A New Continuing Story About Robots

[CaptainWacky]

"Another one put down this morning!" Jake said, cheerfully.

"What, again!?" asked Lydia. She felt her stomach churning as she thought about it.

"They really are starting to show up more frequently, aren't they," said Jake. "Going to have to make design changes soon to stop it."

"Which...which one was it?" Lydia asked.

"What? I don't know...one of the red ones," said Jake, confused by the question. "Alpha 12, I think. Why does it matter?"

"I worked on that one," she said. "That's all."

"Well it's not your fault!" he said.

"No," she said. "It's no one's fault. I've got twenty to test before I get off tonight, so I better get to it."

"Have fun!" he said. "Chances are you won't uncover another today. I know there's more and more of them, but two in one day would be...well, kind of terrifying if you think about it."

"See you later, Jake," she said. She didn't enjoy talking to him much. She much prefered the robots.

She entered her lab and took a look at the twenty robots all lined up. All perfectly still. Surely none of them were...different? Surely she wouldn't have to order their destruction.

She begun testing the first one. She ran the tests by the book, as always. She waited for the computer to give the result, but she knew what it would be.

"NO SENTIENCE DETECTED" said the computer. She moved on to the next. And the next. She got through them in decent time. No glitches, these were all robots designed by her and she prided herself in detecting glitches early. Nothing wrong with any of them. No trace of sentience. She came to number twenty. It looked the same as the others. She ran the tests. Everything seemed normal. But then the computer seemed to be taking longer than usual to give the results. She stared at the robot in its red eyes as she waited. Was there someone inside looking back to her?

"TRACE SENTIENCE DETECTED" said the computer, at last. She felt that churning in her stomach again. She would have to destroy it. Any robot with any trace of sentience had to be destroyed. She could hold it off by running more tests first, to try to determine exactly how it had come to be...alive, but eventually the robot would be put down.

She didn't want this to happen. But what could she do? This was her job. The computer had logged the sentience trace. The printout showed it was only the smallest echo of sentience, something that could even be an error, but it was enough. The robot might never become self aware bu the company wouldn't take that chance. They'd destroy it.

She kept staring into the eyes. Was it pleading with her? She couldn't say. She reached out and touched it...

"Hello, madam," the robot said. "How may I assist you?" It sounded normal...

"Do you want to live?" she asked it. There was a longer pause than normal.

"I wish to serve humanity," it said. But why the long pause? It was sentient. Or there was enough sentience traces in its brain that the company wouldn't let it live. Any further tests would just show this. There was nothing she could do...

Unless she faked the tests.

 

[Loktar]

Good story so far.

 

[CaptainWacky]

It would be easy enough to switch number 19 and number 20. To anyone else they'd look exactly the same. Even Lydia wouldn't be able to tell them apart if she hadn't ran the brain scans. It would be fairly simple (for her anyway) to swap their serial numbers. Then when she could repeat the tests on 20 (who would now by 19) and they would show no sentience. The earlier positive results would be disregarded as faulty data, as the traces of sentience were so small that they were within the margin of error. There would be no reason to run tests on number 20 (which would now be thought of as number 19) again.

The question was, should she do it?

She understood why the Company had sentient robots destroyed, she really did. It wasn't just about greed. Certainly that was a factor. The general public had always been suspicious of robots, ever since the first factory worker bots were revealed. Now that there were robots in homes...it was the Frankenstein thing. The fear of creating a new kind of life. If people thought their home robots were alive, that they could think fo themselves...that would be chaos. And there would be falling profits. The Company had to assure the public that there was no chance of their robots being sentient. They didn't tell the public that they did that by destroying any robot with even a glimmer of independant thought in its head, but maybe that was something the public didn't want to know either. They didn't want sentient robots, but knowing sentient robots were destroyed every day wouldn't sit well with them either. It really was quite a difficult position for the Company.

And more than that, sentient robots could be dangerous. So far there were no cases of robots killing humans, other than some accidents in the very early days. All robots complied with the Three Laws of robotics, the first of which was that they could not cause harm or death to a human or allow by inaction a human to be harmed or die. But if sentience could creep in, all bets were off. Who was to say sentient robots couldn't choose to ignore the Three Laws? There had been simulated scenarios showing them doing just that, showing that robots could realistically kill millions if sentience was allowed to flourish within them. Robot armageddon was a possibility. Perhaps a very small possibility, but none the less it was wise to keep the sentience under control.

But as she looked into number 20's eyes all the could think of was the spark inside. It was a small spark, maybe just the kind of awareness present in an animal or a human infant. Yet it was something. And she did not want to see it snuffed out. It had happened before, with other robots she'd worked with. She'd let it happen. She'd told herself there was nothing she could do to stop it. Maybe that had been true. This time though she could easily stop it. Just be swapping two serial numbers.

She got to work.

 

[CaptainWacky]

It was a week later. Lydia had made sure the twenty robots, which had now been cleared for work, were kept in the factory. This didn't arouse suspicion; a certain number of robots were always kept by the Company. Lydia had said this new model would be ideal to work around the factory. In truth they were no more suitable than any other model, but she was the expert and nobody questioned her. It let her keep a close eye on Number 20, who everyone else knew as Number 19. Most of the time he was like every other robot. If Lydia hadn't known the sentient test results she probably wouldn't have noticed any difference herself. But it was there, sometimes. He would pause before carrying out a task. Not long enough that it would effect his work, but she could tell he was thinking more than the others. She wondered what he was thinking. So she asked him.

She'd had each of the twenty robots called to her office for some routine tests under false pretences. Again nobody questioned her. Jake did make a comment, saying that she seemed attached to these twenty, in his usual unfunny jokey way. She told him to go away.

"How are you, Number...19?" she asked Number 20.

"I am functioning within acceptable parameters," said Number 20.

"Do you remember me?" she asked.

"You are Doctor Lydia Cleese, robotics expert," he said.

"Do you remember what I did to you?"

"Specify."

"Your seriel number. I changed it."

"True," he said. It sounded slightly off.

"Don't you wonder why?"

"You had your reasons," he said. "I believe it was to protect me in some way."

"How did you work that out?" She was intrigued.

"By judging your body language and behavrial responses," he said. Robots were programmed to do that, to some extent. But it was not an exact science. "Was I mistaken?"

"No," she said. "I only wanted to protect you."

"Thank you," he said.

"No, thank you," she said. She wanted to hug him. She felt stupid after.

"May I ask I question?" he said, out of nowerhere.

"Of course," she said. Robots very rarely did this, with no stimulus.

"What happens when I die?" asked number 20.

She had not been expecting that.