Science fiction writers have long held ambivalent
attitudes toward computers—particularly computers who believe themselves to be intelligent beings
with individual wills—starting in the days of the
lurid pulp magazines. Novels like The God Machine
(1968) by Martin CAIDIN and Colossus (1966) by
D. F. JONES portrayed self-aware computers as creatures so determined to survive that they threaten
the future of the human race. Others worried that
we would put so much reliance on computers that
we would shirk responsibility for our own lives, as
in The HUMANOIDS (1949) by Jack WILLIAMSON.
A very different attitude is expressed in The MOON
IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966) by Robert A. HEINLEIN and Michaelmas (1977) by Algis BUDRYS, in
each of which computer intelligences become allies
as well as tools, companions as well as calculators.
When Harlie Was One falls into the latter category, but it is also a coming-of-age story. Harlie is a
computer program that becomes self-aware, but
with a personality that is the equivalent of a human
infant. His accelerated childhood is facilitated by
his inventor/programmer, with whose assistance
Harlie avoids being legally defined as an object, a
possession, without any say in his own future. The
increasingly acrimonious battle over his future results in a trial to determine Harlie’s fate. The
charm of the novel lies almost entirely with Harlie
himself, who evolves from a being without character to a personable entity who ultimately becomes
the most interesting personality in the novel.
For the 1988 revised edition, Gerrold reworked the original text considerably, incorporating a more contemporary understanding of the way
an artificial intelligence might work as well as updating the background culture. He also suggests
details of Harlie’s origins in Bouncing Off the Moon
(2001). Valentina: Soul in Sapphire (1985) by Joseph
H. Delaney and Marc Stiegler is a variation of the
same story, but the artificial intelligence in this
case has a female persona.