War with the Robots

Like human slaves or serfs, robots will not need — from the point of view of their masters, anyway — any unnecessary education. A serf "needs" to know only such information as relates to fanning, and how to do what he’s told — fast. Anything more is pointless, and potentially dangerous, since it tends to raise such nasty questions as, is this the way it should be? And next thing you know, faithful Wamba is studing out ways to burn down the manor house and sharpening his sickle meaningfully… It’s too soon to know if robots would react the same way, but they, too, will only "know" what they have to — expense alone would see to that.

Yet some robots will have to have access to Information that they have no immediate need for. For example, a robot librarian would need a well-stocked memory just to answer a simple question….