David Johnson wrote:

>> ...it would only make sense for Merin's interface being able to interact with
>> people in Lingua-Terra, not some programmer language. Merlin's designers had all
>> that size to work with; it only makes sense that a part of it would be so a General
>> could just ask his question without needing to involve a programmer/ interpreter.
>
> This is especially troublesome given Conn's efforts to improve the ability of his
> mother's house-cleaning robot to accept voice commands. Perhaps this is a relatively
> new innovation, that Conn learned about while at university but that wasn't
> available to the designers of Merlin working half a century earlier?

The question is just how much, or rather how little, a computer (or a robot's electronic brain) understands the world on a human level.

For the house-cleaning robot that Conn's mother tries to order around as if it's a human maid with a human understanding of the world, to great comedic effect, the answer is "not at all". The house-cleaning robot isn't any "smarter" than a modern Roomba, altho clearly it is equipped and programmed to do more tasks than the Roomba does. But that house-cleaning robot does not actually /understand/ the voice commands it is programmed to respond to, any more than your car actually /understands/ when you say, for example, "increase temperature". That's a voice command that triggers a voice activated system in your car (well, some people's cars) to increase the power to the car's cabin heating system. But does your car understand that there is a human inside it that's too cold, and will be more comfortable if the heater is turned up? Of course not!

Nor does even Merlin, despite its apparent near-omniscience, have a human or near-human understanding of reality. This is made quite explicit. Quoting from the climax (ch. XXI) of THE COSMIC COMPUTER:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took a long time to set up the new computation. Forty years of history for almost five hundred planets had to be abstracted and summarized and translated from verbal symbols to the electro-mathematical language of computers and fed in. [...]

Then the bell rang, and the tape began coming out.

It took another hour and a half of button-punching; the Braille-like symbols on the tape had to be translated, and even Merlin couldn't do that for itself. Merlin didn't think in human terms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, it's not that it didn't occur to those who made Merlin to put in a voice interface so that a general officer could give commands directly to Merlin. It's that it simply wasn't possible to communicate with Merlin in that fashion.

I see the same lack of comprehension about the lack of understanding by computers, in current online discussions of semi-self-driving cars.

"Well, a Tesla Model S (or Model 3) can drive down the freeway all by itself; why didn't it see that fire truck stopped in a traffic lane, or see that concrete barrier, that it ran into?"

That's quite similar to the way Conn's mother thought the idiot house-cleaning robot was capable of being ordered around like a maid, just because it could respond to a few pre-programmed voice commands. "Well, if it can understand me when I tell it /this/, why doesn't it understand when I say /that/?"

Just like the robots in the manufacturing plant later in the book, it follows only its pre-programmed, taped instructions. It can't think for itself any more than your Roomba can. The semi-self-driving car is, like the housecleaning robot, capable of more sophisticated responses and actions than the Roomba, but it doesn't /understand/ the world any better than the Roomba does. Which is to say... it doesn't have even the /slightest/ comprehension or understanding of the world as we know it.

David "Piperfan" Johnson wrote:

> It's difficult to conceive of a spacefaring civilization which hadn't figured out
> how to make integrated circuits, and then learned to make them smaller and smaller
> as has been the case in our actual, non-fictional universe. So what might be
> different?

Simple: The transistor was never invented. In fact, I've argued that Merlin was built using analog circuits, not digital ones. The term "neutrino-circuits" is used in THE COSMIC COMPUTER (ch. II; p. 17 in the Ace 40¢ edition). What if those are analog circuits?

Once you get transistor tech, then there is a real question about why they never miniaturized it to the integrated circuit, and ultimately tiny microprocessors. I think it's easiest to avoid all of that, and say transistors were never invented. That makes it easier to swallow the references to using vernier controls in the starship control room, in SPACE VIKING.

Now, as to WHY transistors were never invented: Is the Piperverse entirely deterministic, like the LENSMAN universe? Can it be that the Heinseberg Uncertainty Principle has little effect on reality, if it exists at all? Can it be that the Piperverse works entirely according to classic physics, and that quantum effects -- such as the tunnel diode effect, which the transistor is based on -- don't exist?

If I were running a Piperverse role-playing game, that's precisely what I would specify. It would make deciding what tech can and can't exist much simpler.

I know this might give some of the old school a twitch in the eye, but I look forward to a new version of Little Fuzzy.

My opinion, I like it when people bring their visions to a story. Total Recall, The Running Man, for a couple. The books and the movies are all different, but enjoyable.

And take the short story "The Bicentennial Man" by Asimov. It stands on its own as a great piece of writing.
Then you have "The Positronic Man" that was a joint effort by Issac Asimov and Robert Silverberg to turn this into a novel. Some changes, a lot added and fleshed out and an awesome story made better.
"The Bicentennial Man" movie was based on this story. Some changes due to the limits of a visual storytelling. Many changes, but in the end, who did not tear up when they were finally together?

All of them are wonderful stories. By having a different interpretation, I feel adds to the story of each telling. And I like the idea of switching up characters. Gives a different insight and brings in a new group of people who might not have read the story in the past.

I look forward to seeing this awesome story by our favorite author once again interpreted into a new media.

edit to include the title of Little Fuzzy. Kinda important information. ;)