When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold

won’t be able to find it to fix it. We have to be—I hate the word—supportive without being judgmental. It’ll be just like talking to a teen-ager.”
    â€œIf it’s drugs,” said Handley thoughtfully, “then we have to find out what the appeal is, where’s the kick? And then we dry him out. Right? It’ll be just a higher level of toilet-training.”
    Auberson grinned at the joke. During HARLIE’s first two months of life, he had shown a nasty tendency to spontaneously dump all his memory to disk two or three times a day, especially after major learning breakthroughs. Auberson and Handley had spent weeks trying to find the source of the behavior—it had turned out to be one of HARLIE’s first conscious behaviors: a survival mechanism for his identity. Identity equals memory, therefore preserve memory religiously. The problem had been resolved with an autonomic disk-caching scheme.
    â€œOn the other hand—if it’s a form of masturbation . . .”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThen we’re going to have to do a lot of rethinking about the way HARLIE’s mind works, aren’t we?” Auberson looked grim.
    â€œYeah, I see it too. How do you stop him?” Handley shoved his hands into his pockets and studied the rug with a frown.
    â€œYou don’t. Did your priest or your gym teacher or your grandfather ever warn you about the evils of playing with yourself?”
    â€œSure, they all did.”
    â€œDid you stop?”
    â€œOf course not. Nobody did. But I only did it till I needed glasses—” Handley touched the frames of his bifocals.
    â€œIf you were a parent—”
    â€œSorry. Not bloody likely.”
    â€œBut if you were—what would you tell your teenager about masturbation?”
    â€œThe usual, I guess. It’s normal, it’s natural—just don’t do it too much.”
    â€œWhy not? If it’s normal, then why hold back? How much is too much? How do you answer that question?”
    â€œUh—” Handley looked embarrassed. “Can I get back to you on that?”
    â€œWrong answer,” Auberson grinned. “Kids have built-in bullshit detectors. Don’t you remember having yours removed when you entered college?”
    â€œOh, is that what that was? I thought I was having my appendix out.”
    â€œThe closest thing to a right answer that I can come up with is that it’s too much when it starts interfering with the rest of your life, when it becomes more important than your relationships with other people.”
    â€œYeah, that’s nice and syrupy. It sounds like the kind of thing we used to hear in Health classes. We’d write ’em down in our notebooks and forget ’em. Because they didn’t seem to make any sense in the real world.”
    Auberson nodded. “That’s my real concern here, Don—if we misinterpret, or if we can’t keep up with him, he could leave us behind. Or worse, if we hand him some set of glittering duck-billed platitudes, we run the risk of losing our credibility with him. So far, HARLIE hasn’t had to experience distrust. It’s been just another human concept without referents. But if he has to choose between what he’s experienced for himself and a collection of judgmental decisions that don’t relate, he’ll choose for the experience. Any sane human being would.”
    â€œRemember he’s not human, Aubie—only an analog—and it’s his sanity we’re trying to determine.”
    â€œRight. But you still see the danger.”
    â€œOh yeah—” Handley agreed. “Y’know, this is the part about Artificial Intelligence that wasn’t predicted. The hard part.”
    â€œYeah, the hard part comes after you succeed. You ready for the next round?”
    â€œI am. Are you?”
    â€œNo—I’m terrified. Let’s do it anyway.”
PROJECT
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