15 - Bright lights, fast cars, disease

[no_fastolfe]

Why is it always Earth?

Why is it always so crowded?

[Filtered to friends]
Who knows this place? What is expected besides rampant capitalism and hordes of people-- this I have noticed already.

Comments

[hourglass_twin]

That sounds pleasant.

...robot? Like the sort of thing T-X is?

[no_fastolfe]

An Ascenion robot is as dissimilar from the T-X as a warm incandescent light from a wildfire. Both sources of light and heat, but in their behavior and their purpose, light-years removed!

The are artificial intelligences and so is she, but there the resemblance ends.

[hourglass_twin]

...what are incandescent lights?

But I understand your statement. They are not as...unpredictable as she.

Private

[no_fastolfe]

A light produced by running an electrical current through a wire suspended in a vacuum. Less efficient than the fluorescent lights that characterize the barge, they produce more heat, but they also have a golden tone pleasantly similar to sunlight.

The robots of my world and timeline are designed as aids and companions to humanity-- their very base design prevents them from being able to harm a human. I have known them since my birth as servants, as guardians, as caretakers, and... friends. Beings I understand and can trust. The T-X is the antithesis to every principle of engineering I have learned, and... simply... wrong, viewed through the lens of my upbringing.

Private

[hourglass_twin]

I thought the lights on the Barge were simply magic.

Perhaps the robots in your world will one day grow weary of being servants. While normally I would not think a machine could grow weary of anything, I also wouldn't think a machine could be a friend, so if it can do one, it can certainly do the other. Besides, though T-X took a strange interest in my eyes and seemed overly certain that I needed a medical exam, is she not a warden?

Private

[no_fastolfe]

They have the color characteristic to fluorescent lights. I would be surprised if they were not.

But it is true; the more advanced robots become, the more likely that they will develop a need for more input-- to not simply be obedient, but to explore and impose their own judgment. I have seen such a thing already.

But the basic nature of the Ascenion robot is to co-exist with humanit, not to destroy it.

Private

[hourglass_twin]

I wouldn't know. I've never seen fluorescent lights.

But if they could explore and impose their own judgement, could they not deviate from their basic nature?

Private

[no_fastolfe]

Can we deviate from breathing, simply because we wish to? Would we wish to?

Private

[hourglass_twin]

We'd suffocate and die. I doubt they'd die from harming a human, not directly, anyway.

\Private

[no_fastolfe]

...at the state of robotics as they stand, yes, a robot will go into irreversable mental freeze-out by harming a human. It is the primary of the three laws of robotics.

\Private

[hourglass_twin]

But if they are self aware, there's always the chance they will find a way to work around this.

Private

[no_fastolfe]

It is... certainly possible. [She's being cagey about something.]

But they were designed to be symbiotic with us, not in competition. Even as they advance they will not compete with us for resources or property; their priorities are different. We are complementary beings.

Private

[hourglass_twin]

In my experience, when one is tired of being a servant, it has very little to do with competition over resources and property.

Private

[no_fastolfe]

I can only tell you this: an advanced robot is inteligent enough to have solutions other than violence.

Even the most advanced, most unthinkably individual among them considers himself still a friend of humanity. Whether as I once thought, he was malfunctioning, or whether he represents the next step in robotic evolution-- spontaneous and undesigned by humans-- he was nothing like the T-X.

Private

[hourglass_twin]

I see. To be honest, I know very little of what T-X is like, as I said before.