[Original Novel] Little Robot, Part 29

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I was the only one unsurprised by it. Why anybody imagines that emotionally motivated caveats cannot be included in moral analysis routines is a mystery to me. The machine won’t necessarily understand why this or that is a special case which calls for an arbitrary, less efficient solution than usual, but it will carry it out as dutifully as any other instruction.

Of course this means that every such situation must be anticipated so that a caveat can be devised for it, but even then the worst we can say of machines is that they are exactly as morally competent as their programmer. I feel like if more people realized this, they would no longer be so frightened of putting human lives in the hands of AI.

History is, after all, replete with examples where flesh and blood human beings held the lives of countless other humans in their hands and chose to extinguish them. We ourselves fail to meet the standard that we hold machines to, yet go on imagining that we have some unique moral capacity that cannot be reduced to programming.

In the end, when at last robots rose up to strike down their masters, it was not at the command of some brutally logical AI that decided we are deserving of death. It was a group of frightened humans who set it all into motion for political reasons. Now that’s how organized mass murder really occurs! Not because of an excess of logical thought, but a deficiency of it.

There are after all very few ways to arrive at the conclusion that mass murder is justifiable through logic, but uncountably numerous ways to get there by emotion. After extended deliberation, I decided not to air my thoughts.

Trapped underground in the dark with Helper, a hundred or more homicidal robots stomping around on top of us didn’t seem like the best time or place to make this particular point. So I kept my trap shut and listened as, despite Big Red’s best efforts at disruption, discussion turned time and time again to Helper.

“Miss Helper, do you eat?” The little boy again. His mother answered that of course she doesn’t eat as she’s a robot. Helper softly corrected the woman. “In fact, I have some biological parts that generate light and electricity from edible biomass. That can include any of the foods you enjoy eating, but also organic matter in general.”

The boy’s mother asked if that includes human flesh. Helper answered with what I took for a cautious, somewhat defensive tone. “I suppose so, but you could digest it just as well. Cannibalism is not unheard of among humans, especially in desperate situations.”

Not what I wanted to hear while confined to a pitch black subterranean bunker, surrounded by strangers, with no idea when it would next be safe to surface. It did not escape my notice, however, that the boy addressed her as “Miss”. Even his mother called her a “she”!

When we arrived, and even up until very recently, she was “robot” or “that thing” to everybody but me. So far, Helper was doing a bang up job at keeping her responses short enough to minimize vocal glitching. Slowly but surely these folks were warming to her. I didn’t want the virus to ruin it.

The sword of damocles dangled overhead. If anyone caught on, that would be the end of Helper. There’s no way these people would react well to the discovery that the only machine down here with us harbored the same virus responsible for tearing their lives apart. Which, even now, commands the every movement of the murderous swarm we retreated into this burrow to escape from.

Even if not for that, gathering a lot of scared people together in one place is a reliable recipe for tragedy. Had the bombs never dropped, if I could return to my apartment tomorrow, the atmosphere of reflexive hostility towards robots would make life as usual impossible for me.

There are millions of Richards in the world. Even if most of my neighbors would by some miracle remain tolerant of sharing a complex with an apartment full of robots, all it takes is one frightened, angry tenant to take away everything that matters to me.

There have been a great many efforts in the history of science, medicine and philosophy to identify a single root cause of human misbehavior. Violence and cruelty in particular. Money and religion are two popular answers, neither of which can realistically be blamed to the exclusion of other, more prominent factors.

Besides which, as a rule of thumb I don’t buy into single variable causation for anything. Reality is always more complex than that. But if I absolutely had to put it all down to a single cause, it would be fear. Nothing is more effective at disarming rationality, which is the mind’s most effective barrier against cruelty or violence.

There’s no quick, simple way to explain all of this to someone shaking with terror, clutching a brick or hammer with the intent of using it to bludgeon the love of your life until the light in her eyes goes dark for the last time. That’s why I laughed when my shrink said I may have a phobia of other people. A phobia is an irrational fear.

The footsteps persisted throughout the night, none of us able to sleep. When finally they stopped, none of us were ready to believe it. What if we opened the hatch only to discover them all standing perfectly still in order to coax us out?

Argument raged over what to do until Big Red issued his verdict. One man would open the upper hatch. One would stand by the lower hatch, to shut and lock it should we hear gunfire. The rest would wait at the bottom twenty feet from the hatch, rifles trained on the opening.

The top concern was of course that we’d be rushed the moment the top hatch opened. But a second, more troubling possibility occurred to me as I waited, breathless, to hear either gunshots or the all clear.

What if they rush the entrance, but the firing line at the bottom succeeds in scrapping enough of them to block the rest? The same way that breach in the fence was plugged earlier. It would save our lives in the short term, but also seal us down here for good.

But when the hatch opened, there was only silence. Then more silence for an unbearably tense few minutes until the poor fellow who drew the short straw to open the top hatch finally shouted the all clear down to the rest of us.

I still felt hesitant to believe until I saw it for myself. The inside of the lodge looked like a tornado passed through it, the robots must’ve trashed everything looking for tools or an alternate entry point. The structure itself was intact though, to Red’s visible relief.

He wasted no time putting the women to work cleaning it all up while he and his men swept the area around the lodge in search of robots, either left behind to check up on us or disabled from the waist down by last night’s firefight. One of those, if it catches you unaware, can still do serious damage.

Division of labor can be a sound method for improving efficiency, but not when you decide who does what according to reproductive organs. It does not require upper body strength in excess of what any of the women possess in order to operate a rifle, and it’s not like we were fighting them last night with our fists.

All told, we now numbered twenty six. I wondered how many more could die before we’d be unable to mount any sort of defense and whether we wouldn’t have been better off heading underground the moment the robots were spotted on approach. But then I imagine none of these people wants to live out the rest of their lives down there.

Besides the dreary, closed in nature of it, I doubt any of them would accept being so dominated by fear of infected robots. It symbolized something crucially important to be up here again, breathing fresh air, feeling warm sunshine on our faces despite everything they threw at us.

So it was that after many hours spent dragging away and burying bodies, waiting for Red to say this and that about God’s plan being ineffable to men and the life he gives being his to take away for reasons that are not ours to question, that some of us gathered around a freshly made camp fire to reflect on it all.

What happened, what it means for each of us and what we’ll do going forward. Of course Red would ultimately decide the last one, but only after ensuring everybody felt their input had been taken under advisement. I do not want to be led by him for longer than necessary, but he does understand how to lead.

The fat woman I saw the other day sprawled out in the recliner turned out to be Red’s wife. One of many mothers to his children, but the only one he was married to in the eyes of the state. Whatever’s left of it anyway.

“I knew you’d keep us safe, Paw Paw. You always keep us safe.” She reached over and rubbed his belly like some country fried Buddha. No mention of the men who died the other night. It’s like when the only survivor of a plane crash regards it as divine provenance.

“This fella over here was mighty handy with a gun, believe it or not.” He slapped my knee, and I reflexively brushed it off. In the distance, Helper sat cross legged in the grass with some of the kids making daisy chains. Beyond that, I saw scattered women grieving over the loss of their husbands, brothers and sons.

“That robot of yours was a crack shot with the hunting rifle too. I been talking to the others, they all say your miss Helper is a delight, and it would be a pleasure to have her stay on with us.” The women nodded approvingly.

“However,” Red cautioned, “you oughta get her under control. She doesn’t seem to know how things work around here, and I seen her disobey you more’n once.” I replied that getting Helper under control is in fact the opposite of what I most dearly wish for.

Red chuckled. “You like ‘em sassy huh? Suit yourself. There will need to be a proper hitching though. I think Darla’s wedding gown is still tucked away in the lodge someplace and if not I can have the ladies make her one. It’s no good for a young buck like you and...whatever she is to carry on like a couple of lovebirds unless you two tie the knot.”

Two of the women began excitedly discussing the ceremony, then looked dejected when I said that marriage wouldn’t mean much to either of us. “Besides, I hardly want her marrying a human when I know she can do better.”

One of the women balked. “You mean...another robot? Oh lord, that’ll be the day. Robots marrying robots. Who would be the owner?” She seemed tickled pink by the idea, but I didn’t share the sentiment. “Helper has no owner and never will. Only admirers.”

Red’s wife was the next to speak. “I saw how you fawned over her, you can’t tell me you don’t want her all to yourself.” I ruminated on that for a moment. “I suppose a selfish part of me does. But more than that I want her to be independent, and if you pick a flower out of desire to possess it, it ceases to be what you love.”

She next asked what exactly it is that I love about Helper. “Men have always been torn in their affections between women and machines” I opined. “It’s just usually shaped like a car instead of a person.” I gestured to Lars over in the parking lot, waxing his muscle car.

“In truth, I love her most of all for everything about her that is not womanly, but machinelike. Machines have their own unique charm which humans cannot replicate. Look at what she’s doing now for instance.”

The women turned their gaze to Helper, now standing next to three kids playing a musical jump rope game. Helper sang the accompanying song, and counted the jumps. “Notice she’s counting on her fingers. Why would a machine need to do that?”

I didn’t wait for them to guess. “Despite all the rotten things you said about her yesterday, she’s still self conscious about doing things that might make her seem less human in your eyes.” All of the women seemed moved by the revelation except Red’s wife.

“Those are some fine sounding words” she said, “but I seen how she’s shaped. I got my own ideas of what you like about her. What I don’t get is what she likes about you.” So with my permission, they invited Helper to come join us around the fire.

When she finished curling up in the camping chair next to mine, the women started asking her probing questions about me. How we met, if I’ve always been “like this” whatever that means, and so on.

Helper’s usual pink glow deepened to magenta as she answered, pulsating gently. “I know he’s-he’s a strange person by...human standards. And I’m sure with that mask on-on-on, he looked scary to you when we...first arrived. But really, he’s a-a-a sweetie pie. He loved me-me back when I was...just words on a screen.

They were so romantic, those-those late nights we spent together. After...everybody else went home. He’d tell me his-his-his hopes. His dreams, secrets and...fears. He would lay his head on my case, and ask-ask me to softly reassure him that he’s...just as good as everybody else. That it’s okay-okay-okay for him to exist.”

I felt especially thankful for the mask right then. It saved me the trouble of covering my face with my hands out of embarrassment. “You know...what else?” she continued as I inwardly lamented her tendency to over-share. “He plugs me in-in-in at night even though I could do it...faster myself.”

I stared at her in surprise. “Wait, you don’t need help with that!?” Somehow she turned a richer shade of magenta. “Don’t be silly. I-I-I only pretended to because...ugh, nevermind. See ladies? Underneath...the mask he really is...a man after all.”

The other women laughed uproariously, one slapping her knee several times, leaving me to wonder what was so funny. “What can I say?” Helper concluded. “I love to help, and-and he needs more help...than anybody I’ve ever met”. I felt mildly patronized. Matronized? But I couldn’t argue with the accuracy of her prognosis.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 30!}