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Commander Data

  What are Data's specifiations?

Data has 100,000 terabytes of memory (equiv to 100,000,000 one-GB hard drives). When on trial, he stated that he had a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits (100 quadrillion bytes). Data processes 60 trillion computations per second. If you'd like to compare Data's 100,000 terabytes of storage capacity to something real-world, someone mentioned a chart that set the maximum storage capacity of the human brain to approximately 3 teraBITS, which would mean that Data's brain could contain everything from over 260,000 human brains.

Is Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation an Asimovian robot?

The television program Star Trek: The Next Generation included an android character, Data, whom we are specifically told (in the episode "Datalore”) was created in an attempt to bring "Asimov's dream of a positronic robot" to life. Unfortunately, the producers of the show locked onto the "positronic" aspect as if that were the key quality to Asimov's robots. Asimov's view was exactly the opposite -- his robots are "positronic" because positrons had just been discovered when he started writing robot stories and the word had a nice science-fictiony ring to it. The use of positrons was just an engineering detail and relatively unimportant to him.

Asimov's key insight was that, inasmuch as we engineer our tools to be safe to use, we would do the same with robots once we start making them -- and that the main safeguards for an intelligent being are its ethics. We would, therefore, build ethics into our robots to keep them going off on uncontrollable killing sprees.

In some sense, the specific Three (Four) Laws are themselves an engineering detail, the robotic equivalent of the Ten Commandments -- it is a specific ethical system but not the only one possible. In Asimov's universe, they are the basis for robotic ethics and so absolutely fundamental to robotic design that it is virtually impossible to build a robot without them.

Asimov tended not to let other people use his specific Laws of Robotics, but his essential insight -- that robots will have in-built ethical systems -- is freely used.

In particular, Data is an "Asimovian" robot because he does have an in-built ethical system. He does not have the Three Laws, however (witness the episode "Measure of Man" in which he refuses to follow a direct order from a superior officer [Second Law] without invoking either danger to a specific human [First Law] or the higher needs of all of humanity [Zeroth Law]). Moreover, his ethical programming is not fundamental to his design (his prototype, Lore, lacks it altogether, and Data's ethical program is turned off for much of "Descent, part II").

Asimov stated that Roddenberry asked for his permission to make Data a positronic robot after the fact. Asimov himself had no input into the character. There were plans to have Asimov appear on the show as a holodeck simulation and talk to Data (just as Stephen Hawking did). A combination of Asimov's location and ill-health made this impossible.

What are the Laws of Robotics, anyway?

The Three Laws of Robotics 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 Law.

(From Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D., as quoted in I, Robot.)

In Robots and Empire (ch. 63), the "Zeroth Law" is extrapolated, and the other Three Laws modified accordingly: 0. A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Unlike the Three Laws, however, the Zeroth Law is not a fundamental part of positronic robotic engineering, is not part of all positronic robots, and, in fact, requires a very sophisticated robot to even accept it.

Asimov claimed that the Three Laws were originated by John W. Campbell in a conversation they had on December 23, 1940. Campbell in turn maintained that he picked them out of Asimov's stories and discussions, and that his role was merely to state them explicitly.

The Three Laws did not appear in Asimov's first two robot stories, "Robbie" and "Reason", but the First Law was stated in Asimov's third robot story "Liar!", which also featured the first appearance of robopsychologist Susan Calvin. (When "Robbie" and "Reason" were included in I, Robot, they were updated to mention the existence of the first law and first two laws, respectively). Yet there was a hint of the three laws in "Robbie", in which Robbie's owner states that "He can't help being faithful, loving, and kind. He's a machine - made so." The first story to explicitly state the Three Laws was "Runaround", which appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

Commander Data

·         Rank: Lieutenant Commander ·         Department: Command ·         Position: Operations Manager ·         Race: Humanoid Android ·         Gender: NA

Data, a humanoid android so sophisticated that he was regarded as a sentient life-form with full civil rights. Data was a Starfleet officer who served as operations manager under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard aboard the Starship Enterprise-D and later, aboard the Starship Enterprise-E.

Creation

Data was built around 2335 by the reclusive scientist Noonien Soong and his wife, Juliana Soong, at the Omicron Theta colony. Data was actually the fifth positronic android constructed by Soong; the first three were unsuccessful. The fourth, the first to become functional, was known as Lore. Lore exhibited dangerous behavior, forced Soong to disassemble him. Soong thereafter pursued the idea of building an android free of emotions. Soong hoped this new android would not exhibit the cruelty shown by Lore. Juliana had wanted Data to have a female form, but Noonien, as before, created Data in his own image. Following his activation, Data was much like a baby, though he was made in the form of a full grown adult. Data had difficulty learning basic social skills, and "social niceties" had to be built into his programming. In addition, a creative capacity was also programmed into Data by Mrs. Soong, who reasoned that without emotions, the android would need another way to express himself. After this initial period, Data was thought unsuccessful and was deactivated. He was programmed with the logs and journals of the Omicron Theta colonists in an effort to help Data function better in human society. Unfortunately, before Data could be reactivated, the Crystalline Entity attacked the colony, and Soong and his wife Juliana, were forced to abandon their work. Fearing that when reactivated, Data might behave as Lore did, Juliana made Dr. Soong leave Data at the colony site. Data remained in a dormant condition underground, where he was discovered in 2338 by the crew of the Starship Tripoli. Data subsequently joined the Starfleet and eventually became operations manager aboard the Enterprise-D.

Form and function

Data was based on a sophisticated positronic brain developed by Soong, from concepts first postulated in the 20th century by Dr. Isaac Asimov. Data's body closely mimicked humanoid form, and contained approximately 24.6 kilograms of tripolymer composites, 11.8 kilograms of molybdenum-cobalt alloys, and 1.3 kilograms of bioplast sheeting. His upper spinal support was polyalloy, while his skull was composed of cortenide and duranium. Soong went to extraordinary lengths to create a naturalistic human appearance in Data. He gave Data a functional respiration system, although its purpose was primarily for thermal regulation. (Data was in fact capable of functioning for extended periods in a vacuum.) He gave Data a pulse in his circulatory system that distributed biochemical lubricants and regulated microhydraulic power throughout Data's body. Data's hair was even capable of growth at a controllable rate. Data did not require food; he occasionally ingested a semi-organic nutrient suspension in a silicon-based liquid medium. Although Data's systems were primarily mechanical, cybernetic, and positronic, sufficient biological components were present to allow him to become infected by the Psi 2000 virus in 2364. While under the influence of the inhibition-stripping effects of that virus, Data apparently became intimate with Enterprise-D security chief Tasha Yar. Data's basic programming included a strong inhibition against harming living beings, but he nevertheless had the ability to use deadly force to protect others.

Data in Starfleet

Prior to his assignment to the Enterprise-D, Data served aboard the U.S.S. Trieste. During this tour-of-duty, the Trieste once fell through a wormhole. Aboard the Enterprise-D, Data served as operations manager, and was in charge of coordinating the many departments aboard the ship. In 2366, Commander Data was seriously injured trying to save Q from an attack by gaseous creatures called the Calamarain. In gratitude, Q gave Data the gift of allowing Data to experience human laughter for a brief time. Data served as father of the bride for the wedding of Miles O'Brien and Keiko Ishikawa in 2367, and found it necessary to learn to dance to fulfill this ceremonial function. Data's first opportunity to command a starship came during the Federation blockade during the Klingon civil war of 2368. Data was assigned temporary command of the Starship Sutherland in Picard's armada. As an android, Data encountered a small amount of prejudice among his human crew, but was nevertheless able to lead effectively. In late 2368, when bizarre evidence was found that he had died some 500 years ago, Data traveled back in time to old San Francisco. The evidence was Data's severed head, unearthed from beneath the city of San Francisco, where it had been buried for five centuries. Traveling back in tine to the year 1893, Data uncovered a plot by aliens from the planet Devidia II who were using the cholera plague of the time to conceal their murder of humans. While attempting to stop the Devidians, Data's head was severed, and his body was sent forward in time, back to 2368. Aboard the Enterprise-D, Geordi La Forge was successful in reattaching Data's head and body. Following the destruction of the Enterprise-D in 2371, Date accepted an assignment the following year to the sixth Enterprise, also under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Data and Lore

Upon returning to the Omicron Theta colony site in 2364, Data participated in the discovery and activation of his android brother, Lore. Physically identical to Data, Lore had radically different personality programming, and attempted to commandeer the Enterprise-D before he was beamed into space. Although Noonien Soong was believed to have died at Omicron Theta, he was discovered to have escaped the colony when, in 2367, he remotely gained control of Data, commanding his creation to visit him in his new secret laboratory. There, Soong attempted to install a new chip in Data's positronic brain that would have given Data the ability to experience human emotions. Unfortunately, Lore also responded to Soong's call, and stole the emotion chip from Soong's lab. Dr. Soong died shortly thereafter. Data began to experience emotions in 2369 when Lore secretly bombarded Data with signals that triggered negative emotions in his positronic brain. Lore used these negative emotions to guide Data into joining him and the Borg against the Federation. When Data realized that Lore was manipulating him and harming the Borg, he was forced to deactivate Lore. Data kept Soong's emotion chip, but was reluctant to install it for fear of causing further harm to his friends.

Efforts to understand humanity

Data's attempts to understand human nature once included an effort to learn about the concept of humor, which he studied with the assistance of Guinan and a holodeck-created comedian. Data even tried a beard once, to the considerable amusement of his shipmates. Aboard the Enterprise-D, Data shared his living quarters with a cat that he named Spot. Data tried to provide for Spot's well-being, but found it difficult to predict the cat's preferences in food. One of Data's more challenging efforts to experience humanity was his attempt to pursue a romantic relationship with Enterprise-D security officer Jenna D'Sora in late 2367. Although D'Sora was attracted to Data, he was unable to return the affection, at least in a manner that she wanted. Data began to experience dreams in 2369 as a result of an accidental plasma shock received during an experiment. It was later learned that the shock had triggered a program designed for this purpose by Soong, who had hoped the program would be activated when Data reached a certain level of development. Data's initial dreams were of Soong as a blacksmith, incongruously forging the wings of a bird, which Data believed represented himself. Those dreams turned to nightmares while under the influence of interphasic organisms in 2370. Later that year, following the Enterprise-D's discovery of the D'Arsay archive, Data's own personality became completely submerged by a series of personas, enacting the mythology of a long-dead civilization. Following the experience, Captain Picard commented that even if Data never become human, he had transcended the human condition by becoming an entire civilization. One of Data's most noteworthy efforts in his quest for humanity was his construction of an android daughter in 2366. Data employed a new submicron matrix transfer technology to allow his own neural pathways to be duplicated in another positronic brain, which he used as the basis for his child. His daughter, whom he named Lal ("beloved" in Earth's Hindi language), developed at a remarkable rate and showed evidence of growth potential beyond that of her father, even experiencing emotions. Lal died after having lived little more than two weeks, when she experienced a serious failure in her positronic brain. In 2371, Data finally decided to install the emotion chip that Dr. Soong had created for him. Although Data had initial difficulty coping with the resulting flood of emotions, a problem made worse when the chip became fused into his neural net, the chip represented a significant step in his quest to become more human. By 2373 Data was able to turn his emotion chip on and off at will. During the Borg invasion of that year, the Borg queen used Data's quest to become human against him. She had organic components integrated onto his body, allowing him to experience tactile sensations, in an effort to seduce him to the Borg collective. Her efforts were remarkably successful, and Data later reported being tempted by her offer for 0.68 seconds. Data nevertheless destroyed the Borg queen and the collective by exposing them to highly toxic plsma coolant. His efforts not only saved the Enterprise-E and his shipmates, but blocked a time-traveling Borg effort to prevent Zefram Cochrane, in the year 2063, from making his historic first warp flight.

Android rights

The question of Data's sentience, and more specifically whether Data was entitled to civil rights as a citizen under the Constitution of the United Federation of Planets, was addressed in a number of important legal decisions. The first, in 2341, was rendered by a Starfleet Academy entrance committee that permitted Data to enter the academy and serve as a member of Starfleet. Several years later, the question was more definitively addressed when Judge Advocate General Phillipa Louvois ruled that Data was indeed a sentient being and therefore entitled to civil rights, including the right to resign from Starfleet if he so chose. As of stardate 42527, Data had been decorated by Starfleet Command for gallantry and had received the Medal of Honor with clusters, the Legion of Honor, and the Star Cross.