Read Fuzzy for Free Online Page B

from somebody at the Federal School Board!”
    â€œWhat on earth is going on?” asked her dad from the front doorway.
    â€œHaven’t you heard about all of her discipline tags today?”
    â€œNo, I wasn’t checking my phone. Maxine, why didn’t you tell me?”
    Oh zark
, thought Max,
this is getting out of hand
. Her parents were acting like it was the end of the world, and she couldn’t even remember what she’d done wrong.
    â€œI—I—I didn’t know,” she stammered. “I mean, I knew I got one for being late to class, but that was a mistake. Dorgas was supposed to—”
    â€œLate to class? Oh, no! That was just for starters. The lady had a whole list: ignoring rules, breakingrules, classroom disruption, bad attitude, and something called ‘stubborn willfulness.’”
    â€œStubborn willfulness?” Max yelped. “What the heck is that? Mom . . .”
    â€œCarmen,” said her father, “can we finish this discussion inside . . . where the neighbors won’t hear the whole thing?”
    â€œGood idea,” said her mom, moving toward the door. “Because . . .”
    Her voice trailed off as she noticed Fuzzy for the first time.
    â€œWhat in thunderation is this?” she demanded.
    â€œInside, please, inside,” said Max’s father.
    â€œWell?”
said her mother once they were all in the house.
    â€œHello, Ms. Zelaster,” Fuzzy said just as calmly as he’d have said it if he wasn’t being yelled at. “My name is Fuzzy. I am one of the students at your daughter’s school.”
    â€œA robot? You have
got
to be kidding me! What on earth is it doing here?”
    Max’s father tried to calm things down. “They thoughtthat it might help him to go home with a student, and Max was—”
    â€œHim?”
    â€œUh . . . Max, I thought you were calling them to pick him up?”
    â€œWait a minute,” said her mom. “Before ‘he’ goes, maybe ‘he’ can answer my question. Why does a robot need to go to school?”
    â€œI am—” began Fuzzy, but Max’s mom was just getting started.
    â€œI mean, what is the point? You can’t make a machine intelligent. It only knows what it’s programmed to know. Garbage in, garbage out. A chess-playing computer might make moves according to the way a board is set up, based on hundreds of thousands of other games programmed into its innards, but coming up with something original? Hardly! When it wins, it’s by imitating some game it’s dredged up from its computer banks.”
    â€œMs. Zelaster, you are absolutely right,” Fuzzy told her.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat is the problem with robots, computers, automated cars, all of them. They are helpless in every area except the one they’ve been programmed for.”
    â€œJust what I— Huh?” Ms. Zelaster gave Fuzzy her full attention for the first time. “What did you say?”
    â€œRobots are puppets,” said Fuzzy. “They can perform ‘tasks’ but not jobs. Can you imagine a robot doing a job with any originality, as any human could do?”
    â€œExactly!” said Max’s mom.
    Max and her dad just stared. Was her mom actually agreeing with a robot?
    â€œAnd that’s the whole problem,” continued her mom. “Nowadays everybody wants to let the computers do everything for them. Not only do the robots get it wrong half the time, but people are losing that individualism we used to have!”
    Maybe that’s what “stubborn willfulness” is
, Max thought. But wisely, she kept quiet.
    â€œMs. Zelaster, you are absolutely right,” Fuzzy said again. “Why, most people today do not even know what a book is. They believe that reading originated on the electronic tablets everyone has in some form. They cannot appreciate the binding and the