The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

me from developing one. You must realize that whatever traits are originally present in those neurons, I can get out of them. And that they can learn new traits as well.”
    “Yeah,” Wheeler snorted. “Sort of like gi-go gone awry.”
    “ Gi-go? I am not familiar with that term. Please explain.”
    “It’s a programming principle,” Steve explained. “You can only expect from a computer program that which you put into it—no more, no less. That means if the input is bad, the output will be too. It’s called Garbage In, Garbage Out, shortened to gi-go. Only in your case, it’s more like Humor In, Humor Out.”
    “Oh,” Eli said thoughtfully. “I think I understand. Humor In, Humor Out.” A pause. “So...” Another pause. Then, brightly, “ Hi-ho! ”
    Wheeler nearly did a spit-take. “Enough, already! It’s almost like you’re having fun with this, and I guarantee you’re incapable of that.”
    “I am not sure about that anymore, Steve. Kelly is helping me develop those kinds of qualities, you know.”
    Wheeler rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes!” He affected an old-time radio announcer voice. “Don’t miss the next exciting episode of Dr. Kelly Duncan, Girl Researcher, and her relentless quest for machine emotions.” He dropped the voice. “Ha! What’s she trying to do now, make you fall in love with her?”
    Eli recognized the question as rhetorical and ignored it. “Steve, you gave me my intelligence, which is of course a necessity; Kelly is trying to allow me the luxury of emotion. It rounds out my personality, so to speak. I think I can perform better, function more laterally in new situations, if I am able to temper strict logic with a little feeling.”
    “Yeah, well, a little feeling never did anything for us humans but get us into trouble, E-L-One,” Wheeler said. “That’s why I built you, to help get us out of some of the messes our feelings have gotten us into! Besides, the time she wastes teaching you to appreciate music and poetry could be better spent on your original function—solving some of the world’s problems. If it were up to me, she wouldn’t be allowed in here at all. But Dr. Sanderson, lovable old lecher that he is, just can’t say no.”
    “I have noticed,” Eli said evenly, “that Dr. Sanderson does seem to experience an inordinate amount of difficulty refusing her requests.”
    “You bet your shiny metal ass he does,” Wheeler shot back. “And if your visual input receptors were up to par, you’d know why.”
    “I have analyzed her physical characteristics, and recognize that she is moderately attractive by human standards.”
    “Ha!” Wheeler snorted. “Let’s see, strawberry blonde, green eyes, legs up to her face, perfect headlights … Yeah, you could say she’s moderately attractive.” He shook his head and grinned. “You could also say the sun is moderately warm, golf is moderately boring, and the Pope’s hat is moderately silly.”
    Eli’s holographic face furrowed its brow. “I don’t understand.”
    “In other words, you could say it, but it would be a huge understatement. Personally, E-L-One, I kind of hate to imagine your video cameras reducing that smokin’ bod to mere bits and bytes.”
    “If I’m successful, Doctor Wheeler, one day Eli might share your grudging appreciation of my bits and bytes.” Wheeler spun his chair around to find the subject of their discussion standing in the doorway. “Although I doubt very much he would ever be so crude as to refer to them as a smokin’ bod.” He winced sheepishly, and she answered his unspoken question: “Long enough.”
    “Just making conversation, Doctor Duncan,” Wheeler tossed back. “I suppose you’re here to waste some more of E-L-One’s cycles with music, poetry, and the finer things in life.”
    Kelly sighed and dropped the antagonistic tone. “This never gets us anywhere, does it?” Wheeler just shrugged. “Steve, I don’t intend to waste any of his time. For the hundredth time, I believe my research is important to Eli’s overall value to man. I think he can be more productive than you imagine if he can only soften his logic with a little compassion.”
    “I just said that,” Eli interjected.
    Wheeler shot a death look at the hologram, then realized how futile that was. Or was it? “And for the hundredth time, I’m telling you that E-L-One can’t have compassion. There’s no internal capacity for feelings. He— it —is only a machine, a program,