Robots vs. Fairies(63)

“He should have a name,” the man said.

“He doesn’t need a name. He’s not an individual. At night he shares his memories with all the other machines.” Sigrid frowned. “You do know that, don’t you? That he’s not . . . real?”

“People believe in plenty of things that aren’t supposed to be real,” the man said. “Ghosts. Goblins. God.”

The woman sipped her wine and reached over to take hold of some grapes. “Nothing can ever become real unless someone loves it first. Like in that book about the stuffed rabbit.”

“And often we love without ever truly knowing if we are loved in return,” the man added. “That’s faith, isn’t it? Not knowing, not being sure, but persevering anyway?”

The assistant did not recognize these people—their faces were not on the preapproved list, and they weren’t wearing handhelds he could ask for help, which was odd—but Sigrid seemed familiar with them. Perhaps she or Erika had simply forgotten to add them to the list. After all, it appeared they lived in this caravan, which meant they traveled frequently. And Sigrid knew a great many people. She had followers all over the world. It was not unusual for people to recognize her.

“I hadn’t thought of it in that way.” Sigrid turned to him. “Would you like a name?”

“I would not object to it.” He paused. “You have names for all your other tools.”

“Is that what you are?” the woman asked. “One of her tools?”

“I believe I fit one definition of that term,” the assistant answered. “I wrap bundles and besoms, and I set out the spheres, and I measure the herbs and resins for incense, and I organize the oils and candles, and—”

“It’s not the same,” Sigrid interrupted. “He works, but he doesn’t do workings.”

The assistant wasn’t sure he had heard that correctly. Something in the syntax of the sentence didn’t make sense. But it would be rude to interrupt and ask Sigrid about it at present. There were very clear linguistic protocols about interrupting.

“So the two of you are not friends,” the woman said.

Sigrid frowned. She glanced quickly at the assistant, and then back at the other two. “Excuse me?”

“Friends are not tools to be used,” the woman said. “Until this one is more than just a tool, he can never truly be your friend.”

“But a friend—a companion—is best, for a journey,” the man added. “Better than a sword, or a walking stick, or even a good pair of shoes.”

Sigrid looked confused. The assistant reasoned that she couldn’t possibly be as confused as he was. Obviously Sigrid was not his friend. She could never be friends with something that had no soul, and she was very clear on the subject of his not having a soul. “Perhaps we should be going,” he said. “Sigrid? Would you like to go home?”

“Yes, Sigrid.” The man leaned forward over the table. He put his glass down. “Where would you like to go from here? We could take you wherever you liked.”

“We could see new things, and meet new people,” the woman added. “All of us.”

Sigrid’s expression closely matched the exemplars for fear. But as the assistant watched, it transformed. Her open mouth closed into a smile. Her wide eyes found crinkles at their corners. “I think I will have some of your wine after all,” she said. “And some of that food, too.”

“We like to share our bounty when we can,” the woman said, pouring.

The man loaded Sigrid’s plate with cheese and fish and grapes. “It’s a good thing we brought enough.”

Sigrid’s hand hovered over the grapes. She raised her head and looked at the assistant with clear eyes. Carefully, she bit into a grape. Purple juice ran over her gnarled fingers. She reached out. His sensors said she was drawing something on him.

“Sigridsson,” she murmured. “Your new name is Sigridsson.”

“Look,” the man said, pointing.

The assistant looked out the open door of the caravan. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at. There was the lava field, and the ocean beyond. A field of stubbly gray bound by a void of black. He saw without seeing; somehow, more of his function was devoted to playing and replaying Sigrid’s words. She had named him.

“Watch carefully,” the man instructed. “What do you see?”

And then, quite suddenly, Sigridsson did see it. It was a road in the sky. It rippled ever wider, like the wake left behind by a great ship. It was immense, and full of light, like a procession of people carrying lanterns. And finally he could answer the question no one had thought to ask him.

“It’s beautiful,” Sigridsson said. “It’s so beautiful.”





TEAM ROBOT




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BY MADELINE ASHBY

I love robots. I wrote a whole trilogy about them. Probably it has to do with my dad showing me Blade Runner when I was in the third grade. But as someone raised Catholic and who attended a Jesuit university, the question of belief in my fellow human beings has always fascinated me. To me, there’s no difference between believing in the essential dignity of an organic human and believing in the essential dignity of a synthetic human. Besides, how do you even know that the humans who surround you are actually humans? I don’t mean that they might be robots, but hey, they might be serial killers, or racists, or misogynists, or people who otherwise don’t really see you as human. How do you know that your fellow humans see you as a fellow human? What is your guarantee? If it’s just that you happen to share an organic body, then you’re screwed. That’s no basis upon which to build a relationship of trust or affirmation. Plenty of our fellow organic humans have no problem hurting other humans. Your odds are actually better with a robot that has some form of “human detection” built in—provided that the biases of the programmer have been accounted for, in some way.