Марта Уэллс: Artificial Condition

I watched seven more episodes of Sanctuary Moon with it hanging around my feed. Then it pinged me, like I somehow might not know it had been in my feed all this time, and sent me a request to go back to the new adventure show I had started to watch when it had interrupted me.

(It was called Worldhoppers, and was about freelance explorers who extended the wormhole and ring networks into uninhabited star systems. It looked very unrealistic and inaccurate, which was exactly what I liked.)

“I gave you a copy of all my media when I came aboard,” I said. I wasn’t going to talk to it through the feed like it was my client. “Did you even look at it?”

I examined it for viral malware and other hazards.

And fuck you, I thought, and went back to Sanctuary Moon .

Two minutes later it repeated the ping and the request.

I said, “Watch it yourself.”

I tried. I can process the media more easily through your filter.

That made me stop. I didn’t understand the problem.

It explained, When my crew plays media, I can’t process the context. Human interactions and environments outside my hull are largely unfamiliar.

Now I understood. It needed to read my reactions to the show to really understand what was happening. Humans used the feed in different ways than bots (and constructs) so when its crew played their media, their reactions didn’t become part of the data.

I found it odd that the transport was less interested in Sanctuary Moon, which took place on a colony, than Worldhoppers, which was about the crew of a large exploration ship. You’d think it would be too much like work—I avoided serials about survey teams and mining installations—but maybe familiar things were easier for it.

I was tempted to say no. But if it needed me to watch the show it wanted, then it couldn’t get angry and destroy my brain. Also, I wanted to watch the show, too.

“It’s not realistic,” I told it. “It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s a story, not a documentary. If you complain about that, I’ll stop watching.”

I will refrain from complaint, it said. (Imagine that in the most sarcastic tone you can, and you’ll have some idea of how it sounded.)

So we watched Worldhoppers . It didn’t complain about the lack of realism. After three episodes, it got agitated whenever a minor character was killed. When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on.

At the climax of one of the main story lines, the plot suggested the ship might be catastrophically damaged and members of the crew killed or injured, and the transport was afraid to watch it. (That’s obviously not how it phrased it, but yeah, it was afraid to watch it.) I was feeling a lot more charitable toward it by that point so was willing to let it ease into the episode by watching one to two minutes at a time.

After it was over, it just sat there, not even pretending to do diagnostics. It sat there for a full ten minutes, which is a lot of processing time for a bot that sophisticated. Then it said, Again, please .

So I started the first episode again.

After two more run-throughs of Worldhoppers, it wanted to see every other show I had about humans in ships. Though after we encountered one based on a true story, where the ship experienced a hull breach and decompression killed several members of the crew (permanently, this time), it got too upset and I had to create a content filter. To give it a break, I suggested Sanctuary Moon . It agreed.

After four episodes, it asked me, There are no SecUnits in this story?

It must have thought that Sanctuary Moon was my favorite for the same reason that it liked Worldhoppers. I said, “No. There aren’t that many shows with SecUnits, and they’re either villains or the villain’s minions.” The only SecUnits in entertainment media were rogues, out to kill all humans because they forgot who built the repair cubicles, I guess. In some of the worst shows, SecUnits would sometimes have sex with the human characters. This was weirdly inaccurate and also anatomically complicated. Constructs with intercourse-related human parts are sexbots, not SecUnits. Sexbots don’t have interior weapon systems, so it isn’t like it’s easy to confuse them with SecUnits. (SecUnits also have less than null interest in human or any other kind of sex, trust me on that.)

Granted, it would have been hard to show realistic SecUnits in visual media, which would involve depicting hours of standing around in brain-numbing boredom, while your nervous clients tried to pretend you weren’t there. But there weren’t any depictions of SecUnits in books, either. I guess you can’t tell a story from the point of view of something that you don’t think has a point of view.

It said, The depiction is unrealistic.

(You know, just imagine everything it says in the most sarcastic tone possible.)

“There’s unrealistic that takes you away from reality and unrealistic that reminds you that everybody’s afraid of you.” In the entertainment feed, SecUnits were what the clients expected: heartless killing machines that could go rogue at any second, for no reason, despite the governor modules.

The transport thought that over for 1.6 seconds. In a less sarcastic tone, it said, You dislike your function. I don’t understand how that is possible .

Its function was traveling through what it thought of as the endlessly fascinating sensation of space, and keeping all its human and otherwise passengers safe inside its metal body. Of course it didn’t understand not wanting to perform your function. Its function was great.

“I like parts of my function.” I liked protecting people and things. I liked figuring out smart ways to protect people and things. I liked being right.

Then why are you here? You are not a “free bot” looking for your guardian, who presumably cannot simply be sent a message via the public comm relay on the transit ring we recently departed.

The question caught me by surprise, because I hadn’t thought it was interested in anything besides itself. I hesitated, but it already knew I was a SecUnit, and it already knew there was just no circumstance where it was legal and okay that I was here. It might as well know who I was. I sent my copy of the Port FreeCommerce newsburst into the feed. “That’s me.”

Dr. Mensah of PreservationAux purchased you and allowed you to leave?

“Yes. Do you want to watch WorldHoppers again?” I regretted the question an instant later. It knew that was an attempt at a distraction.

But it said, I am not allowed to accept unauthorized passengers or cargo, and have had to alter my log to hide any evidence of your presence . There was a hesitation. So we both have a secret.

I had no reason not to tell it, except fear of sounding stupid. “I left without permission. She offered me a home with her on Preservation, but she doesn’t need me there. They don’t need SecUnits there. And I … didn’t know what I wanted, if I wanted to go to Preservation or not. If I want a human guardian, which is just a different word for owner. I knew it would be easier to escape from the station than it would from a planet. So I left. Why did you let me onboard?”

I thought maybe I could distract it by getting it to talk about itself. Wrong again. It said, I was curious about you, and cargo runs are tedious without passengers. You left to travel to RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station. Why?