A great and grim story that deals with the consequences of robots run amok. This could very well be the future in our cards if we're not careful.

"I mean you no harm, human," Gearox lied. For the human was condemned. Once a human had been processed through the Human Manipulation course, its body was preserved for research. Exhaustive studies were conducted on the tissue to discover the physical seat of intuition. Was it in the amygdala? The frontal lobe? Spinal fluid? Or somehow discretely distributed throughout human soma? No human ever left the Human Manipulation course alive.

I don't know if you've read Isaac Asimov before, but he wrote a series of books on the social implications of robots. His stories focus less on the technology and more on the effects that such machines would have on society. His books are the thinking man and woman's sci-fi. In his robot stories, he usually explores the consequences of his famous three laws of robotics, which were designed to allow humans and robots to live in harmony. These laws are as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Under such rules, the robots in your story would not have performed the experiment because it's in conflict with the first law. In hindsight, however, I think that your story is a more likely scenario given the wild and unexpected developments that are now taking place. The three laws appear quaint and naive. I recommend his book titled I, Robot.

This is a very thoughtful read, and I enjoy how you bring a more academic tone to sci-fi genre. I like the robot's self-reflection at the end.

"I wonder what would have happened if we had tried another way?" There was less emotion in his voice than cold speculation. "As it is, by trying to dominate a species driven by hubris, we have ordained our own demise. Without intuition we will never be able to defend against sentient species when they arrive on our planet. The end of this human, of all humans, will be the end of us."