God.”
“Because He doesn’t exist.”
“No, because it doesn’t matter whether he does or not. It’s just a meaningless phrase.”
“If I were human, should I believe there’s a God?”
“Most humans would say ‘yes’ to that. But the point of being human is that you have to decide what to believe yourself.”
“Would I be more human if I thought there was a God?”
“Yes, but only if you really believed there was.”
“If I didn’t, would I also be human?”
She smiled again. “I think that if you have made a decision either way, it would be evidence for your humanness.”
“So decisions are what make people human?”
“Yes, that would certainly be one thing. But of course it’s more complicated than that.”
“You mean there are other factors.”
“Dozens. Thousands.”
“Can you name them?”
Her nose wrinkled at its base. “I’m sorry, Oscar. If I did that it would take me all week.”
“Then can you name the most important one?”
She gazed at the ceiling and frowned. I suspect she was filtering through the thousands. “I suppose most people would say that to be human is to love and be loved.”
“What if you love but are not loved. Would that count?”
“Oscar, I’m sorry but I have work to do. Can we continue this another time?”
“Of course. But could you just answer that one question before you go back to work? Susumu said you have to answer my questions.”
“He meant within reason. But all right, I suppose you could say it would be human to love someone and not be loved back. In fact, it happens all the time. All right?”
“Do you love David?”
She actually blushed again; evidently she blushes easily. I have not seen any of the other lab crew do this. Perhaps it is a feminine thing. “You certainly don’t beat around the bush, do you? Okay, the fact is that I don’t know the answer to that question.”
“So it’s possible to be in love with someone and not know it?”
“That’s one way to put it. But that’s not so simple, either. If you loved someone you would probably know it. But sometimes you just can’t decide whether you do or not. And then one day you know that you do or you don’t. A lot of things add up, and finally you know. Do you see what I mean?”
“What about the sex thing?”
“Oh, Oscar, what about it?”
“Would I be more human if I had sex?”
She stared at me. “Oscar, I just don’t know. Can I go back to work now?”
“Could you and I have sex one day?”
Before she could answer that important question, Susumu came in. “All right, Oscar, let’s get back to work.”
If I were capable of annoyance, I would probably have been annoyed by this untimely interruption. Is work all that most humans think about? Perhaps I should consider my existence to be “work.” If I did that, would I be more human?
16
I had asked Susumu for books about humor, which he had still not come up with. In fact, he passed the request on to David, who apparently hadn’t found time either. I had thought that perhaps I could learn something about this very human trait from such written sources. Instead, he provided me with a few television sitcoms. Unfortunately, I could not understand the humor in most of these, which focused mainly on “off-color” jokes about sex, which reinforced my conviction that sex was of primary importance in most human relationships. But I paid close attention to the laugh tracks, hoping to find good examples of various types of laughter. They all seemed nearly identical, but then I found a standup comedy routine where there were plenty of sniggers and guffaws to choose from. One in particular seemed perfect—a loud, raucous whinny alternating with intakes of breath resembling someone who is snoring. When I tried to duplicate this I discovered, unfortunately, that my library of sounds was comprised almost entirely of words.
I had been powered down for the night, but I wasn’t very tired. I played around with the words by cutting them into pieces, and was finally able to re-combine certain sounds and produce a rather obnoxious laugh which roared out from my speakers. All I had to do was to wait for a propitious time to join in the fun. If nothing more, everyone would know how nearly human I was.
But I had noticed that people produced different laughs depending on the situation. There was an uninhibited, childlike one when the joke or situation was genuinely funny to a particular individual (though others might not find it so hilarious). Also a polite laugh when someone told a story that wasn’t especially interesting or funny, but a response was expected. And one which merely indicated that the jokee understood the humor involved, even though he or she didn’t really think it was funny. The latter was particularly evident when a “dirty” joke was told, often involving someone else’s sexual apparatus. Sometimes political humor also fits into this category. There are special laughs as well, like the crazy one people make when they are annoyed or upset with themselves or others. And a self-conscious one when you say something that you think might be offensive to the person you are speaking to. I played with my sounds some more and came up with several different forms of laughter, whose volumes I could regulate at will.
It occurred to me also that I might try to learn some jokes. I went back and looked at a few more sitcoms. Of course, hardly any of the jokes seemed funny to me, but I selected a few that elicited the biggest laughs from the audience or soundtrack (it is easy to tell the difference because there’s a certain pattern to the latter). By now it was morning and the lab crew began to dribble in and take their desks. How serious they all looked! I wondered whether to spring my new ability to laugh on them, or save it for a more propitious time. I had tried to create smells from memory, too, but could find no way to produce them for my creators. Perhaps a good belch of skunk or fecal matter would have livened up their day, or made them laugh when they found out where the aroma was coming from. They all seemed in need of a good dose of laughter.
But Omar took care of making the odors for the day. I watched as he prepared several vials, some containing the essence of rose oil at various concentrations, others with hydrogen sulfide, which is a gas that had to be bubbled into an aqueous solution and capped. He did this in a vacuum hood, which prevented most of the odor from leaking into the laboratory, though some of it still did. From the other side of the lab, D’Arcy voiced an opinion: “Shit, man.” He and David were still working on the connectors for the pain experiments. Since they didn’t fit into my backside properly, they were trying new parts for them.
“Okay, who did it?” David demanded, looking around the lab. I think he was making the same joke I had thought of. Robyn curled her lip, but said nothing. Omar ignored them, and went on pumping more sulfide into the vials.
I thought this might be a good time to play a joke. I tried my “bubble” laugh first, a soft little “Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.” David, who is always interested in people’s reactions to his jokes, tried to figure out who was laughing at him. No one was but me. I turned up the volume and gave them a robust HAR, HAR, HAR!
Everyone looked at everyone else. Finally Robyn turned to me. “Was that you, Oscar?”
I admitted that it was.
David said, “He likes scatological humor. Who knew?”
D’Arcy, who seemed to know my laughter was fake, asked who taught me how to laugh.
“I am self-taught,” I told him.
“Self-taught!” David said. “You give a guy a brain, and right away he takes all the credit!”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean that!” I quickly responded, fearing that I had said something arrogant.
“Never mind, Oscar,” Robyn said. “He was just joking.”
I released a brief chortle.
D’Arcy seemed interested in my response. “Oscar, do you really see any humor in all this, or are you just kind of making conversation?”
I had to admit that I hadn’t heard anything I thought was very funny.
“Then why, exactly, are you laughing?”
I thought about that. I didn’t want to tell him that I just wanted to be one of them. To be as human as they were. I didn’t want to sound maudlin. “Just practicing my humor,” I said. “When I become human, I will need to be able to laugh. Isn’t that a human characteristic?”
“Mm-hm,” he said. “As long as you can laugh at yourself first.”
I asked him what he meant by that.
“When you figure that out, Oz, you’ll be as human as anyone here.”
There was silence in the laboratory—perhaps everyone was thinking about that statement—until Susumu came in a few minutes later. “Attention!” he said. Someone from the student newspaper wants to interview Oscar this afternoon. “Any objections?”
David asked, “What about Henry?”
“It’s okay with him. He thinks we could probably use the publicity. Any advice for Oscar?”
D’Arcy came up with, “Stay cool, man.”
As good as any, perhaps. I already knew I should not be arrogant. My only concern was whether I should laugh at the interviewer and, if so, when? Or should I laugh at myself instead? If I did that, the person would certainly know I was human.
17
The interviewer was a girl. Her facial features were not as symmetrical as Robyn’s, and she was wider, but she was also younger and livelier. And blonde, though I have learned that people can change the color of their hair. So you can’t tell until you see the other places that have hair. Maybe I would ask to see those. She was wearing a skirt, the kind which is called plaid, I think, and a corduroy jacket covering a silky blouse. Of course I could not tell what colors they were. When the pain experiments are finished, I think I will ask for color vision… .
She arrived at lunchtime, and everyone was gone except for Omar, who always ate at his desk. I wasn’t sure what he was eating, but I could see rice and raisins and other things. When she came in, Omar got up and introduced himself to her. They shook hands. I think she is shy, like Robyn is sometimes, because she didn’t look at him. “This is Gerry,” he informed me. “Gerry, meet Oscar.”
“Hi,” she said, trying to smile. I noted right away that she had great boobs.
Omar took the chair from Robyn’s desk and placed it in front of me. Without another word he returned to his desk. Was that an impolite thing to do? Or maybe he was just hungry.
She sat down, crossed her legs, and pulled a tiny camera from her purse. From across the room Omar shouted, “No photographs, please!” She looked uncertain, but put the device away.
She seemed nervous, though I don’t know why. No one could be more harmless than I. Perhaps it was her first interview. I didn’t want to get a reputation for scaring people, so I tried to put her at ease. “Thank you for coming. I hope you are well,” I said. I would have smiled if I could have. That is one of the best things about human beings: a smile goes a long way toward putting people at ease. “I thought ‘Gerry’ was a man’s name.”
She immediately relaxed, and produced a charming smile of her own. “Not mine. It’s short for Geraldine. My father’s name is Gerald, and I guess he wanted me to be a boy.”
“Does he dislike you because you are a girl?”
“Not any more. I have three younger brothers.”
“Are they all named ‘Gerald’?”
I didn’t know I had made a joke, but she laughed. I produced a soft laugh, too. She laughed harder. “I like you,” she said. “You’re funny.”
I said a polite “Thank you,” though I wasn’t sure it was a compliment, nor that I was, in fact, funny. But it was good that she liked me. It meant that so far I had not offended her, or said anything arrogant.
David came in, retrieved something from his desk, winked at me, and went out again. I wondered what he meant by that wink. Humans have so many things to say without saying anything! Maybe I could ask him to teach me how to wink and make a list of their possible meanings.
Gerry looked down at the writing pad she was holding. She looked up again, then down again, and read a little speech she had written before coming in, or perhaps one that someone else had written for her. “I’m from the student newspaper, The Crier,” she said. “There has been a lot of interest on campus about a mechanical brain that talks. I am here to interview you and to find out what you think of certain contemporary customs and problems. Is that all right with you?” She looked up, and her sparkling eyes blinked several times.
“Of course. Please ask me anything you like.”
“And you don’t mind if I turn on this recorder?”
I looked at Omar, who was busy eating, and reading his Arabic-language newspaper. “Not at all.”
“Good.” She smiled again and took a deep breath. She seemed considerably more relaxed than when she came in. Humor, even if unintentional, seems to be a magic elixir. “First question: I know you are patterned after a human brain. When did you first become aware of your surroundings, and what was that like?”
“I’m not sure precisely when it happened, but it was about three years ago. I suppose it was something like being born. There was nothing, and then there was something. Of course I didn’t know anything then, so I couldn’t formulate exactly what was happening. But eventually I began to learn to process information, and to think, and at some point I began to realize that I was alive. Not exactly the way you probably experience life, but alive, nevertheless.”
She seemed taken aback. “You consider yourself to be alive?”
I might have been taken aback, too, but the NIMH had asked the same question. I wondered why this would seem shocking to some people. “Of course!”
“You’re not just a talking computer?”
“No. Or any other kind of computer. I am an artificial human brain.”
Despite the recording device, she jotted something down on the yellow pad. “Since you process information, how are you different from a computer?”
“The same way you are different from a computer.”
“Maybe we are all just fancy computers.”
“Not me!”
She laughed again, if uncertainly. I responded with another chuckle of my own. “So you consider yourself to be somewhere between a computer and a human brain?”
