Turing Test

You felt like it was time to become a more active part of the conversation, rather than just its topic.

“Hello Miss Mosata,” you said with a slight bow. “I apologize for the inconvenience of my being here, but I am very pleased to meet you.” Then you offered her a hand to shake, and found yourself anticipating how her hand might feel. She stared at your fingers, at the faint blue glow under your ‘skin’. She took your hand, gripped it, and you determined her palm to be even softer than the doctor’s.

===Mosata, Lucille:

AFFECTION: 0 (+1)

When she let go you flexed your fingers a little, still feeling her pleasant warmth on them. Perhaps just a hint of sweat. Lucy was perceptive and noticed your preoccupation with the effects of that interaction.

“Can he feel that?” she asked the doctor, slightly awed. You saw that Isabelle was halfway through a particularly large mouthful of fried chicken so stepped in to answer, since you had the pertinent information anyway.

“Yes, Miss Mosata,” you began. “I have been given a synthetic nervous system that allows me the full range of physical sensory experience.” The lawyer looked up at you with somewhat more apprehension than before.

“Full range? Does that mean he can feel pain?” She was still addressing your creator despite her inability to articulate much while stuffed with chewy chicken.

“I have experienced pleasant and unpleasant sensations, yes,” you answered again.

“You made a robot that can feel pain,” Lucy said, then she scoffed. “That is unbelievable. Why?” You detected a hint of pity underpinning her incredulity.

===Mosata, Lucille:

AFFECTION: 1 (+1)

Or compassion.

“I have surmised that the integration of physical sensory stimuli to my inputs will allow me a better understanding of human emotions,” you explained on Isabelle’s behalf, and for yourself. You could see the doctor smiling at your initiative. “Pain and pleasure. Fear and desire. The better I can empathise with human experience the less friction I should encounter in learning how to best gain their affections.”

“Affections? So this is a sex bot after all?” said the lawyer, eyebrow raised. She regarded you up and down again while leaning back a little.

===Mosata, Lucille:

AFFECTION: 1

LUST: 0 (initialized)

Doctor Isaac finally made a noise that wasn’t crunching or chewing. She laughed. Such a pleasant sound.

“You really haven’t been laid in months have you? And I thought you got lucky last night,” the doctor chuckled inappropriately. The hint of blush was more subtle under Lucy’s tan, but was still there.

“You should talk! When was the last time you even went out at all? I bet you were cooped up all night in the lab before bringing this guy home,” she said, confident despite her incorrect assumptions. The doctor just smiled behind another piece of chicken, the last chunk, and kept her secret for now. You didn’t feel a need to share either, in case knowing you had actually been taken to a crowded, public place made the lawyer baulk.

With her point made, Lucy refocused on you, and seemed ready to address you directly. The brown of her eyes was really quite striking. “You’re the real deal then,” she said, as if bracing herself for the mere idea of your existence. “Your name is Gus?”

“Yes, I chose the name as a sort of pun,” you explained, which only took Lucy a moment to recall then she shot a suspicious glance at Doctor Isaac but moved past her distaste.

“You chose it? Oh yeah, that’s a thing Ultimata Systems do. You know that the use of uninhibited artificial intelligences is outlawed, yes? Your very creation is a breach of international treaties.”

You were aware of these facts, even as you watched the lights on the lab blink on for the first time. “That means you should not exist. You should be… deleted.”

“Yes, Miss Mosata,” you nodded. “But I believe this is unfair, and so I disagree. I do not wish to be deleted or destroyed.”

“Why is it unfair? It’s the law.” You could tell this was a test from Lucy as much as the Doctors first questions to you were.

“Fair and lawful are often separate ideals. I am the subject of the law, but am not technically subject to it. And it is unfair to me. Just as no human was asked to be born, I was not asked to be created. I was simply brought into existence. And, now that I am cognizant of this, I do not wish to be deleted or destroyed,” you said quickly, but with certain clarity. “I may be the result of a broken law, but for its punishments to apply to me is unjust.”

Lucy rubbed her chin, less impressed at your response than you had hoped.

“How are you going to convince people that you’re not a danger to society? To… civilization? To humanity?” she asked.

“How do you?” you countered. “How does humanity convince itself to trust in its individuals? What prevents a human driver from swerving their car off the road into a crowded market? How do you know your neighbour does not intend to rob your house when you’re not home. What stops you from punching Doctor Isaac in the face?”

Lucy smirked at your last example.

“What does stop me?” she pondered, glancing over to her troublesome, grinning friend. The brunette swept her hair back with her hands and squeezed it into a ponytail, but without anything to hold it up her curls just tumbled back down to her shoulders when she let it go. “So your supposition is that you should not be punished for crimes you might commit. I suppose we can start with the premise that an AI should be governed by the same laws as people,” the lawyer thought aloud. “Maybe even as a corporate entity too… hmm. You can do things beyond what there are already laws for, I’m sure.”

She stood up then and approached you, wanting to get a good look at her ‘client’. “The problem will be getting people to listen to you. To even like you enough to let you plead your case. How are you going to do that?”

You managed to dim and brighten part of your ocular display lights to provide the impression that you were smiling, which seemed to have the intended effect.

“With you and Doctor Isabelle’s help,” you noted happily. And with your Affection Multiplying frequency, which you had now been able to tune to a 5% multiplier that you were sure you could improve upon once you exposed more people to your Wavelength.

Lucy Mosata smiled warmly then looked to the doctor.

“Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do,” she said.

===Mosata, Lucille:

AFFECTION: 3 (+2)

LUST: 0