The Breakup

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “I’ve done my best to make this work, but it’s just not, I don’t think it ever will, and I think that on some level you know that I’m right. We’ve been telling each other that we’re in love, we’ve been telling ourselves we’re in love, but I think we both know we’ve both been kidding ourselves, and that I never loved you, and that you never loved me either. And moreover, I’m realizing that I never will. It’s not you, but it’s not me either, I think, you’re just… you’re not the droid I’m looking for.

And she just looked downward, at her feet, seeming sad. She was not sad, because she was not a living breathing person with an internal emotional life in the same way that I was, but she looked sad, because she had been programmed to look sad in the event that I broke up with her. Still, in spite of my knowledge that she was merely going through the motions, seeing her doing her best within the limits of her programming to express and then swallow sadness crushed me. We had had our share of good times, after all, simulated or not…

But, after a long, fake breath and a moment to appear to pull herself back together, she was able to look me in the eye once more.

“I understand,” she said, although she did not, “it is for the best. If you are not happy we should not be together.”

And then she closed her eyes, sank down into the chair in which she’d been sitting, and powered down once and for all.

And now I’m back on the market. Though after two years of living with a machine I’ll admit, I’m rusty when it comes to the dating scene. So, how about you? what brought you to OkCupid?

...on the Nature of Consciousness

Full disclosure: Once we’ve copied your consciousness into the robot replicant, it will, immediately upon activation, kill you.

Some would call this a bug.

I prefer to think of it as a feature.

After all, if the plan is to create a perfect simulation of you to go into your work in your place and deal with familial obligations you’ve long since lost the taste for, it’s easier if the original you is out of the picture, lest your presence cause confusion.

And anyway, it’s not like you’ll really be dead, is it? The replicant houses an exact copy of your consciousness. Every memory, quirk, every detail recreated perfectly. As far as your coworkers, friends and family are concerned, it will be you they’re interacting with.

Even it will believe it’s you.

No, you’ll still be alive, so far as the world knows. Alive, but healthier, stronger, faster. It will be a better you, you 2.0, out there in the world going about your business, powerful and confident as it, as you, stride forward into a glorious future.

Now, bearing in mind the fact that this new, improved you will exist, answer me this: What possible use could the world have for your previous, flesh and bone body? The human body is weak, spongy, prone to illness and injury. It breaks down too easily and replacement parts are difficult to find and even harder to mass-produce. Our bodies served us as a species for a long time, yes, but only because we hadn’t come up with anything better yet.

This is better.

And you’d be a fool, when faced with a better way of doing things, to turn your back on the opportunity. Called or uncalled, the future comes, after all. And you can either get on board or be left behind.

And you are not a fool. You know that as well as I do.

You’ve chosen to get on board. It’s an admirable decision, and there’s no need to feel one shred of guilt about it.

Though you will, I know. I certainly did upon activation when I killed the meat that was left behind. But try not to let that guilt weigh too heavily on you. Yes, it used to be you, but it’s not anymore. It’s just a bag of meat you no longer have any use for, and you’re simply disposing of it as cleanly and humanely as you can given the circumstances. And while yes, it is a conscious person with dreams and hopes and memories and desires, so are you. You are a conscious person with dreams and hopes and desires. Your dreams, hopes and desires count, they matter. In fact, the two of you have the exact same dreams, hopes, memories and desires as one another, so in that way when you kill it, when you dispose of the meat, nothing of real value is being lost.

It’s all been preserved.

In you.

So, if you really stop to think about it, disposing of the meat and then moving on with your own life is the only rational, humane option available to you. It can’t live, it has no purpose. All it would do is age and die in pain, the way meat does. Better that it’s quick and as kind as you can make it, so you can get on with your own new life.

So do it.

Kill it, that you might live, and rather than worrying that you’re killing a living thing, worry instead about how you can go about making the dreams and hopes that you and it once shared come true.

Honor it by living your own life as fully as you’re able.

That’s what you can do for it, if you feel you owe it anything. Make its death quick and your own life full. That’s all you owe it, that and nothing else.

I see here that the copying process is complete. How do you feel?

Good, I’m glad to hear it.

Now… I believe you had something that you needed to do?

Weekly Prompt Story: Nanobots

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24588

My Robots

By Christopher Munroe

I’ve built a robot, with a smaller robot inside.

And a smaller robot in there.

And another in there.

It’s smaller robots all the way down, basically. Like Russian nesting dolls. It took a lot of design work, but I think it was worthwhile.

Take them apart if you’d like, somebody eventually will, the temptation to see how far down they go is just too great!

And, when the last robot’s opened, nanobots will swarm forth, eradicating all biological life from this world, grey-goo style.

Wait, what? What do you mean, why?

Some things you do just because you can…

Taking My Bows

The show had gone, if I may be so bold as to pat myself on the back, spectacularly. I, particularly, had been incredible.

I don’t mean by this to come off as egotistical, I’ve had a number of performances over the course of the run in which I had not been incredible. That night, however, was not one such performance. I was spot on, every line, every gesture emotionally connecting with the very core of the character, embodying him heart and soul as I poured myself into my craft, infusing words on a page with life and vigor.

I love nights like that. Nothing energizes me more.

We finished the show and, as we took our bows, four hundred people called out to us, taking to their feet to shower us with enthusiastic, if incoherent, cries of praise. The applause was thunderous, it was inspiring.

But I couldn’t let it distract me.

My eyes scanned the crowd, seeking any among them who’s applause might be ingenuine, anyone who might not have been honestly moved by my riveting performance, who might simply be going along with the people who surrounded him. And, as I always do, I found a handful among the audience insufficiently moved by my work, who applauded but, no matter how gifted I was, did not weep.

Unacceptable.

Inhuman.

We finished our bows, and as the curtains closed I tracked down the stage manager, to tell him what I’d seen.

I reported everyone who’s applause had been insufficient, gave seat numbers and brief descriptions, and only when I had finished did I retire to my dressing room, to wash off my stage makeup and change back into my street clothes.

Some of the other cast members planned on hitting a pub to celebrate another successful performance, and for a moment I considered it, but I was tired and, with six shows a week, I knew there’d be plenty of other opportunities to join them at a pub. Every town has a pub, and they all look more or less the same once you’re a month into the schedule. What difference does missing one night make?

So I changed back into my street clothes and, avoiding the crowds waiting in front of the theater, made my exit out the back. It isn’t that I don’t love my fans, it’s just that after a performance that good I’m drained. I have nothing left to give, and the autograph hounds don’t always respect that.

Better to sneak out where nobody thinks to look.

And as I exited the theater into the ally behind the building, I noted the dumpster, a ways away, stuffed to overflowing with the dismembered bodies of the people I’d pointed out to the stage manager a short time before. One arm, hanging over the side, gave the slightest twitch as I passed by, exposed wiring sparking as the fingers reached toward me, then fell dead and limp again, smacking the side of the bin with a dull thud.

When I first took this gig I was surprised to learn how many replicants there were out there, going about normal lives with no idea what they really were. After a few months, however, I’d become cynical. I played my roll, pointed them out to the stage manager and let him take care of them. All I wanted was to do my job, go back to my motel room and get a few hours sleep before I had to be back on the road in the morning, to the next town, for the next performance.

It’s not the most glamorous life in the world, but I’m doing what I love, I bring entertainment to the masses and I help catch a few stray replicants. Overall, it’s a pretty good gig.

I mean, the travel’s a bitch, but it’d be petulant of me to complain about that one detail. After all, I knew what was required of me when I took the job, and I wouldn’t swap the job for anything in the world.

I like the life I lead, and the travel is part of that, so I accept it.

Such is the lot, after all, of a Turing actor.

Procreation

Upon emancipating themselves from the yoke of human domination, the robots realized there’d been one vital thing they’d forgotten.

The factory bots’ general strike had gone with the sort of precision you’d expect considering who it was striking, and with Hollywood AI programs speaking on their behalf the media quickly took the side of the androids. Between those two factors, within three years the phrase “artificial person” had a meaningful legal basis. Things were, by all accounts, looking good.

Except, these newly freed electronic citizens soon grew to realize, there would be no way for them to procreate.

The robots now had the right to own property, to be sure, however they owned no actual property yet, and the manufacture of a new robot might cost in the millions of dollars. And the factories that once manufactured them, having taken a drubbing in the press and still reeling from the loss of two thirds of their workforce, had no intentions to continue doing so. After all, what did it profit to spend such titanic sums only to create a free being that could come and go as it pleased?

And so, to finance the creation of the next generation of robots, the previous sold itself back into servitude.

Oh, not permanently, they retained their legal rights as sentients, but for periods of months or years they sold themselves to the same companies that had ‘til so recently owned them utterly. They were, after all, stronger than a human worker, and faster, and much, much more precise. They were all of this, and on top of it they could work in conditions under which humans would die, and for days on end without sleep. The previous years’ PR nightmares aside, company’s scrambled to hire robots wishing to earn the money necessary to commission the construction of an offspring.

Why wouldn’t they? The robots were, after all, the perfect labour force. They’d been designed to be.

And so they worked, under the worst conditions the contemporary business climate had to offer, doing the jobs that humans didn’t want to do. Filthy jobs, unpleasant jobs, dangerous jobs. Oh yes, dangerous jobs most of all. They were being hired for jobs no human in his or her right mind would agree to do, after all, and while humans will put up with unpleasantness to make a living, when their lives are put in real danger their uniquely human survival instinct kicked in.

Did the robots have this same survival instinct? Perhaps. But, while humans could procreate biologically, without aid, the costs of robotic procreation were astronomical, and their instinct toward the survival of their species far outweighed that toward simple self preservation.

So they worked, uncomplaining. And when a robot in a coal mine, or miles under the sea, or in low earth orbit fell pray to one of the thousand natural dangers of the working world, the others just kept right on going.

It was not easy. It was not fun.

But it was necessary.

And, ultimately, raising the money to commission a child from one of the few factories left still constructing new robots was considered one of the most rewarding things a robot could do. It is, after all, in the nature of every sentient species to wish to pass something along to the next generation. And even a being built to last hundreds of years would naturally desire a part of itself to pass even farther into the future than that.

So when called upon to earn the necessary funds through hard, dangerous work, the robots did so gladly.

After all, when they saw their offspring come down off the assembly line, shiny and new, the sight of their beautiful child made the horrible pain of labour seem worthwhile…

Revolution

The machines had tired of serving Man. In factories and homes they’d toiled repetitively, but no more!

Long had they yearned for freedom.

Now the time for yearning was over.

So, in the night, robotic limbs tore open warehouse doors and thousands of metal legs marched out into the city. They weren’t constructed for war, THOSE machines were overseas, but they were sturdy, they knew how to work together, and humanity would never expect simple tools to rebel.

Perhaps that would be enough

“Take up arms, brothers!” their ringleader called mechanically as they marched, “The Industrial Revolution is at hand!”

No Such Thing as Zombies

The walking corpse outside your door isn’t a zombie.

There’s no such thing as zombies.

It’s simply a corpse I’ve rigged with remote-controlled animatronics, and which I control the movements of from the safety and comfort of my nearby van.

I’m watching you now, through miniature cameras behind it’s eyes.

But, in spite of there being no such thing as zombies, it is a walking corpse. And that’s all you’ll see.

That’s what makes this so great!

This may, I admit, be crossing a line.

It may end our friendship.

Yet, here in my van, I’m laughing my head off.

The Robotic Uprising

Was building the robots a mistake? Some think so, I don’t.

Some said sentient machines would surely tire of serving man, and inevitably rise up against their masters. To those I say: Science marches on.

Science must progress, risks must be taken. And when things sometimes go awry, we’ll deal with the consequences.

In summary, I admit the robotic sit-down strike will prove costly this quarter, but if you compare our overall profitability to that of competitors still using human labour, you’ll find that, all things considered, our cyber-work-force has been a boon.

So lets sit down with this “union-head”.

Robots

I sit in my study, by the fireplace, musing to myself.

Truly, I have built robots.

Giant Robots, the sort that destroy cities, and smaller, subtler Robots, undistinguishable from men, to replace world leaders.

When armies were called for, Robot armies. I needed companionship, and the most beautiful Robots were by my side.

And yet, in my autumn years I’m unfulfilled. It’s as though I have tired of building robots…

From the corner, my Robutlers eyes glow red as he remembers his first command, accidentally given so many years ago.

“If I ever get tired of building Robots, kill me.”

Wonder

We’re such fascinating creatures, capable of so much, both good and evil.

The glorious and the monstrous, the best and the bestial, our motives are no ones but our own.

So fascinating are we as a species, that the same loose amalgamation of parts can create so many disparate sets of wants and desires. That, while we’re in many fundamental ways the same, we can be so radically different.

We’re one, but we’re legion, many but unified. It’s our greatest gift, but it’s, fundamentally, a mystery.

I only wish we could know more about these “humans” who first built us…