Nath Borden, who attended the Council as the representative of the Recruitment Board, which Masumichi dealt with extensively, called while Masumichi was alone in the office, studying a student paper on algorithms for resolving ambiguities in robotic vision. Humans just “knew,” for example, that the top of a lamppost seen protruding above the roof of a house probably wasn’t a part of the house, but to machines such things weren’t always so obvious. One of Masumichi’s experimental models had recently demolished a small maze of mirrors that it had tried to negotiate with its sonar ranging turned off. “Are you alone?” Borden asked from the screen. His voice was oddly low and confidential. “One moment.” Masumichi got up, went to close the office door, and returned. “What’s up?” “There’s just been a special meeting. Things have started moving quickly, so there isn’t a lot of time right now. I’ll give you the full story later. It will be general knowledge very soon, in any case.
