Deadly Image (1958)

Machines—creations of plastic and metal—are made in the exact outward likeness of man, fulfilling man's functions, but with always perfect efficiency. They start with programed emotions, factual data, logical reactions and reasoned thinking. They can then “create” in themselves something more than what is fed into them— original thought, other feelings. Furthermore they can, and do, reproduce themselves. They are androids—and they are pluperfect—more intelligent, more amusing, more likable, more human, than the effete descendants of their original creators. These androids, this new race of near-men, are a better strain than mankind. Why does one primitive, twentieth-century man have the right to destroy these creatures who lack only the spark of divine imperfection? Because he has the right to survive—if he can.