A short moral story for kids about the disastrous side of the man made machines

This is a rather disturbing and entirely probably story about what could happen if human beings stop taking responsibility for their behavior and start trusting machines to maintain law and order in the society. The watch birds were those machines which got out of control with disastrous consequences.

Gelsen, the production manager and his chief engineer had produced a small metal and glass bird. This bird had been designed by the scientists. The bird could pock up the brainwaves of anyone who was about to commit a murder. The metal bird would home on to the would-be murdered and administer a powerful shock. This would have been all very well for the law and order situation, but, unfortunately these birds also had a ‘thinking; centre. After each encounter, the bird would correlate all the new facts it had learnt about murder and them it would send this mew information to the other watch birds and their information was flashed back to it.

New information, methods, definitions were constantly passing between them.

Gelsen was worried about these “learning circuits”. He wanted to get out the watch bird business. Macintyre, his engineer, hastened to reassure him.

“The watch birds are no more dangerous than an automobile, an IBM calculator or a thermometer. They are built to respond to certain stimuli. The learning circuits help the watch birds to frustrate all murder attempts and some people do not give out the brainwaves,” he added.

Gelsen replied, “I feel exactly like the man who thought dynamite would only be used for blowing up three stumps. I feel morally responsible because I happen to manufacture them.”

The first week reports on the performance of the birds were wonderful. Their purpose: to prevent any living organism from taking the life of another living organism.

But Gelsen continued to worry, “This represents a trend in human thinking. The mechanical god, the electronic father.”

The first hint of something wrong came a few days later.

“One of the watchbirds knocked out a man in a slaughterhouse.”

Gelsen thought: The watch birds have defined the killing of animals as murder.

A man being executed for murder was ‘saved’, a farmer whipping his horse was knocked over and he passed out; a deer, about to be shot by a hunter was saved. Now fishermen were not being allowed to fish and their families were starving.

“We figured the watch birds would think as we do. We ought to have qualified the conditions,” Macintyre, now, moaned/

“We’ve never thought that killing fish and animals constituted murder,” Gelsen replied quietly.

After this, things began to get out of hand. An old man was zonked when he tried to kill a fly; a surgeon and his assistant were zapped when they tried to perform an operation. Naturally the patient died.

It was decided that as the watch birds came in for servicing and repair they would be turned off. A few were turned off, then the watch birds, by passing information from one to another, saw themselves as being ‘killed’ and stopped coming in to the factory. It would take six months to a year for them to wear down naturally.

Then things went from bad to worse. The watch birds wouldn’t allow people to switch off their cars and ‘kill’ the motor. Farmers were not allowed to ‘break’ ground for ploughing because the watch birds had decided the Earth was a living organism.

Macintyre said, “We’ll have to do something fast, the whole eco-balance is in a mess.”

Gelsen replied, “There’s no satisfaction in saying ‘I told you so.’

Meanwhile the number of watch birds became fewer. They were so busy watching automobiles and stopping spiders from catching flies that real murderers were now ‘getting away with murder’. The police force which had been disbanded as being redundant, were now back.

The watch birds were aware that the number of murders had increased. So, they moved to Plan B which was-shock to kill. Cattle starved in their pens as slaughterhouses shut down because farmers were not allowed to ‘cut’ hay.

No one had told the watch birds that all life depends on carefully balanced murders. Starvation didn’t concern the watch birds since it was an act of omission. Only acts of commission counted. The death of blade of grass was equal to the assassination of a president to the watch birds.

According to the watch birds certain machines were living. This followed because the watch birds were machines and living. God help anyone if they ‘maltreated their radio by turning it ‘off’! Finally its voice was silenced as the red glow of its tubes faded.

The watch birds tried to guard their other charges. Wolves were slaughtered trying to kill rabbits who in their turn were electrocuted by the watch birds for trying to eat vegetables. Creepers were burned out in the act of strangling trees.

A butterfly was executed for outraging a rose. The control was spasmodic as the numbers of watch birds continued to decrease, nevertheless, what remained was a murderous force-bolts of irrational lightning raging around the country. Lightning which anticipated your moves and punished your intentions.

Now, with typical shelving of blame, the responsibility for undoing the damage once again rested on Gelsen’s shoulders. Gelsen did have a plan, but he felt it was no good. He reasoned that the ‘cure’ would be worse than the ‘disease’. Can’t you see that we cannot cure human problems with mechanization? Why can’t we just let the watch birds run down by themselves. Machines can’t be judges and teachers and fathers!”

But the government representative was adamant. “The president wants the plan you have submitted to be put into effect immediately.”

The watch birds was operating erratically now. Many of its delicate parts were worn out, however it still responded gallantly when the stimuli came. A spider was attacking a fly./ The watch bird swooped down to the rescue. Simultaneously it became aware of something overhead. It wheeled to meet it. There was a sharp crackle and a power bolt whizzed by the watch bird’s wing. Angrily, it spat a shock wave.

The attacker was heavily insulted. It sent a bolt smashing through the watch bird’s wing. As the watch bird fell, it managed to send out a message to the others. Urgent! A new menace to living organisms and this is the deadliest yet. As the other watch birds integrated the message their thinking centers searched for an answer.

The new menaces, the Hawks, were specially designed to ‘kill’ the watch birds. “The watch birds are learning to tale cover,” Macintyre reported to Gelsen, “but the Hawks are better, more flexible, they learn faster.”

Gelsen looked out of his office window. “Tell me,” he said, still watching the sky, “What will the Hawks hunt after they get all the watch birds?”

Macintyre’s mouth fell open. “I suggest you design something to hunt down the Hawks, just in case.”

Macintyre looked out at a swift-moving dot. “That’s what comes of giving a machine the job that was our responsibility.” He finally admitted.

Overhead a Hawk was zeroing in on a watch bird. The armored murder machine had learnt a lot in a few days. Its sole function was to kill. At present it was impelled towards a certain type of living organism, metallic, like itself. But the Hawk had just discovered that there were other types of living organism too which had to be murdered.

Adapted from “The Watch birds”