How to Date an Android

Chapter 9 Part B, revised

So I guessed it aloud for her, "are flawed?"

"Yes. Please don't be offended. I'm only presenting the logical data so you can process it and understand us. You asked about this. And I'd had time to think about it. This type of preliminary meeting is necessary so that our next meeting can be that much better. I only mean to show you that there is another way to look at things. There's more than just one point of view. An android won't get tired of taking care of you. They won't yell at you, lose your temper, or cheat on you. They won't be tempted to go off with someone else who has more money and a bigger house. We basically don't covet either and aren't attracted to the concept of abandoning responsibility for a cheap thrill. And by the same token, there is only a very small percentage of humans who won't cheat on their spouse. This gives us the ultimate opportunity."

"But isn't that determined by how you define intimacy and what life is? Intimacy isn't just physical don't you think? Love can be pretty complex and maybe humans aren't as flawed as you think they are?" I asked her.

I said that but I felt humans were very flawed when you go out on the street. But still I wanted to hear how she thought, her thought process.

"True. Love is arguably emotional, and on a certain level intimacy is also sharing your time with someone and about bringing your positive emotional feeding to that inner circle with that partner in your life. And I would argue that if 2 people are kind and virtuous and good that love can grow much faster than people would think it could," she stated.

"So even if you don't have sex with another person, you could be spending time or talking to them and realizing you might be developing intimacy on a certain level. And you might already be married to someone else. So isn't that already starting to cheat?" I asked.

"Oh how very clever! You are very intelligent for a human," she noted in surprise. She ended up giving me a mix of both a smile and a puzzled look together.

I was finding Barbara also be quite clever. Her A.I...I didn't think it could be this advanced. There wasn't even a lot of humans that could follow a conversation this deep.

"So do you agree with me?" I asked.

"Those are valid concerns. I also believe that cheating doesn't start with just the act of sex, but starts with spending time with another...or, rather it begins with liking and wanting to spend time with another when married to someone else. And then it can spin out of control quite quickly," she said in monotone. Also unlike spending time with a normal human girl she was sitting up straight and not just laying back in the couch lazily while she spoke. She was actively engaged in this conversation and that was interest. Posture and how passive someone was in a conversation could tell you a lot. Not that that is a bad thing, but she seemed to be a little bit too energetic in the conversation.

"So do androids get jealous?" I asked.

"That's a tough one to answer. I think androids have feelings of concern if their human is spending a lot of time with someone else because we are programmed to look for interaction with our owner or master. And to greatly desire that interaction. We covet intimacy, but not only physical intimacy. So we don't like someone else taking it from us. We crave simulating responses that we learn from our human partner too. But they also see the need for humans to need different types of non-romantic relationships in order to be healthy inside and out. But your android wouldn't interfere with you on what you choose but we do simulate a calculated dislike at having too much of our human interaction time interfered with I believe. It would probably feel a sensation simulating loneliness however, because that's how we're programmed."

"Eh? You are?"

"Well there has to be a rewards system for promoting growth. We recognize this is why humans have emotions and why we simulated something similar to them to help us learn. When humans feel good things when they do good and positive reinforcement ensues. When they do bad things they feel bad. It's an important observational interaction device in human brain chemistry that acts as a useful tool for helping humans grow the way they should, although humans seem to want to cheat good and do evil more than other organisms," she added thoughtfully. She didn't realize she was right but insulted us after all. It was funny in a way.