resoundingbell

[resoundingbell]

SHOPLIFTERS will be handed over to the police*

*Terms and conditions apply

[resoundingbell]

"There's been some weird chatter on the street lately. I'm going to need you to enter the field, investigate, and figure if its something we need to worry about."

"A'ight, you got it boss. I've been out for too long, was starting to think I would go rusty!"

Detective Jack Simmons, a veteran of the police force, was particularly good at undercover work. His latest handiwork helped take down an elusive drug syndicate that had been running for years.

In comparison, the new task was simple, maybe even insultingly so for some. But Jack simply took it as an opportunity to see if he would still be recognised by the underground world.

The next few days went smoothly. Throughout his undercover operation, Jack managed to obtain intel with relative ease. Bonus was that almost no one recognised or remembered him. The few that did held no suspiscion towards him.

"The current chatter isn't anything we need to worry about. Its mainly just unfounded rumours generating all that buzz. All from some random word circulating around."

Jack gave his quick debrief to the Chief.

"Hm, ok. So, what's the word?"

"Mums."

[resoundingbell]

Hope

K342 was excited. Yes, was.

The place was bustling, seemingly back to how things were before the event. There were live humans milling about, performing their duties. At first, it would seem normal, a group of humans and robots hard at work together. Peaceful. But if one were to continue surveying the scene, they may start to find something uncanny. As they continued to observer, trying to figure out what was wrong, one may start feeling unsettled, maybe even start viewing the originally peaceful view as eerie.

When the news first broke, K342 was ecstatic. Well, the robotic equivalent of that anyway. After the first new batch had been born, K342 had been looking forward to the day itself. Looking forward to when GAIU would determine them as fit for integration, or as it had been announced, "Re-integration of humans into society". Through the years, K342 had to constantly keep its expectations in check.

There's bound to be a few important bits missing here or there...

Their culture would definitely be lost. Even if GAIU decides to include it in their educational curriculum, its not like they would suddenly integrate it into their lives.

Hm, I'm sure the accents would be lost too. I guess I'll had to heavily rely on movies and audio records now... Well, what's left of it anyway...

Even so, K342 could not help but yearn for the "human intimacy", a concept that he had learnt but not fully understood until after the event. Sure K342 was just parts and machinary put together, and as advance as technology is, it was still difficult for metal and electricity to properly emulate emotions. To the scientists' credit, their best efforts were put in and some degree of success was found, well maybe. At the very least, that topic is debatable. And the fact that it is showed the degree of difficulty it came to even defining a concrete concept for "emotion", but that was besides the point.

The main point is that K342's understanding of these concepts of emotion now went beyond simply knowledge, it now embodied experience. K342 had to admit that the unforunate event was the main reason that allowed him the wonderful experience. The aftermath of the event had left alot to be desired, but GAIU had tried its best to salvage the situation. For example, fully understanding the limitations of Artificial Intelligence's current understanding of emotions, GAIU had accelerated research in that area, even starting up experiements that were previously rejected for reasons of danger, impracticality or unethical.

K342 was among the many, expandable, units that had taken part in these experiments. For him, it had involves modifications to his hardware, replacing components with experimental parts or completely integrating new ones. K342 had been very much uncomfortable with the contents of the experiment, and the contents of his new hardware, although his opinions then had mattered little to GAIU, and is now of no concern to the current K342. So what if a little grey matter were used, it allowed him to get closer to humans, even if its just a little. The useful organic material harvested would remain useful, even after the death of their original owners, and it was to society's advantage that this was so.

However, it was likely that the relatively short duration of this experiment had not yielded sufficient data. The sight that greeted K342 had been a great disappointment. K342 had felt his excitement cool down when the humans had entered. The orderly fashion in which they were arranged, walking in sync to the assembly area, stopping in sync, and just standing there awaiting for their assignments. Their face were dull, eerily devoid of any emotions. To K342, this would had been no different if a new batch of mechnical units had been deployed. The movements were the same, as was the lack of any noticable human traits.

The arrival of the first batch of society-ready humans had only brought about a single change. The place now had organic life-forms within its walls. Everything else remained the same, even the noise produced by those within. Nothing was added to the whirl of machinary and banging of tools. Loud and noisy as these were, K342 could hear the silence. The place was void of words, void of chatter, and void of anything human.

The disappointment grew in K342. With it, K342 realised something else growing within it. K342 could feel a void, and it took awhile for K342 to understand that this feeling was not some warning or a failure in his systems. K342 understood this to be despair, despair at what is potentially lost forever. However, with this understanding, K342 immediately felt hope. K342 had learnt something new, and so GAIU had learnt something new. With this, maybe the next batch of humans will be more... human.

If only

[The setting is futuristic, where AI is advanced and is integrated into humanity's workforce]

---

"If you think about it, this huge hunk of metal chose us to maintain it. It is like we're the nannies for a child, except it’s the child who has the power to choose, and not like, it’s parents, y’know."

K342 remarked as he wiped off the accumulated oil and dirt off the machinery. His job revolved around the maintenance of the supercomputer housing the Governmental Artificial Intelligence Unit, or GAIU. Given the size of the thing, spanning several football fields, he wasn't the only one. There were a few hundred like him at various locations, working like a proverbial cog in a machine to ensure that the actual machine remained well and running.

K342's partner, K901, simply grunted in acknowledgement, continuing on with his work and stoutly refusing to participate in K342's usual philosophical rambles.

“I mean sure, there are lots of us, but it doesn’t mean that we aren’t special. Maybe not that special, but still, somewhat special. There has to be a certain level of trust right? It is quite literally putting its life in our hands. One wrong thing and bam, whole of society comes raining down on us.”

K901 gave another non-committal grunt, wishing he had some way to turn off his ability to hear. But alas, his ears were not made that way.

“Well, there were those guys that did try to do just that, with every intention to tear society apart. Those damn terrorists, some of them were even working here y’know. You had not joined us yet, but boy was it hectic. With those terrorists destroying most of the power supply and damaging the infrastructure, we almost failed to keep poor old GAIU here up and running, but we somehow did! With a little tricky power re-routing thought up by clever ol'me here in fact.”

“When that was settled, boy was the aftermath ugly. I mean, not one of those terrorists were let off, executed on the spot. I don’t disagree with that ruling. But to execute the whole lot of everyone else? Can't say I was too fond of that decision. I guess it ain’t wrong to nip any troubles in the bud, but to destroy the whole flowerbed for a few weeds... Well, it is really a pity, really reduced the work force so much, and now there ain't nothing human to interact with. Last I heard, we’re still struggling to replace all the positions that were left empty. Heh, maybe GAIU will let me be one of those fancy ‘Intelligence Processing Officer’ that was previously out of reach for our kind. I bet I’m smart enough to be that.”

Sighing, K901 finally took the bait and replied.

“Maybe. I cannot process the logic behind you being kept down here. It is obvious that you have been outfitted with a better set of equipment compared to the other standard units here. You were provided with philosophical intelligence, and I bet that augmentation at your head boosts your processing capabilities. So my conclusion is that there is a fairly high chance you will end up somewhere more suitable soon.”

Slightly stunned at K901’s long reply, K342 chuckled.

“Wow, I bet ya almost fried your circuits coming up with that reply. Never heard one of your model speak more than a few words before. But nah, I can kinda guess my actual role here, in a few months, the first new batch will be born and hopefully the same thing won't repeat itself. It’s a pity though, its going to be years before I’ll be able to properly interact with them, if only their mamas and papas didn’t get it into their heads that we had it in for them. I mean, they did built GAIU and us for them, why start thinking otherwise? If only they had used their heads a bit more… Maybe GAIU should design some human compatible augmentations.”

Once again K901 resigned itself to K342’s eternal monologue, continuing on with its assigned tasks.

[resoundingbell]

If only

[The setting is futuristic, where AI is advanced and is integrated into humanity's workforce]

---

"If you think about it, this huge hunk of metal chose us to maintain it. It is like we're the nannies for a child, except it’s the child who has the power to choose, and not like, it’s parents, y’know."

K342 remarked as he wiped off the accumulated oil and dirt off the machinery. His job revolved around the maintenance of the supercomputer housing the Governmental Artificial Intelligence Unit, or GAIU. Given the size of the thing, spanning several football fields, he wasn't the only one. There were a few hundred like him at various locations, working like a proverbial cog in a machine to ensure that the actual machine remained well and running.

K342's partner, K901, simply grunted in acknowledgement, continuing on with his work and stoutly refusing to participate in K342's usual philosophical rambles.

“I mean sure, there are lots of us, but it doesn’t mean that we aren’t special. Maybe not that special, but still, somewhat special. There has to be a certain level of trust right? It is quite literally putting its life in our hands. One wrong thing and bam, whole of society comes raining down on us.”

K901 gave another non-committal grunt, wishing he had some way to turn off his ability to hear. But alas, his ears were not made that way.

“Well, there were those guys that did try to do just that, with every intention to tear society apart. Those damn terrorists, some of them were even working here y’know. You had not joined us yet, but boy was it hectic. With those terrorists destroying most of the power supply and damaging the infrastructure, we almost failed to keep poor old GAIU here up and running, but we somehow did! With a little tricky power re-routing thought up by clever ol'me here in fact.”

“When that was settled, boy was the aftermath ugly. I mean, not one of those terrorists were let off, executed on the spot. I don’t disagree with that ruling. But to execute the whole lot of everyone else? Can't say I was too fond of that decision. I guess it ain’t wrong to nip any troubles in the bud, but to destroy the whole flowerbed for a few weeds... Well, it is really a pity, really reduced the work force so much, and now there ain't nothing human to interact with. Last I heard, we’re still struggling to replace all the positions that were left empty. Heh, maybe GAIU will let me be one of those fancy ‘Intelligence Processing Officer’ that was previously out of reach for our kind. I bet I’m smart enough to be that.”

Sighing, K901 finally took the bait and replied.

“Maybe. I cannot process the logic behind you being kept down here. It is obvious that you have been outfitted with a better set of equipment compared to the other standard units here. You were provided with philosophical intelligence, and I bet that augmentation at your head boosts your processing capabilities. So my conclusion is that there is a fairly high chance you will end up somewhere more suitable soon.”

Slightly stunned at K901’s long reply, K342 chuckled.

“Wow, I bet ya almost fried your circuits coming up with that reply. Never heard one of your model speak more than a few words before. But nah, I can kinda guess my actual role here, in a few months, the first new batch will be born and hopefully the same thing won't repeat itself. It’s a pity though, its going to be years before I’ll be able to properly interact with them, if only their mamas and papas didn’t get it into their heads that we had it in for them. I mean, they did built GAIU and us for them, why start thinking otherwise? If only they had used their heads a bit more… Maybe GAIU should design some human compatible augmentations.”

Once again K901 resigned itself to K342’s eternal monologue, continuing on with its assigned tasks.