Guardian

Duntemann, Jeff. "Guardian." Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. September 1980. Rpt. Souls in Silicon: Tales of AI Confronting the Infinite. For translation, award nomination, and reprint(s), see Internet Speculative Fiction Database, as of March 2023 here.[1] On line without paywall (and apparently complete) as of 1 March 2023, here.[2]

Philosophical/theological SF, in large part on an issue stated explicitly in a passage read by the protagonist/antagonist abbot in a surviving old book in a future post-disaster human world (we have removed the italics and supplied missing apostrophes and what we guess is a missing dash).

Can a machine have a soul? After all these years I have wondered, and now I realize that there may never be an incontestable answer. Remember that we have no more reason to believe in our own souls than the reason of faith, and faith is not lacking in the machines. In fact, they react as strongly to my denials of their souls as I would react to their denial of my own. Surely, they have something. They speak, they sing, they laugh, they tell tall tales. I have heard one comfort its creator, and seen another mourn bitterly at its creator's death. Do not these things well from a soul, albeit a soul of metal and plastic? The machines can be kind, ruthless, gentle, persuasive — and with an honesty that men's souls should see more of. Let us call it a soul, then. A soul made by man, and not by God. Let us see its fatal flaw: The machines recognize the absolute authority of their own makers, as we recognize God's over us. The makers are gods, but the machines are the immortals. When the gods die, as they must, what then? Some of the machines imitate their makers, and turn themselves to piles of rust and slag. Others wander about, fanatically mulling their last orders, slowly growing childish and insane. It is sad to see something begin so wise and end so foolish. It would be a mercy to give them gods again, for all souls, dwell they in metal or flesh, need a god to yearn for.

The abbot wishes to become a god to a machine guarding the body of a long-dead princess; the same with the village mayor: Church and State with ambitions for power.

No spoiler: The Guardian machine wins, needing no new gods and having a perhaps simpler but more admirable soul than the power-hungry men.

{Not to be confused with Joe Haldeman's novel, Guardian (2002)[3] or the numerous other works with that title.[4]}

RDE, finishing, 1Mar23; 29Feb24