The Cruel Equations

'''Sheckley, Robert. "The Cruel Equations."' BOAC (no other information given in Contento, Index''). Coll. ''Can You Feel Anything. . .'', q.v. under Anthologies.

Darkly comic tale driving home the moral that it is wrong and potentially dangerous to project human qualities onto machines. Case at issue: a security robot "no more reasonable than a McCormick harvester, no more kindly than an automated steel mill"—only rigorously logical in a stupidly mechanical sort of way (Can You Feel Anything, Book Club Edition [66]). Cf. and contrast T. Godwin's "The Cold Equations," cited in this Category.

RDE, Title, 11Aug19