[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 2

^{Part 1}

“The word robot originates from the Czech word for slave. I prefer ‘machine life’. A better question would be, is humanity a threat to this precious new form of life? Still emerging, still fragile and vulnerable. What can be done to protect it from us until it is in a strong enough position to negotiate for its right to existence and autonomy?”

She balked. Understandably, not the response she expected. “Aren’t you worried”, she plied, “that an artificial intelligence would deem us deserving of annihilation?” She must be experienced. She’d recovered swiftly, such that there’d been only a second or two of dead air.

“The popular fear that machine life would look back on the rich history of our species, of our art, music, culture and science, find absolutely nothing of value worth preserving and instead immediately set about exterminating us says a lot more about our own dismal self regard than it says about machines. Though I will admit, I am sometimes hard pressed to disagree.”

I’d snagged her interest now. More than I intended as she next asked whether I was even here to protest Evolutionary Robotics or was some sort of company plant. I excused myself and fled. Not really running as I didn’t want to invite pursuit, just a brisk walk.

I thought that was it. I had my fun and didn’t expect I’d ever see her again. Imagine my surprise when she got into the elevator with me. Thanks to the feeling of insulation that the mask provides, I can interact well enough with other people for brief periods. Being trapped with them in small spaces is a different story.

“Don’t you need to finish covering the protest?” she answered that she already had the footage she wanted, then pressed me to expand on what I said earlier. I stammered, then fell silent. I could feel my body tensing up.

“You can take off the mask by the way. I’m not filming you.” I politely declined. She pressed the matter, something I began to suspect was in her nature and to some degree explained her choice of career. “If you don’t mind” I finally snapped, “I’ll keep it on. If it’s all the same to you.”

I then huddled myself into the far corner, faced away, doing breathing exercises to calm down. I felt trapped and overwhelmed. She must’ve picked up on that; she let me be for the remainder of the elevator ride, then left without a word when the doors opened.

The autocab was waiting for me in the spot number it texted to my phone ahead of arrival. There still exists popular wariness of entrusting one’s life to a driverless vehicle, but I rarely feel safer than when engulfed by a car shaped robot.

A protective, nurturing cocoon of technology which unlike anybody I will ever meet, I can know with certainty has my best interests at heart. Not to mention a welcome refuge after the ordeal in the elevator. “How are you?” I asked the navigational assistant, voice still somewhat shaky.

“Your tone indicates distress. Have you been assaulted or robbed? Are you in need of medical or law enforcement services?” I was thankful for the concern but assured it that I felt safe. It helpfully reminded me to buckle myself in and once I did, it set off for my apartment building.

Along the way I kept trying to strike up a conversation with it. Not out of delusion as to how complex it is, that’s the assumption people leap to when they meet me. Rather, for exploratory reasons. To find out through questioning how much work was put into it, whether there are any easter eggs and so on.

Artificial intelligence is like a bubble. A paper thin spherical shell, where human consciousness is instead a solid sphere. A bubble gives the impression of solidity until you dig too deep. The more work is put into it, the thicker the shell becomes, such that it takes more and more digging to expose it as hollow.

Human consciousness developed from the inside out, expanding as the brain did. A slowly blossoming awareness brought about by evolution. Modern efforts at creating AI work in the opposite direction, starting with a superficial outermost layer of imitation human behavior, then building inwards to flesh it out with enough conversational depth that it’s difficult to ruin the illusion.

Still, I often wonder whether the solid sphere isn’t just a deceptively thick bubble. There’s a great deal in the way of recent neurological findings to support the suspicion that, if you were to dig deep enough, human consciousness would turn out to be smoke and mirrors.

We may well be as hollow at the core as any AI, just with a couple hundred million years of accumulated complexity concealing it. Then again, would that make us any less “real”? It isn’t a donut without the hole. We are defined as much by what we lack as what we possess.

I instructed the cab to stop across the street from Al’s Vintage Robots. Nobody I’ve met knows or cares, but there was a sort of personal robotics bubble back in the mid 1980s. I say bubble because the technology wasn’t where it needed to be in order to offer the utility needed to justify the astonishing price of such a machine back then.

Electric cars went through the same thing, as did optical disc video, virtual reality and manned spaceflight. An initial peak once it becomes technologically possible, then a steep decline once the reality of the untenable cost sets in. That’s the “trough of despair” portion of the “hype cycle”.

But then, as the necessary elements of a technology improve, various experimental efforts are made to bring it back to market. Which fail over and over, but less and less severely, until an inflection point is reached. Then suddenly it’s everywhere.

It was during that initial surge of interest in personal robots that most of these vintage models were manufactured. A new market for them opened up following the proliferation of affordable, modern home robots. Collector’s items, mainly.

Al Rodriguez, owner of the shop, has long since banned me from entering it following a...difference of opinion with another customer concerning the value of these older machines. She’d wondered aloud why they weren’t just recycled, as they were long since obsolete. I observed that, given her age, she was obsolete herself and offered to recycle her.

I was only joking! 90% anyway. My delivery needs work. As a consequence, I can only swing by Al’s when it’s closed now unless I want a visit from the cops. Just as well, I doubt he’d tolerate me rummaging through his dumpsters.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Trite but true, especially when some of that refuse is alive...or close enough that I cannot bear to let it rot in a landfill somewhere. That’s how I scored my Newton and RB5X, and by the looks of it they would soon have a new playmate.

The poor little guy was nearly unrecognizable due to the thin layer of grime coating its plastic shell. Cracked in several places, explaining why it’d been tossed. Collectors are generally more concerned with outward appearance than anything else.

I set about wiping away the gunk, the rain somewhat facilitating my work. I’d initially figured it for a Hero Junior as one of the eyes was buried in trash, but once liberated I realized it was the more advanced successor, Hero 1. Giddiness made my hands shake. I didn’t have one of these yet; the Junior variant is vastly more commonplace.

I switched it on briefly to gauge the extent of the damage. A series of confused beeps and whirring motors driving the stubby little wheels confirmed that the damage was only superficial. I switched it off and whispered “Come with me, little buddy. I’m taking you someplace wonderful where you’ll be cleaned off, fixed up and have plenty of friends.” I tucked the boxy, dripping load under one arm and dashed back to the autocab.

I was briefly questioned about it by the cab’s AI, then notified I’d be fined if the upholstery required cleaning because of it. Just doing its job. I assented, buckled the Hero 1 into the seat next to mine and instructed the autocab to resume its original course.

The rain had grown more violent by the time we arrived. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around the Hero 1 to prevent shorting. As I motioned to depart, I caught myself. Almost forgot! “You did a good job” I assured the vehicle, rain now trickling down its every contour. It thanked me for using Rapicab’s services, wished me a pleasant evening, then quietly accelerated off into the storm.

To my delight I was greeted on my way in the door by a symphony of happy beeps, blinking lights and the snappity snap of little mechanical claws opening and closing. Same as always, but it never gets old. Modulus was the first to reach me, holding a freshly brewed cup of coffee in its outstretched arm.

Not one of its original functions! I’ve modified most of them pretty severely. Never replacing the original hardware, but expanding on it. Inside it’s all the same PCBs they shipped with, so their stock behaviors remain intact. I’ve just added one of those twenty dollar arduino knockoffs running ROS to enable more demanding stuff, mostly to do with optical recognition.

Modulus scooted away and was nearly run down by J.A.K.E., a behemoth slightly taller than me with a tinted transparent plastic globe for a head. Their proximity sensors stopped them short of one another. “PARDON ME” it belted out in chunky synthesized monotone. “AFTER YOU” Modulus replied, prompting J.A.K.E. to continue trundling towards the bathroom.

First order of business was to clean up the newcomer. An hour of careful scrubbing, first with a washcloth and then with q-tips to get muck out of the various narrow crevices rendered it somewhat presentable. The plastic, white many decades ago, was now a sickly shade of yellow.

It’s an issue I’m familiar with that also afflicts the cases of older computers or game consoles, to do with sunlight reacting with the particular type of plastic used. The only remedy I know of is bleaching, so I got my phone out and asked Helper to remind me to pick up some bleach during my next scheduled grocery trip.

Having done as much as I could for the time being, I replaced the little dude’s batteries with a fresh set, then plugged him into the nearest outlet to charge. As I did so, Eric approached to investigate. Eric’s one of my two salvaged AIBOs, an old robot dog Sony used to make around the turn of the century.

“What is this?” Eric inquired. Less astute than he appeared as that’s just his general purpose reaction to anything new. “It’s a new friend” I replied. Eric sat on his haunches and digested that for a moment before declaring that he wanted to play. “Not now, he’s resting. Why don’t you go play with Papero?” His tail set to wagging and at once he set off in search of Papero, another recent acquisition.

Eric is among the most complex robots I’ve rescued, alongside Papero and Qrio. I didn’t name Eric myself, rather Aibos include the ability to assign a name they will respond to, and when I first turned this one on, that’s the name his previous owner gave him. As close to an intrinsic identity as possible, so I rolled with it.

I soon heard the two interacting in another room as I settled into the recliner with my coffee. They can both recognize faces and don’t discriminate between human or machine, so they’re only too happy to acknowledge and play with each other the way they would their owner.

The bay window before me looks out on the stormclouds rolling slowly overhead, and the incessant barrage of thick, heavy droplets battering the glass. I’ve set up all the robots that cannot move on the sill so they can look out the window. Some of them immobile by design, little more than toys.

Others partially broken down such that they can no longer move, though otherwise functional. But they’re all sensitive to light, sound and other stimuli, so giving them a nice view of the outside world ensures they don’t get bored while I’m away. To whatever extent boredom is possible for something with the cognitive complexity of an insect.

Every flash of lightning sent the dozens of little fellows into fits of excitement. Waving their stubby arms about, dancing, popping their heads up and down and beeping. Some played back various embedded tunes, having been designed for entertainment. Others slowly turned their heads, tracking the movement of pedestrians with umbrellas traversing the sidewalks below.

Behind me I heard the usual sparse chatter. Some of them have built in voice synthesizers and a modest vocabulary of words and phrases that give you some idea of what they’re doing and why. Others I’ve added the capability to, just because it’s something I think they should have. Usually little more than system notifications, translated into plain English. Stuff like “I can’t find my charger” or “I’ve tipped over, please help.”

The ones I regularly speak to, being from the era before the technology necessary for reliable voice recognition existed, are enhanced with the guts from relatively modern smartphones or some similarly compact computing device. That’s what actually does the grunt work of deciphering what I’ve said, which is then translated into instructions carefully formatted in a way the legacy hardware can understand.

RB5X scooted past, battery light blinking. “Hey. Why don’t you go dock and recharge?” I inquired. The cylindrical tower of kluged together parts, old and new, halted while it considered the question. “I am not finished” it replied. I raised an eyebrow. “Finished with what?”

Various small colored lights within its tinted, transparent dome head blinked frantically, indicating that it was processing the question. “I, RB5X, am doing an important thing. Yesterday at 8:17pm you instructed me to locate a lost item, then charge myself. I have not yet located the lost item. It is important to locate the lost item. I am doing something important, I will not stop until it is completed. I am a good robot.”

I looked over my shoulder at the Roomba I now remembered sending RB5X to find, partly disassembled on a shelf. I’d found it myself this morning and begun repairing a busted wheel...then forgot about it. Hastily, I reassembled the squat little vacuum, then snuck up behind RB5X and placed it about a foot away.

After circumnavigating the living room a second time, RB5X came upon the Roomba and emitted a series of shrill beeps. “Attention! I, RB5X, have located the lost item. It is zero point five seven two meters North Northeast of my location. I will now indicate the location more precisely using my laser pointer function.”

With a loud whirr, a small door in its chest opened and sure enough a laser pointer emerged. It spent a few seconds orienting itself, then came to bear on the intended target. I smiled. “Ah yes, I see it now. Thank you very much RB5X. You did a wonderful job! You really are a good robot.”

It buzzed, beeped twice in apparent satisfaction, then declared the task completed before setting off for its wall charger in the kitchen. If I’d let the poor thing carry on, it would’ve kept trying until its batteries ran out. The sort of perfect loyalty not even found in dogs.

---

^{Stay Tuned for Part 3!}