"Gordon R. Dickson - MX Knows Best" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

decisions instead of his own. It's this same business of percentages. MX, a man knows, is right ninety
percent of the time, on the average. And he asks himself if he can do as well on his own. Usually, he
believes he can't."
Allen frowned again. "But it's a gamble," he said. "Anyone knows that. You might believe that and
still happen to fall into the ten percent bad answer section regularly."
Jasper nodded.
"Yes," he said. "But still, that's the logic we're up against. And on its own ground it's unbeatable,
because it presupposes infallibility on MX's part. In other words, that ninety percent is something
everybody thinks they can count on. But if we can destroy that faith, and replace it with a healthy attitude
of doubt, we'll have people regaining their emotional integrity and their emotional balance."
"Clear enough," Allen looked across at him. "How do we go about it?"

JASPER smiled calmly.
"We're going to gimmick MX," he said. "We're going to cheat most outrageously in a good cause to
remind people that a machine—even a machine like MX—can be taken advantage of by a human being.
People are going to start getting some surprising answers to their questions, answers that will turn out to
be dead wrong. And sometime after that our gimmicks will be discovered."
Allen was slightly puzzled. "Sorry," he said, "but I don't see—"
"Why," said Galt, "a man who has been awakened to the possibility that MX can be gimmicked, will
have a job on his hands recovering his blind faith in it. He'll say to himself, sure, they found that gimmick,
but suppose there's others they haven't found? Suppose somebody's rigged it somehow, someplace else,
for his own advantage?"
"Ah," said Allen, slowly. "I see."
"Yes," Jasper nodded at him. "Simple, crude, and effective."
"How's it to be done?"
Jasper did not answer. He turned his head to look at the short man, his friend. "Frank..." he said.
Frank looked back at him stonily.
"He could be the death of all of us," Frank said.
"We settled that," said Galt, a little sharply.
Allen felt anger stir in him.
"Just what do you mean?" he demanded. "I could be the death of all of you?"
"Allen, no offense meant." Jasper spoke quickly, soothingly. "You just don't know MX as well as we
do."
"What's MX got to do with my giving you away?"
"I'll tell you!" Frank broke in with sudden savagery. "MX has the necessary parts to kill us off if it
finds out about us!"
Allen stared at him.
"What kind of a bogeyman tale is this?"
"Bogeyman!" said Frank, and all but turned his back on them in disgust.
"No, Allen, it's true," said Galt. "Tell him, Frank."
"Listen," said Frank, turning back, "this is my field; I know. What the men who set up MX wanted in
the first place was a device to reckon the probability of one human action succeeding over another. Just
that. They couldn't build an actual predicting machine for two reasons. One, nothing human hands could
build and human mind conceive, could possibly take all the factors into account. Two, there was always
the possibility that some of the factors supplied to their device would be false, or falsely stated."
"All, right" Allen was determined he would not back down an inch. He faced the shorter man. "What
of it?"
"What of it? That's what MX was—just a probability computer. But then the human factor came into
it. The more people leaned on MX decisions in their daily life, the more they wanted it to be more
accurate, more omnipotent, more godlike. And then the changes began."