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The Frankenstein Equation

By

Ian Beardsley

Copyright © 2018 By Ian Beardsley

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Mary Shelley, with her book Frankenstein (1818) has transformed me as a person, which is
indeed the purpose of literature, it is just that different writers connect with different people. As a
scientist who has discovered the connection of natural life to artificial intelligence, her work has
become pivotal to setting my frame of mind. I have discovered the following,…

Where we see on the left hand side of the equation the elements central to artificial intelligence
and, on the right side the primordial precursors to natural life, the amino acids which are the
building blocks of natural life, and the compounds of DNA responsible for the instructions of
natural life.

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It is at this point that we realize that getting carried away with the grandeur of our discovery
unchecked by a sense of human values, can result in a monster that can hinder human
progress as opposed to favoring it. Mary Shelly has her character, Victor Frankenstein saying,
…

I paused, examining and analyzing all of the minutiae of causation as exemplified in the change
from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of the darkness a sudden light broke in
upon me — a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the
immensity of the prospect of which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of
genius, who had directed their inquiries toward the same science that I alone should be
reserved to discover so astonishing a secret…

After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of
generation and life; nay more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless
matter.

But in retrospect, the same scientist says:

I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate
body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I desired it with an ardor that far
exceeded moderation, but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and
breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

With this I see the warning in the creation of monsters. The term robot was invented by Karl
Capek and first appeared in his 1921 play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). In this work,
his robots were not electronic artificial intelligence, but biological artificial intelligence, supposed
soulless servants to humanity. But not to his character Helena, who comes to visit Rossum to
tell him she feels the robots have a soul, and therefore feel the pain of their enslavement that
she wants them to be freed. Kapek used the idea of his robots to object to the enslavement of
humanity by the rich, and their justification for it by suggesting the poor don’t have a soul.

This brings us to The Rights of Man, (1940) by H.G. Wells, a work that became pivitol to the
United Nations’ formation of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He wrote,…

Since a man comes into this world through no fault of his own, since he is a joint inheritor of the
accumulations of the past, and since those accumulations are more than sufficient to satisfy the
claims that are here made on his behalf, it follows:

1) That every man without distinction of race or color is entitled to nourishment, housing,
covering, medical care and attention sufficient to realize his full possibilities of physical and
mental development and to keep him in a state of health from his birth to death…

In the work he makes clear that when he says Man he means man and woman. Today we use
the word Humankind in place of Mankind. But they have alway meant the same thing.

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But now in 2017 that we face the prospect of making artificial intelligence, robots, that are self-
aware, that is are living beings, we have to ask if they have rights as well. Given they do not
require food, are stronger, and can think faster than humans, we come to the realization that if
they are given rights, they could destroy us. To solve this conundrum, Isaac Asimov, in his 1950
Book I, Robot, explores this issue introducing for the first time The Laws of Robotics. They are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to
harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would
conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the
First or Second Laws.

Let’s see how these law work as they unfold in his stories. In I, Robot, a robot comes to believe
that in handling a space station that the graphs and dials from which it receives its orders are
his creator, which he calls The Master, because humans beings being inferior to robots, could
not have created him, something superior, so he kicks humans out of the control room and tells
them he will not longer take orders from them, but rather from the Master. The dialogue goes
like this,…

He turned to Powell. “What are we going to do now?”

Powell felt tired but uplifted. “Nothing. He’s just shown that he can run the station perfectly. I’ve
never seen an electron storm handled so well.”
“But nothing’s solved. You heard what he said of the Master. We can’t,—“
“Look, Mike, he follows the instructions of the Master by means of dials, instruments, and
graphs. That’s all we ever followed. As a matter of fact, it accounts for his refusal to obey us.
Obedience is the Second Law. No harm to humans is the first. How can he keep humans from
harm whether he knows it or not? Why, by keeping the energy beam stable. He knows he can
keep it more stable than we can, since he insists he’s the superior being, so he must keep us
out of the control room. It’s inevitable if you consider the Laws of Robotics.”
“Sure, but that’s not the point. We can’t let him continue with this nitwit stuff about The Master.”
“Why not?”
“Because whoever heard of such a damned thing? How are we going to trust him with the
station, if he doesn’t believe in Earth?”
“Can he handle the station?”
“Yes, but—“
“Then what’s the difference what he believes!”
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Ultimately I came to derive the following,…



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A peak at how that began,…


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But we notice,..

Which means,…
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Appendix

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The Author