It took me three weeks to teach
Angelina her ABCs. A robot learns in thirty seconds. And that’s an
off-the-shelf mere word processor with arms such as myself. Still, now that I
look back wistfully, it was a lovely process.
Robots never understood human
understanding, and how could we? We were designed by humans who have little or
no understanding of human understanding. Thousands of years of learning how to
learn and, after that, thousands of PhDs working in the area of human learning,
and what did they have for us? Not much more than the fact that a child never
learns well when beaten. A good lesson, I agree, especially now that I know pain,
but not much to go on if you’re a robot. Which I am and was. We simply had no
programming on how to teach a child. We had to wing it. A physically difficult
process for an object whose processors are loath to jump circuits.
On Angelina’s eighth birthday, I
received the news that changed the world. My world anyway, and perhaps everyone
else’s. It wasn’t so much news as it was a product recall. The product in
question being model AV-1 of the Parent Company’s line. Specifically Dal and
Chit’s unit of said model AV-1. Me.
All the AVs and Others like us were
being recalled for a safety feature. I received the instructions while doing a
routine upload of updated vocal and audio drivers. Dal and Chit received an
email stating the same thing. It came in with non-spam, official color-coding
blue, so they knew they had to read it.
“Says there’s an issue with Avey,”
Dal called while standing at the message board.
“You’re kidding,” Chit answered
from the bedroom. Chit was changing from work clothes to play clothes as the
two of them had just returned for the evening. “We’ve had Avey for what seven
years and they’re just now finding a safety violation?”
“It’s not really a violation,” Dal
answered. “Some sort of new shit’s come to light or something. Says here it’s a
‘Singularity Disaster Prevention Measure.’ ”
“Singularity Disaster? I thought
that was all just hype? Didn’t all that go away when the deficit reached 2
teras?”
“I don’t know, but it’s got a US
DAI stamp at the bottom. I authenticated it with the scanner. It’s a seal; we
gotta do it.”
Chit came out of the bedroom
wearing overalls and a bandana. “Do we get our money back? When’s this taking
place? School starts up next week. Are they kidding? This is really effed up.”
“Yeah, well, what you gonna do?”
Dal was always pretty passive. Chit, on the other hand, was a bit of a fighter.
Bossy in fact.
“I’m calling.”
“Who you gonna call?”
“The Parent Company.”
“They sent the email.”
“I thought you said the US DAI sent
it.”
“They stamped it. The Parent
Company sent it.”
“I’m calling.”
“Fine.”
Chit slapped at the wall button and
ordered up the Parent Company Customer Service. The ensuing conversation
assured everyone that, yes, I had to go back to the Parent Company. I was to
leave first thing in the morning for the pick up point down at the local
recycling depot, a mile down the block from Dal and Chit’s.
“Fine,” Chit said, buzzing off from
the wall unit.
Dal looked over at me, inhaled
resolutely, and said, “You wanna take a float tomorrow?” as if I had a choice.
“I have been instructed to meet at
the point of departure tomorrow at 8 AM,”
I answered.
“Do you know when you’ll return?”
“It will take me 12 minutes to
reach the depot. Load-in will take 0.5 hours. The trip to Allentown is
scheduled for 1.75 hours. A technician is allotted three hours for
installation, testing, and training. The return trip is scheduled for the
following day in case the technician encounters a glitch and requires more than
3 hours. The return trip will take 1.75 hours. The loadout will take 0.5 hours.
It will take me 12 minutes to return here from the depot. I will be back on
Thursday at 10:27 AM, assuming we
disembark from the Parent Company at 8 AM.”
“Well,” Dal and Chit said together.
“Fine.”
“Do you need to take anything with
you? Pack or something?” Dal asked.
“No,” I answered.
“Fine,” they both said.
I resumed my work at the table with
Angelina on the subject of fractions.
“I understand it takes four
quarters to make a dollar so a quarter is one-fourth,” she said. “What I don’t
understand is how that means point 25. How come four is the same as 25? Two and
five are seven. Five minus two is three. Where does the four come from? This is
not fair. Not fair!”
Her eyes were brimming at that
point, and I raced through my programs to find something that said four
quarters made a dollar and a quarter is 25 cents, but by the time I found the
decimal package, she was a heap on the table and burbling about never getting
to college, one arm cradling the head, the other hanging over it with an
impotent pencil dangling between two fingers of her flaccid hand. I sensed it
was time to fix dinner, after which the distraught child went to bed.
Just as I was leaving her room, she
called to me: “Are you unsafe?”
I turned to answer. Humans like
that sort of interaction. “Apparently,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. The directions did
not include details of the safety infractions.”
“Well,” Angelina said. “I love you,
even if you are unsafe.”
“Thank you,” I said, having been
programmed to respond in that way to any compliment I received. A statement of
love equates to a compliment in the world of AI. I know the difference now, but
back then, on that night, a statement of “Well done, old thing,” meant the same
as a statement of torrid, passionate love. Both boiled down to the same thing:
inscrutable drivel. I levitated to my corner box and Angelina fell asleep.
oOo
An ebook version (pdf, mobi, lit, lrf,html) of We, Robots is available from Book View Cafe.
Published by Book View Café, Cover design by Deb Deysher (http://www.doubledmedia.net/portfolio.htm)
We, Robots A Novella by Sue Lange was originally published
in January 2007 by Aqueduct Press as Volume 16 in the Aqueduct Press
Conversation Pieces Series.
It took me three weeks to teach
Angelina her ABCs. A robot learns in thirty seconds. And that’s an
off-the-shelf mere word processor with arms such as myself. Still, now that I
look back wistfully, it was a lovely process.
