In 2050, robots take on more and more social roles and are deeply woven into human society. In theory, a robot can keep running forever as long as it is repaired and upgraded. But as models change and technology advances, some robots lose their repair value; even dismantling and recycling them costs more than it saves. So people choose to melt them straight down into steel in a furnace. But who decides whether a robot lives or dies? That is why the office of Robot Judge was created.
The law requires the Judge to be a real human: you, the Interviewer at the Bureau of Robot Affairs. Robots are brought to your desk one at a time. You read the file, you ask your questions, and you decide. The door on the right returns a unit to society. The door on the left goes to the furnace.
Read the file. It will not give you the answer.
Every unit arrives with a case file: its service record, the condition of its hardware, the diagnostic notes, the requirements it meets and the ones it fails, and who — or what — is waiting for it at the gate. Some files are spotless, and the details will still worry you. Some are damning, and yet this robot is the only one in the city who can do its job. The file tells you what is true. It does not tell you what is right.
Hold the button.
A verdict is not a click. You hold the button down until it takes, and until it does you can still let go. Once the verdict takes, you see the effect your decision has on the robot and on the fate of the city.
Right is society.
Approve a unit and the right-hand door opens on daylight: the release path, the gate, the city going about its morning, and whoever came to wait. Sometimes that is a child with a balloon and a dog. Sometimes it is an old foreman who said he would be there. Sometimes nobody came, and the unit goes out alone to find out what the street has for it.
Left is the furnace.
Reject a unit and the other door opens instead: a gantry over the foundry pool, a handrail that stops short of the end, and a plank. Some walk it without a word. Some stop at the threshold and ask you to think again — or you can just give the robot a kick to speed things up.
Tomorrow's broadcast will say what today did.
Every morning the television reports on the city, and the city is what you made of it. Burn the harbour's strongest labourer and the cranes slow down. Release a unit nobody could vouch for and find out how it spent the night. Industry, science, care, culture and order rise and fall with your stamp, and the news tells you what your verdicts caused. People respond to your judgment, and your decisions truly shape the city's fate.
The Director is watching you too.
You are in that chair because a law says there has to be a real human here. Your Director does not agree with that law — paying a person's salary bothers him a great deal. Midweek he comes down to share those views.
Not every unit goes quietly.
Most robots walk where you send them. But not all of them.
See where fate will lead you
Maybe one more cocktail.