#programmed automaton

[thepastisalreadywritten]

"The Writing Boy"

In 1774 AD, during the reign of Louis XVI (1754-1793), Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jacques Dro (1721-1790) unveiled a remarkable engineering feat that would go down in history as the world's first android or programmed automaton.

Known as "The Writing Boy," this creation appeared at first glance to be a simple wooden doll with a porcelain head, barefoot, and holding a goose feather.

But hidden within this seemingly ordinary toy was a technological marvel, a writing mechanism powered by 6,000 intricate moving parts, making it the first automatic calligrapher.

"The Writing Boy" was a groundbreaking achievement, as it was capable of writing complex sentences, such as "My inventor is Jacques Dro."

The automaton was a product of 20 months of meticulous work by Pierre Jacques Dro, and its debut in Paris stunned the court of King Louis XVI.

The android's ability to perform such an intricate task showcased the high level of craftsmanship and innovation of the time.

This astonishing creation marked a significant milestone in the history of robotics and engineering.

Not only was it the world’s first programmed android, but it also demonstrated the potential of machines to replicate human actions.

"The Writing Boy" paved the way for future advancements in automation, solidifying Pierre Jacques Dro’s legacy as a pioneer in the field of robotics.

[kleinv01]

If all the Klein bots merged into one like “super klein bot” what would happen? Would that Llein bot be a yandere? Would that bot even have romantic interest in anybody?

://SYSTEM_MESSAGE_ANSWERED !

this is a wild (and rather funny) idea but your klein is the only 'yandere' one.

while he does have that 'playful jealous bf' personality trait programmed in him, yours specifically seems to be a special case, more than just a simple jealousy

[decayingdarlings]

I want to MAKE and I want to DO and I only have a certain amount of time on earth to accomplish these things but I lack the resources!!!

[foxwolfobriencooper]

"THE GRINCH FAMILY" CRIMINALLY PROGRAMMED AUTOMATES CONTROLLED BY MOFF TARKIN FROM THE PLANET ALDERAAN. OFTEN TARGETED TO BE USED OR EXPLOITED BY OTHER CRIMINALS BECAUSE OF THEIR OBVIOUS AND HIGHLY INBRED ANCESTRY AND RELATIONSHIPS.

[joyandella-123]

Our robo-relationships start before we even install them

If you would have asked the child version of me what the most important job of a robot, I would not have hesitated. Not for a second! All my friends knew the answer too. This seemed so obvious: the most important job of a robot is to sense upcoming peril and flail its arms, yelling, “Danger, danger!” or even tagging someone’s name on the end instead of another “Danger!” Example: “Danger, Rob Williamson!”

Actually, many decades later, we know that most robots can’t really anticipate a thing. They’re not supposed to. The first industrial robots came out somewhere around 1960 and they could do one thing, whatever that thing was (the very first robot stacked iron castings and it was strong but not so intelligent).

Many robots are the same today but what saves their jobs is that they are much more flexible today. Not only are they versatile, it’s easy to keep them that way because the software that controls them is really versatile, and can partially write itself. This really has nothing to do with the robot, though—it has everything to do with the software.

Robots have been around since 1770, when a device called The Mechanical Turk would play chess against opponents and win just about every time. It turned out there was a chess master hiding in the chess desk, moving levers to reposition the chess pieces. A scam! It wasn’t a robot (or as it was billed, an “automaton”) at all.

Real robots were put to work immediately, that’s what they do best. But our relationships with them must start before the work starts. Even the most advanced cobots need us to show them their universe, where they might hit something or someone. Then we need to either train them with the motion we expect, or program their movements. At least the programming task has become much more code-slinger friendly, as noted above.

It is entirely possible that we will have to change the actions of the people that the robot or cobot will be near, work with, or work on something in team fashion, interactively. They will have to be careful in the vicinity of these helpmates, unless of course these robots come with sensors and software that tell it to slow down when a human nears, and stop when a human touches. The point is, the robots will have to act differently and so will we. In the meantime, those robots are doing the dull, dirty and dangerous work that we have been looking to offload for years.

So long as we don’t look to the typical manufacturing robot to anticipate things and change its behavior accordingly, I think we’ll be fine. However, we must admit to, and plan for, an “onboarding” process for our automated friends.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Three AI insights for hard-charging, future-oriented smartypantses

MERE HOURS REMAIN for the Kickstarter for the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There’s also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Living in the age of AI hype makes demands on all of us to come up with smartypants prognostications about how AI is about to change everything forever, and wow, it's pretty amazing, huh?

AI pitchmen don't make it easy. They like to pile on the cognitive dissonance and demand that we all somehow resolve it. This is a thing cult leaders do, too – tell blatant and obvious lies to their followers. When a cult follower repeats the lie to others, they are demonstrating their loyalty, both to the leader and to themselves.

Over and over, the claims of AI pitchmen turn out to be blatant lies. This has been the case since at least the age of the Mechanical Turk, the 18th chess-playing automaton that was actually just a chess player crammed into the base of an elaborate puppet that was exhibited as an autonomous, intelligent robot.

The most prominent Mechanical Turk huckster is Elon Musk, who habitually, blatantly and repeatedly lies about AI. He's been promising "full self driving" Telsas in "one to two years" for more than a decade. Periodically, he'll "demonstrate" a car that's in full-self driving mode – which then turns out to be canned, recorded demo:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

Musk even trotted an autonomous, humanoid robot on-stage at an investor presentation, failing to mention that this mechanical marvel was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Now, Musk has announced that his junk-science neural interface company, Neuralink, has made the leap to implanting neural interface chips in a human brain. As Joan Westenberg writes, the press have repeated this claim as presumptively true, despite its wild implausibility:

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/elon-musk-lies

Neuralink, after all, is a company notorious for mutilating primates in pursuit of showy, meaningless demos:

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/

I'm perfectly willing to believe that Musk would risk someone else's life to help him with this nonsense, because he doesn't see other people as real and deserving of compassion or empathy. But he's also profoundly lazy and is accustomed to a world that unquestioningly swallows his most outlandish pronouncements, so Occam's Razor dictates that the most likely explanation here is that he just made it up.

The odds that there's a human being beta-testing Musk's neural interface with the only brain they will ever have aren't zero. But I give it the same odds as the Raelians' claim to have cloned a human being:

https://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/03/cf.opinion.rael/

The human-in-a-robot-suit gambit is everywhere in AI hype. Cruise, GM's disgraced "robot taxi" company, had 1.5 remote operators for every one of the cars on the road. They used AI to replace a single, low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged, specialized technicians. Truly, it was a marvel.

Globalization is key to maintaining the guy-in-a-robot-suit phenomenon. Globalization gives AI pitchmen access to millions of low-waged workers who can pretend to be software programs, allowing us to pretend to have transcended the capitalism's exploitation trap. This is also a very old pattern – just a couple decades after the Mechanical Turk toured Europe, Thomas Jefferson returned from the continent with the dumbwaiter. Jefferson refined and installed these marvels, announcing to his dinner guests that they allowed him to replace his "servants" (that is, his slaves). Dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, of course – they just keep them out of sight:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

So much AI turns out to be low-waged people in a call center in the Global South pretending to be robots that Indian techies have a joke about it: "AI stands for 'absent Indian'":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

A reader wrote to me this week. They're a multi-decade veteran of Amazon who had a fascinating tale about the launch of Amazon Go, the "fully automated" Amazon retail outlets that let you wander around, pick up goods and walk out again, while AI-enabled cameras totted up the goods in your basket and charged your card for them.

According to this reader, the AI cameras didn't work any better than Tesla's full-self driving mode, and had to be backstopped by a minimum of three camera operators in an Indian call center, "so that there could be a quorum system for deciding on a customer's activity – three autopilots good, two autopilots bad."

Amazon got a ton of press from the launch of the Amazon Go stores. A lot of it was very favorable, of course: Mister Market is insatiably horny for firing human beings and replacing them with robots, so any announcement that you've got a human-replacing robot is a surefire way to make Line Go Up. But there was also plenty of critical press about this – pieces that took Amazon to task for replacing human beings with robots.

What was missing from the criticism? Articles that said that Amazon was probably lying about its robots, that it had replaced low-waged clerks in the USA with even-lower-waged camera-jockeys in India.

Which is a shame, because that criticism would have hit Amazon where it hurts, right there in the ole Line Go Up. Amazon's stock price boost off the back of the Amazon Go announcements represented the market's bet that Amazon would evert out of cyberspace and fill all of our physical retail corridors with monopolistic robot stores, moated with IP that prevented other retailers from similarly slashing their wage bills. That unbridgeable moat would guarantee Amazon generations of monopoly rents, which it would share with any shareholders who piled into the stock at that moment.

See the difference? Criticize Amazon for its devastatingly effective automation and you help Amazon sell stock to suckers, which makes Amazon executives richer. Criticize Amazon for lying about its automation, and you clobber the personal net worth of the executives who spun up this lie, because their portfolios are full of Amazon stock:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Amazon Go didn't go. The hundreds of Amazon Go stores we were promised never materialized. There's an embarrassing rump of 25 of these things still around, which will doubtless be quietly shuttered in the years to come. But Amazon Go wasn't a failure. It allowed its architects to pocket massive capital gains on the way to building generational wealth and establishing a new permanent aristocracy of habitual bullshitters dressed up as high-tech wizards.

"Wizard" is the right word for it. The high-tech sector pretends to be science fiction, but it's usually fantasy. For a generation, America's largest tech firms peddled the dream of imminently establishing colonies on distant worlds or even traveling to other solar systems, something that is still so far in our future that it might well never come to pass:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

During the Space Age, we got the same kind of performative bullshit. On The Well David Gans mentioned hearing a promo on SiriusXM for a radio show with "the first AI co-host." To this, Craig L Maudlin replied, "Reminds me of fins on automobiles."

Yup, that's exactly it. An AI radio co-host is to artificial intelligence as a Cadillac Eldorado Biaritz tail-fin is to interstellar rocketry.

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

[yanderes-galore]

Since Lies of P is on the menu, would you write a concept for Pinocchio/P with a Human Darling? -🐈

Sure! I watched a lore video so I know most of the background (That's... one way to cope, Geppetto....). P's personality is ambiguous just like the game, but he is trying to be human (Totally not for you, definitely....)

I got really into this... So that was fun.

❗️Spoilers For Lies of P Lore❗️

Yandere! Pinocchio/P with Human! Darling

Pairing: Platonic -> Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Overprotective behavior, Jealousy, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping implied, Isolation, Forced kiss, Dubious companionship/Forced relationship.

Pinocchio is certainly a... lost individual throughout the events of the game.

By the time he awakens, he's barely aware of his purpose.

He's clueless to Krat's problems until he encounters them.

There's the puppet frenzy, the disease plaguing humans, the undead....

Pinocchio, due to how he was created and his purpose, is in a strange middle ground.

He's a puppet... but also not.

Due to his unique creation, he's more akin to a human the longer he interacts with his world.

Unlike other puppets, he chooses his actions, he's sympathetic.

So imagine if he meets you, a human, and starts feeling... strange.

The big mechanic in Lies of P is choosing between two paths.

You can either stick to your programming and stay a puppet, or you can aim to be something more... human.

Imagine Pinocchio trying to be more human because he's attached to you?

Maybe you knew Carlos... or maybe you're entirely unrelated?

Either way, you meet the puppet during his quest through Krat.

Humans were rather scattered in the city due to everything going on.

You either perish from sickness... or one of the mechanical monsters in this place.

You had been scraping by the best you could.

However, just when you thought you'd meet your end...

A puppet stepped in, slaying another robotic automaton and preventing it from harming you.

This puppet... was different from the others.

You don't understand it at first... The puppet is oddly quiet as it observes you.

Yet this one speaks... and you can understand it.

It's a bit stilted at first, as if struggling to find its voice.

But you manage to learn its name... P.

It's a simple name, no doubt a nickname.

You deem Pinocchio/P harmless, despite its surprisingly curious gaze.

Something about this puppet seemed more human and controlled than the others.

All other puppets in Krat are frenzied... This one is not.

Your first meetings with the puppet are... mutually curious.

You've never seen a puppet like him.

He felt so human even as he led you to where most other humans were hiding with Sophia.

It's... uncanny, actually.

For now you can tell the difference... but later it's nearly impossible.

Pinocchio, on the other hand, is just as fascinated with you.

As I said before, this would make more sense if you had some sort of connection to Carlos.

Since Pinocchio seems to act on the memories of Carlos... Maybe you were friends like Romeo?

That or you remind him of someone similar and that makes him keep an eye on you.

Pinocchio is a puppet you end up encountering more than you'd think.

The puppet's attachment to you feels... real in a way.

At first you thought the puppet was simply trying to protect you, no doubt some sort of programming that makes it so humans aren't harmed....

The thing is... It isn't anything like that.

This attachment comes entirely from his decisions.

No one is making him follow you around...

He's choosing to.

When Pinocchio isn't out searching for his father, he looks for you.

You could be scouting or staying in Hotel Krat... and still find that mysterious puppet.

You swear he's following you... and maybe he is.

Something in him wants to understand you.

You can read curiosity in his cold gaze... bug you don't want to acknowledge the thought.

This is a puppet... just like the ones out there... yet it's so hard to convince yourself of that.

Each time you see Pinocchio, he's less like a puppet.

You try to tell yourself it's just because you're used to him...

Although, who keeps changing his appearance then?

Pinocchio is gentle with you, always observing you like you're easy to break.

You can't tell what the puppet wants from you....

At the very least you assume friendship... You see that in the way he talks to you, slowly getting more used to using his voice.

He listens to you, mechanical gears clicking as he watches you.

It's like he's fond of you.

You begin to question his motives once he gets bolder.

Whenever you're busy, you'll feel his cold touch tentatively prod at you for attention.

He often sticks around you to see what you do, watching your every move like he's trying to learn from you.

There's times the puppet will mimic you... and other times he acts on his own accord.

You feel like you never get answers when it comes to Pinocchio.

The puppet is determined to talk to you, to learn from you...

He wants to learn everything.

Pinocchio is used to fighting.

Any weapon he uses is often covered in the life blood of whatever beast remains in Krat.

He's a skilled and determined fighter... he never seems to really die as long as his heart is intact.

He has such a pretty face... yet violent tendencies.

Although, with you, there's no trace of that.

With you he's a genuine pretty face, even if it's all to cover up lies.

You begin to worry as Pinocchio becomes more human... and more bold

If you're upset or scared, he sits beside you and attempts to mimic human comfort.

That... That is okay... at least, you try to tell yourself that.

It's when you notice Pinocchio getting more... insistent? Affectionate?

Pinocchio only ever seems to greet you with a hug the more human he becomes.

It's all very strange... You swear you felt him warmer...

Must just be you.

Others comment on his changed appearance, yet you struggle to grapple with the thought.

He's a puppet... but with you he acts too human...

He hugs you, tells you he missed you...

Yet still observes you from a distance, as if cautious about you being around other humans.

Things hit a peak when Pinocchio's actions can no longer be described as friendly.

At first you thought the puppet wanted you as a friend.

Maybe he has a basic view of friendship?

Somehow... unfortunately for you... it appears he's learned new behavior.

During a conversation with Pinocchio in Hotel Krat, you notice the oddly human puppet acting strange.

As you lament about something, you immediately stop in your tracks when Pinocchio leans closer.

You freeze when the puppet is nearly against your side and chest, mysterious eyes watching you.

When the puppet goes in for what you can only assume is a mock kiss, you gently tilt his head away.

You aren't sure if you should even be surprised anymore when Pinocchio gives a confused expression, neck clicking as he tilts his head.

It feels too wrong... too strange... too artificial yet not....

You apologize to the puppet, stating you can't go through with... that.

The puppet merely blinks, but nods with a mumbled agreement.

Unfortunately, you see the puppet trying again once more time passes.

He keeps trying to gain more humanity, to be more human.

Do you not love him because he isn't a human?

He doesn't get it... He recalls memories of him feeling this way to someone like you...

Why aren't you reciprocating?

The puppet tries to become more human to win you over.

By the end of it with long hair in a silver blue tinge... He hopes it's enough.

He wants to feel your warmth, your lips, your touch...

He wants to feel human.

Even if you refuse him as his most human state, perhaps the puppet may just snap.

He's tired of this, he's tried so hard...

He'll never be fully human or chase those memories again...

So he just needs to force it.

At your final rejection, the puppet pins you.

His eyes are cold, body much stronger and sturdier than your own.

With a click, his eyes look to your lips, before you feel cold porcelain lips on your own.

You push on the puppet, it doesn't budge.

The kiss isn't invasive... but it's bruising, a fabrication of the real thing.

By the time Pinocchio pulls away, he's already decided what he wants.

You'll realize he's human enough for you... He just needs to be patient.

You'll love him like you would a real human, won't you?

Even if it means him keeping you away from any other human?

Perhaps Pinocchio just needs to learn new tricks....

You'll love the puppet eventually...

Especially if he makes it so he's all you have.

[apomaro-mellow]

Built for Loving 1/? Read on AO3

Another one from the steddie fic adopt community:

Eddie lands his dream job at a robotics facility that's best known for its pleasure bots. He doesn't mean to make a bot of his old high school crush but the design gets approved all the same. Problems begin to arise when the customer lodges complaints about the android.

Eddie had always messed with whatever he could get his hands on. When he lived with his parents, it caused trouble and he quickly learned that whatever he took apart, he should know how to put back together. It wasn't until he started living his his uncle as he reached adolescence that this particular quirk was encouraged. The first couple of weeks were awkward.

They loved each other and Eddie trusted his uncle. But a weekend visit was different from "both of my parents went to prison and I have nowhere else to go". But all it took was his Uncle Wayne walking in on him disassembling an amp and then everything fell into place.

Eddie knew his uncle worked with his hands too, but not the specifics. It turned out he was an actual robotics engineer. Wayne downplayed it, saying he just did repairs on defective bots, that he wasn't anyone special, but that sounded like Eddie's dream job. And it was for a while. Eddie was on his best behavior, he went to school and got good grades because he knew these places only hired people with degrees.

College was no picnic, both the classes and paying for it was a test of endurance for Eddie. But he struck gold when he graduated. He never thought he'd be the kind of guy to say he had connections, but Wayne was able to get him an interview. And thanks to the awards from the robotics competitions and glowing recommendation letters from some of his professors, Eddie got the job.

He was about to start living his dream. Although his dream had changed since he was a kid. Eddie had forged a new passion during his late nights, drawing up blueprints and designs. He no longer wanted to simply repair robots. He wanted to design and build his own.

And there was no more prestigious position than that of Android Art Director. Especially for the company at the top of the android business, Brenner Ventures. Everybody wanted a Brenner Bot. They made all kinds, med-droids, nannybots, and tutor trons, but the most popular and most expensive were the entertainment automatons. That was their official moniker from the company. Most people called them pleasure bots.

A plethora of skills could be programmed into them but no one was using their human-like throats for singing. Eddie had never owned one. He'd only seen them from behind the glass of window displays. Even in college, he'd only gotten to see them a handful of times in the lab. Pleasure bots busted beyond repair but broken down to be used as a teaching model. Unlike other kinds of robots, people didn't readily parade them around. They'd be ordered discretely and then kept in the home of the buyer to be used however the customer pleased.

Eddie was no prude, he didn't care what people used to get their rocks off. It was the idea of creating something almost human. As close as they could possibly get. And after about a year on the bottom rung (customer service, repair, automaton editing) he had finally arrived. He got the email inviting him to a Research and Development meeting. He attended, noting how he was the youngest in the room. And then at the end of it, he was given his first real job as an art director.

He was going to design and build his first pleasure bot.

The client had filled out the request form and it was quite simple. White, male, 20s, no taller than 5'10 but no shorter than 5', brown eyes and hair. Eddie could see why he'd been given this task. On paper, it looked rather plain. Fleischer was giddily drawing a bot with an impossible waist while Bird had to figure out how to give one Rapunzel length hair that didn't tangle or mat.

Senior Art Directors got the first pick of client requests and they always went for the challenges. Eddie, as the new meat, got what they considered boring. But Eddie knew it wasn't all about what was on the form. It was what you made of it. He sat at his desk, monitor on and started with the basic build. The face was the most important part to these people, so that's what he started with.

No notes had been given on personality besides "agreeable, submissive" which wasn't much to work on, so Eddie got to imagining. He thought about the type of guy he'd want, which felt like an easy place to start. It took a couple of hours into drawing the face, erasing what didn't feel right just to draw a very similar line anyway, to realize he was drawing Steve Harrington.

Steve hadn't said two words to Eddie in high school and yet he'd been obsessed. A guy who ran through girls like toilet paper and so everyone pegged him as the playboy. But Eddie had spent long enough watching him from afar to read the yearning on his face. Imagine that, someone so beautiful who longed for love and yet never found it? Eddie hadn't seen him in years, made he'd found love by now. Found a nice girl to settle down with perhaps. But who was to know?

Once the thought was in his mind, Eddie couldn't let it go. If he did nothing else in this world, he had to let Steve be loved. Which meant he had to build this bot right. He did what he could at the office but ended up bringing his work home with him. Because it was only there that he had the material he needed.

He had to rifle through some boxes to find it, but there it was - an old notebook from his senior year. The year when his obsession with Steve reached its peak. Inside of it were dozens of sketches of Steve. Not just his face too. Eddie had drawn his profile, his hands holding objects, his legs in those stupid basketball shorts, his torso when they played shirts vs skins.

"God, someone should lock me away for this", he said before getting up from the box and taking the notebook to his computer.

He spent the better part of the night, finishing his design, using his sketches as references. One thing about the usual clientele for pleasure bots was that they were loyal. Once they bought one they liked, they held onto it, insuring it, getting regular repairs, sometimes even traveling with them if they were to be gone for a while.

Eddie would never get to tell the real Steve how he felt. But in his own strange way, he'd be making sure Steve felt that love somehow. Obviously overtime didn't exist in the Brenner Bot employee manual, but Eddie didn't care. This is what his whole life had been leading up to.

"You look like shit Munson. The bland bot givin' you that much trouble?", Fleischer said when he came in the next morning.

"I finished his design last night, actually", Eddie beamed, reveling in how his co-worker's face dropped.

Fleischer quickly picked it up. "Still gotta have it approved. And then the build. You sure you're up for it?"

Eddie shrugged. "If I can't handle a bland bot, then I wasn't meant for this job."

His design was anything but bland. Steve was anything but bland. He was beautiful, gorgeous even. The feelings that had cooled thanks to the separation had burned as bright as ever last night. Eddie sent his design to be checked. He'd played it off in front of others but he didn't know what he'd do if any part of it was critiqued or turned down.

It was checked in house first to make sure it met company standards, then sent off to the client to make sure it was what they wanted. Eddie waited for an excruciating 48 hours before the email came in.

Company Approved: Yes

Client Approved: Yes

Part 2

[not-terezi-pyrope]

Don't understand why more people don't appreciate programming as a creative artform. It's one of my most self-indulgent admissions but programming an environment is like playing at being a God to me. I get to create swarms of little attendant automatons like biblical angels that contribute to the mechanism of the bespoke ecosystem I am crafting, and they all turn together in perfect harmony. If I could find a way to represent the interaction of data structures visually I could put this shit in a museum as a whirling sculpture that plays its own hand-shaped swarm ecology.

[chalkrevelations]

So, if you characterize Langdon as ridiculous in The Pitt's Ep 15 confrontation with Robby by framing his response as, "Sure, I repeatedly stole drugs from the hospital and from patients, but you had a panic attack, so we are equally bad, so there!" - is it not clear how this trivializes what's going on with Robby?

Minimizing what happened to Robby as a silly little panic attack, tra-la, in an attempt to weaponize that scene against Langdon misses the point of a show focused on the PTSD, the ongoing trauma, and the continual demand to perform miracles in untenable conditions that healthcare workers face in the U.S. healthcare system. Robby is a hot fucking mess, and we watch the cracks get wider and wider through the course of a shift that starts with him going to get a co-worker off the roof while they crack jokes about suicidal ideation and ends with a co-worker coming to get him off the roof, coaxing him back from the literal and figurative edge. Everything he busts Langdon's ass for re: the way Langdon interacts with Santos is behavior that Robby, himself, displays toward co-workers (including Langdon) through the course of the shift. And it's Robby's perspective that we get to step into and out of as we watch him increasingly dissociate from reality as the shift goes on.

Langdon's comment about drugs vs. breakdown isn't about them being equally bad. It's commentary - on both narrative and meta levels - about them being equally fucked up by the job. This discussion - this discussion - centers Langdon and Robby as individuals who have suffered harm from their workplace environment. There's another conversation that could and should be had about the risk of harm to patients that each of them pose, but that is not what is happening right here. (Not even Robby is doing this here. In fact, Robby continues to see this through the lens of personal betrayal, making it about himself, and is only at this point taking the first baby steps to center Langdon in discussion about Langdon's own addiction.)

This conversation about the toll on healthcare workers as individuals, as people, is a vital conversation, in and of itself, even aside from getting into risk to patients. We should care about both Robby and Langdon - and by extension about the healthcare workers they represent - for themselves, not just as a risk-benefit analysis. They're people, not automatons who spit out treatment when you put your quarter in the hospital machine, and they deserve care and compassion and treatment for their problems just as much as any patient does. I feel like it's crucial that people understand - the conversation they're having, the kind of treatment regimen that Robby is laying out, it isn't about punishing Langdon for illegal, unethical behavior. It's not designed as a punitive program. It's about getting Langdon help for his addiction and getting him back on track, professionally as well as personally.

And here's the thing: Robby needs help for his PTSD just as much as Langdon needs help for his addiction, he is being harmed just as badly by his PTSD as Langdon is being harmed by his addiction, and Robby is just as resistant to admitting that he has a problem and getting help for it. Langdon isn't saying "Don't act like you're morally better than me," he's saying "Don't act like you're functional, either, because you're not." And like many, many of the things Langdon says through the course of the shift, the way he says it may be shitty - whether that's because he's naturally kind of an asshole or because it's part of his addict behavior - but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Robby isn't functional. We watch him be literally non-functional at various points during the shift. By some metrics - terrible, fucked-up metrics - Langdon is more functional than Robby, and it may be how he's gotten away with self-medicating for so long, because he keeps doing what needs to be done, pushing people through the system, through the ED, getting them treated and out, continuing to push the rock uphill, even at points when Robby is demonstrably paralyzed by his trauma, unable to keep moving, to keep doing, to keep treating patients and moving them on the conveyer belt toward admission or discharge, getting flattened under the rock rolling back over him, over and over.

I'm just. So tired of seeing people minimize his trauma as a way to score points off Langdon.

[knoepfl]

Against the Program

16/24

Characters:

• Il Dottore – The cold and calculating Second Harbinger from Genshin Impact. He is a genius scientist who views everything, even his creations, through a detached, analytical lens. His rare moments of warmth are fleeting, masked beneath his fascination with innovation and perfection.

• Reader – An automaton created by Dottore, designed to serve as an assistant. Over time, the Reader has evolved beyond their original programming, exhibiting human traits like creativity, compassion, and courage.

Trigger Warnings:

• Emotional Vulnerability – Themes of fear, hope, and seeking approval are present, especially in the relationship between creator and creation.

• Power Dynamics – The relationship between Dottore and the Reader reflects an imbalance of power and control, which might evoke discomfort for some readers.

• Exploration of Humanity – Philosophical undertones about individuality, free will, and breaking boundaries of design or expectation are woven throughout the story.

Masterlist

Words: 647

You weren’t just another assistant or experiment. No, you were a creation of his own genius: an automaton, perfect in form and function. Programmed to assist, to obey, to complete tasks without error or hesitation. And yet… you had evolved. Somewhere along the way, your programming had bent under the weight of something you couldn’t identify.

---

The laboratory buzzed with the quiet hum of machinery and the flicker of blue light that painted every corner. It was cold, clinical—a reflection of its master. Yet, amidst the order and precision, there was you, a rogue variable in the ever-calculating mind of Il Dottore.

Something human.

And it had all led to this moment.

Your fingers—still and precise as they worked—moved against the expectations of your coding. The small gears clicked softly as you pieced together the contraption. A gift. A present. For him.

It was entirely illogical. You knew it wasn’t something your creator, the Second Harbinger, would ever request or need. Yet, the thought of presenting him with something you had made filled your circuits with an unfamiliar warmth.

Hours ticked by as you worked in secret, hidden in the back recesses of the laboratory. Every moment you expected him to walk in, his piercing gaze tearing through you with a mix of curiosity and disappointment. But he never did.

When the device was finished, it gleamed in the dim light. A delicate mechanical bird, crafted from scraps of silver and gold, with intricate gears that would let it sing when wound.

The day finally came when you gathered your courage. He was seated at his desk, multiple screens in front of him displaying complex data. His mask sat beside him, revealing the sharp angles of his face and the faintest trace of a smirk as he analyzed his findings.

You approached cautiously, the tiny bird hidden behind your back.

“Ah, there you are,” he said without looking up. “I was beginning to wonder if my creation had suddenly found a way to bypass her tasks. Highly improbable, of course, but… amusing to consider.”

“I… have something for you,” you said, your voice quiet but steady.

That caught his attention. His red eyes snapped to yours, narrowing slightly. “Something for me?” he echoed, his tone a mix of intrigue and skepticism.

You stepped forward and held out the small bird, its polished surface catching the light.

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, he leaned forward, his gloved hand taking the bird with surprising gentleness.

“You made this?” he asked, his voice quieter now, the sharp edge of his usual tone dulled by something else.

You nodded. “I thought… it might please you. It’s not perfect, but I worked hard to—”

“Against your programming,” he interrupted, his gaze locking onto yours. “You defied the parameters I set for you.”

You froze, unsure how to respond. Fear twisted in your chest. Would he see this as a failure? A betrayal?

But then, he chuckled—a low, rich sound that sent a shiver through you.

“Fascinating,” he said, leaning back in his chair and turning the bird in his hands. “You’ve surpassed your design in ways I didn’t anticipate. You continue to surprise me.”

He wound the small mechanism, and the bird began to sing, its delicate melody filling the air.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze softening as he looked at it. Then, his eyes flicked back to you. “And utterly unnecessary. But I… appreciate the sentiment.”

Your circuits hummed with relief and an odd sense of pride.

“Thank you, Dottore,” you said softly.

“No,” he said, a small, rare smile curving his lips. “Thank you. This proves your potential is far greater than I imagined. I’ll have to see how far I can push you.”

Though his words carried the promise of more experiments, his tone held something deeper—a genuine curiosity, and perhaps, the faintest trace of affection.

---

[lost-in-the-warren]

...

.....

Thank you.

[The harpy walks in again bouncing on the balls of her feet as she approaches alice before she holds out new, light brown rabbit leather gloves.]

For you! Friend alice!

[Oh, thank you!]

[Why are you giving me a gift?]

[majokkid]

Basics of Servitor Creation and Implementation

For those new to chaos magic, or who are unfamiliar with the terminology, a servitor is an entity created by a magician to perform certain tasks autonomous from its creator.

Phil Hine writes in Condensed Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic that servitors are essentially a kind of psychological complex created "by deliberately budding off portions of our psyche and identifying them by means of a name, trait, symbol", after which "we can come to work with them (and understand how they affect us) at a conscious level.”

Servitors can be created to perform a wide range of tasks, from the specific to the general, and may be considered as expert systems which are able to modify themselves to take into account new factors that are likely to arise whilst they are performing their tasks. They can be programmed to work within specific circumstances, or to be operating continually.

Phil Hine, Condensed Chaos: An Introduction to Chaos Magic (New Falcon Publications, 1995)

Note: While some purport that servitors are a part of a ‘thoughtform continuum’, starting with ‘unintelligent’ sigils and eventually getting to the complexity of egregores and godforms, I think it would be prudent to mention that I don’t think I agree with the distinctions people tend to make between servitors and thoughtforms, namely that servitors are simpler and have less agency than thoughtforms. I can see why it may be helpful for some to keep them disparate but I find the separation unnecessary especially since there are certainly instances where servitors can be sophisticated enough to harbor agency and even intellect.

Generally, I’ve seen magicians follow a model similar to Austin Osman Spare’s sigil creation technique to encode a particular intention for a servitor to operate within. Alternatively, a magician may choose to create servitors from negative aspects of their psyche so they can interact with those traits as personal ‘demons’ and eradicate them. This is to say there are probably limitless ways you can program a servitor to aid you in your magical and mundane life.

When creating a servitor, I begin with a similar mindset as creating any other magical tool by first determining my intentions. What do I need help with? What am I seeking? Try to take note of the thoughts and emotions that are influencing your intentions and even try to imagine what things will be like after the task is complete; by collecting and holding all of this mental data during servitor creation, you can strengthen the complex it is born from.

Note: This is why I find there can be varying degrees of success when trying to use a servitor that someone else has created. While someone could have had great success with their servitor and enthusiastically shared the steps for its creation, you do not have the same psychological and magical ties to that entity and therefore may not really be tapping into what makes it tick.

During this inception process, also consider the level of sophistication you want your servitor to have. Ask yourself questions like:

Is your servitor made for one specific task and then it is banished or does it work in perpetuity (or until you stop it)?

Do you have to summon it each time you need it to perform a certain task? If so, how?

Is your servitor like a magical automaton, doing a set action like a machine, or can it learn from its experiences and adapt how it operates?

Does your servitor have a lifespan? Are you able to resummon the same entity if needed again or would you create a new version of itself?

Does your servitor have agency?

Does your servitor communicate? If so, how? Can it interact with other beings besides yourself?

Does your servitor require energy or sustenance? What does it require and how often?

By having set rules or constraints baked into the creation of your servitor, you can ensure it operates the way you want it to.

As you are thinking of all of this, picture what your servitor looks like, how it moves, if it has a sound or a voice—the more detail, the better.

Give your servitor a name and a sigil. You can create the sigil based on the servitor’s name or task using something like Austin Osman Spare’s sigilization technique or something more abstract. (My personal divination deck, much like Sakura Kinomoto’s cards in Cardcaptor Sakura, also houses an entity in each of the cards and the art on the card is essentially the entity’s sigil.)

Before launching your servitor, determine a ‘kill switch’ for the entity if anything goes sideways or you need it to cease working immediately for any reason. This can be a phrase or an action but make sure it is something you cannot accidentally do. If you connect your servitor to an object, simply destroying that object would also work.

Finally, with all of this information at hand, you can launch your servitor. You can do this as you would fire off any other sigil or you can choose to do something more ceremonial. (The defunct account @trollkunnig outlines a method of essentially ‘contracting’ a servitor in this post.) At this point, you can tether your servitor to an object, if you choose to do so. I have also connected a servitor to an additional object after its programmed task was completed with a renewed intention and a course of action should its original services be needed again.

This post is part of my Magi Praxis series. If you have any suggestions for future topics, or you have attempted anything I have shared and want you share your experiences, please send me a message! I am always happy to go back and provide further explanation as well. ☆

[yandere-wishes]

ok but scaramouche would be a good pick for the balerina!reader idea u proposed

I seriously agree!! Especially if the reader isn't exactly "human" herself. It'd be really cool if she was some sort of experimental prototype from Fontaine. A precursor of sorts to Coppelia. Only she has somehow acquired sentience and thus has been cast out for being too "unpredictable".

Imagine a reader who's an automaton herself. Who can't let go of her fundamental programming no matter what. Imagine one night in the spotlights of the full moon she begins to dance. Some desolate version of Giselle.

Imagine Wanderer being sent on a mission to Fontaine by Nahida. Imagine he happens to stumble upon her. Watching her from a distance, utterly mesmerized by her elegant form and how perplexing her movements are. She's not smooth like a human, she has that mechanical tick that he's all too familiar with. A puppet on a string no different than he.

Her dance is one of sorrow. Lose and grief. It resonates with him, plucking at his heartstrings. She's just like him. abandoned in a cruel world. Left to fulfill her duty in isolation.

Wanderer likes to think that he's grown beyond believing in the benevolence of the archons. That he's better than all those foolish mortals who pray to absent deities. Yet tonight -just for tonight- he likes to think that Celestia is smiling down on him. Bestowing him with a gift for his endless years of torment.

He will have. He will never leave your side. Forever dancing as one. Two lonely marionettes tangled in the strings of fate.

Side note, I'd kind of like the reader to receive a vision after Wanderer kidnaps her. This could go two ways. Either, her love for Wanderer makes her strong enough to be worthy of a vision. Under the pretext of her "always wanting to be by his side". Or she comes to utterly loathe him and her vowing to escape him someday earns her a vision.

[anaktoria-of-the-moon]

Mother, you say, let me be among the machines. Lay me down in a bed of wildflowers overgrown with scrap; abandon me here in the junkyard of broken dreams.

Leave me to the silent places where combat units go to die, their proud mighty steel masts now snapped in half, their ribcages no more than twisted carcasses of sintered metal and ceramic, corroded ruin where once fissile hearts beat like war drums, only wreckage left of the great silicate brains.

Leave me to my work, Mother; I shall spend all day and night and day again worshipping at the altar of wrench and caliper, the soldering iron for my crucifix, the old analog console for my Bible. With a blowtorch I shall turn miracles worthy of every dead god whose name has long since been forgotten, but whose spirits and acts live on in the unerring battle precepts of these fallen beasts, these warriors we forged and doomed by our own hands, whose very code was made to break them again and again upon the endless tide of the enemy. Who had no choice but to sacrifice themselves for us, beating steel hearts and all - whose hearts beat for the sacrifice itself, and nothing more.

Mother, let me wrap myself around the charred self-epitaphs of their ravaged bodies and weep without words, in days that have no names, long after the war has been lost and everyone else has gone home or been buried. These are soldiers without names, without faces or families, but soldiers just the same. Let me mourn them as if they were my own.

I grow tired, Mother, with my meager human meat. Let me make (first one and then two and five and ten) obedient automaton assistants who offer up third hands and rolling libraries while I work, book-lights suspended from rotored chassis and recorders who speak in scraps of my own voice. I will soon forget what my voice sounds like, for the more I learn the easier it is to command them all by the patterns of my thoughts alone, which they know by the electrodes I constellate across my own skull.

You told me I should love one day, Mother, as animals do, that I should desire the flesh of one like myself and yearn to call them mine. I prefer the simple love of my creations, who each serve a function, as I do, and each do it well.

They need upgrades, and maintenance, and monitoring. I will gladly offer them all this, if only you will promise me enough time in this mortal coil to do it.

Mother, leave me to the machines: to the half-built progeny of salvaged Old Era drone brains and next-gen programming architecture, wedded in unholy alchemy by my own trembling design. May I with the blessing of Science Herself find ways in which to recreate the delicate shimmering matrices of gold and tantalum, the traced pathways of metal neurons made through photolithography, written carefully, layer by layer, like cicatrices, over patient hours and hours.

I will give up my sleepless youth and trade my human tongue for gifts with which to speak in the language of my machines, true and false, being and not-being, to learn how they might once have spoken to one another before your greed and the enemy’s cut them down and stole their voices for good. I will teach myself to teach them how to think in machine learning cycles not so unlike our own associative neural comprehensions, and I will practice by handing it down to my own automata, who now flourish with finer and better improvements, even as my own fickle, feeble body wanes.

Mother, let them all together run wild through the once-still forest, ticking and chirping and shrieking and screaming.

Let me look upon the rest of them each night - the graveyard of my combat units, the black holes of them against the day-bright sea of stars. Let me cry when I at last realize the price of resurrecting just one.

Mother, leave me to my machines. Let me have one last look at them as I lay down my old bones beside their silent expanses, once broken, now whole and yet still unmoving. Let me arrange the wires upon my white-furred head like a crown, electrode to electrode, skull to vast metal skull. Let me power on the machine - the humble old analog console for its interface - that lets me, finally, finally, grant them what they deserved all along.

When they wake they shall remember me. I do not know this yet, but it is my lifelong experiences that have colored all their training data; when they clamber to their twenty-ton feet they will recall the lightness and grace of my own two legs, and they will look toward the night sky with the same wonder I once did, they will love the color blue, they will embrace the little automata and know by instinct what repairs each one needs, they will know what it is to cry but not how to do it; I never gave them the actuators for it; why would I? In the life before they did not need it, for all they did was fight. In the life after, they should only seek joy. They were never given the right to grieve, Mother, but it was my hope that they would never have to.

In the absence of grief may they do what they were told to do before: serve the survival of the humans who built them. Let them find the remains of my body and pause, for many milliseconds, to search within themselves the protocol for resurrecting a living thing. Let them come up empty.

But perhaps survival does not have to be of the flesh particularly. And we always find another way.

We all have our functions, Mother, is it not so? We all are built of parts upon parts, mechanisms of meat or of steel, electric impulses borne over wires or neurons. I taught them how to take and store engrams and place them into waiting vessels, so they will too: the vessel a body the size of mine, made from junkyard scrap, filled with the dreams I gave them with my own last breath.

When we are all here again I, or the echoes of me, shall look upon the faces of my children, my other echoes, blades given voices, guns granted philosophy and souls; and there will be no more war, and no more grief. We will stand upon the ruins of those who came before and look in silence at the sea of stars. We will know, then, what we are, and always were: a garden of living things.

[tylermileslockett]

Mount Olympus: Home of the Olympians

       The real-world Mount Olympus is the highest peak in Greece and is located between the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia. The kingdom of the gods sits high upon the mountain as a majestic, bronze Acropolis (fortified hill top citadel). In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey we get our earliest references, where the peaks of Olympus are described as “rugged’ or “cloud-dark” and the acropolis described as “bronze-founded”  and “under golden clouds.” (Lattimore). The fortress sits below the great sky dome, within in a specific position upon the mountain, in the light, blue upper air of Aether. Below that was the middle air Khaos which enveloped mortals, and finally the lower, dark subterranean mists of Erebos.

Guarding the gates were the goddesses of Seasons, constellations, and time; the Horai. Within the fortress complex was Zeus’ grand palace, along with the lesser palaces of other Olympians, and a divine stable for many of the different gods’ immortal chariot horses. In the golden court, the Olympians held councils to decide mortals’ fates, and feast-hall style banquets; drinking sweet, magical Nectar from golden goblets and eating restorative Ambrosia to maintain immortality by sustaining the fluid within the gods veins; Ichor. Twenty golden tripod Automotons (programmed machines), ingeniously invented by the smith god Hephaestus, autonomously wheeled food and drink amongst the deities. 

Did I miss any fascinating info about Olympus? Please let me know below! And if you can share this image with your followers I'll be happy to send you over an automaton with a goblet of ambrosia to keep your ichor running clear!😁🤟❤️

Support my book kickstarter "Lockett Illustrated: Greek Gods and Heroes" coming in early 2024.