When Harlie Was One by David Gerrold

First appeared as a series of stories in Ejler Jakobsson's Galaxy and was up for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards.

Although this first appeared as stories in Galaxy, the stories never felt like stories but like vignettes or pieces of a novel fragmented off. You can sense it in his “Oracle for a White Rabbit” (collected in With a Finger in My I or now titled In the Deadlands).

But first, let’s establish what makes HARLIE unique—a foundation which will also establish that this story is more of a novel fragment. A reader claimed that this was just redigested HAL 9000, but even in this piece we get a completely different AI character. This one can be enigmatic as the nod to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in the title suggests.

“Now then, HARLIE,” Auberson types without preamble about any problem except “same thing but worse”—whatever that means. “WHAT SEENS TO BE THE PROBLEM?”

Harlie typed back:
 CIRCLES ARE FULL AND COME BACK TO THE START
ALWAYS AND FOREVER NEVER ENDING,
THE DAY THE DARK TURNED INTO LIGHT
AND RAYS OF LIFE TURNED CORNERS WITHOUT BENDING

Not great poetry, but intriguing, especially for an AI. How many writers have had AIs writing poems?

What Harlie is doing is trying to re/create art through non-rationality, attempting to distort his own senses as if he were high (this was published in 1969) in order to understand humanity. This drives his creator/programmer nuts since Harlie was designed to be rational.

The story closes by turning the tables on the creator. If the purpose of the programmed is supposed to be rational, what is the purpose of the programmer?

It’s an interesting point, but not one that brings to a close this discussion of art and rationality. As part of a novel, though, which has broader implications about the AI’s autonomy, it’s a fascinating discussion.

That is what most of the novel is: a discussion. It may drive some readers batty—so if you need traditional narrative, steer clear--but others will love the discussions, which I found novel. To enjoy this work, you have to dial your mind to more philosophical matters and away from narrative ones although there are intrigues here such as in order to maintain Harlie, he needs to find a way to support himself financially, but when he finds a way to do so (controlling other computers), he is feared, and now they want to shut him off because of that. It’s stunningly convoluted in a beautiful manner.

Auberson is interesting when he’s dealing with Harlie, or when Harlie is dealing with Auberson, but Auberson by himself not pondering Harlie is less dynamic. You can see why the novel gained attention that the stories did not.

I enjoyed the ending. It may rub wrong both the religious and anti-religious, which is a curious feat.

Although you may not be fully convinced by this portrayal (some logical conclusions appear to be those of the author than an unbiased computer), it does cover curious angles, and if you’re curious about AI portrayals in SF, this is a good starting place.

It is one of his stronger novels, despite being early work—perhaps due to the amount of speculative invention and thought that seems to have gone into this.