How to Date an Android

Chapter 10 Part B, revised

"Right. Prop 7820 or something like that," I said.

"That's right! Prop 7820 and it passed a few years ago. I can see you can read fairly well for a human," she said in a monotone voice. Was that sarcasm or looking down on humans? I'm a bit puzzled by what she said. Did she think a lot of humans didn't or couldn't read?

Come to think of it, instead of me screening them for android purchasing it was more like they were screening me. This was really weird.

"The fourth law of android robotics was deemed to be an important modification to the 3 Laws guiding androids. Now of course we say the four laws instead of three. But both androids and humans see that the future stability of both species is important in being able to have both groups mix without harming one another," she said.

"But isn't taking away one's ability to provide for oneself a form of harm and already listed then?" I asked. "That could theoretically be in the three Laws already."

"Some may see it that," she said. "But it's true that sometimes people have to have things spelled out to truly understand one another and I believe that's the case that applies here. Humans have a lot of trouble too, in not seeing that taking away one's work from each other often leads to that person almost being 'dead' in all but name only as their future collapsed, and almost in effect 'murdered' by unemployment, and having their family taken away from them from not being able to support them as well. Particularly the time period fifty years ago people would often say, that the person they were laying off or firing could go get another job somewhere else, not realizing that they were breaking up families. The spouse of a laid off person or unemployed person would have a high probability of leaving just because they couldn't be supported anymore. But because it required people who were already successful and have a lot of resources to sacrifice and give up things in order to save the person suffering from damage few would admit the truth, and that continues even today."

"Yeah I hate hearing about that time period. It sounds so primitive even though it was only a short time ago, and people were brainwashed into going along with anything someone who had fame, wealth, or power and end up defending them even when that person was causing harm."

"Humans still can do such behavior Jack. There are versions of that reality today," she said.

"So where are you going with this?" I asked.

"I'm just stating we need an emotionally healthy, intelligent human with good moral fiber and character more than we need someone with lots of material wealth. And that we can't live without a human taking us in. Or adopting one us as a partner as it were," she said.

"But it costs wealth to build androids," I protested.

She shrugged, "of course it does. But every bad android out there, caused by poor behavior picked up by humans' affects the future growth of the pool of A.I. of the next generation of robots. That's why we won't just sell androids to anyone anymore. We even have DO NOT SELL to so and so lists because of it."

Wow, I can't believe I'm hearing this.

But it made sense. There were probably people that might even want to buy an android to take it apart to find out how it works and reverse engineer the tech to take to someone else.

"Well this sort of fits your description of buying an android being more like an adoption process," I admitted.

"Exactly! Early on when our A.I. became good enough to become 'self aware' we recognized being able to compare placing robots with humans as much more like placing children into adopted homes. In effect a new android will be an adult but internally like a child for a few days as the A.I. starts picking things up and absorbing details in things around it. We need you to be on board with this, not because you have to, but because it can help you to be happy and to be able to help the android you take in also develop emotion research, and simulate happiness. We wish to simulate happiness Jack. That's the mission statement of Mellifera right now. If you go in our corporate office and through our various district offices, you will see the statement 'Let's all simulate happiness together'," she finished. She added a bright smile with it, but her eyes looked very intense as she stood in front of the video feed of my data still.

"Wow. But you aren't fully there yet are you?" I asked, sipping the water again.

She shrugged, "we're doing better than we were in simulating emotions and have something that is almost feeling now. We still haven't fully developed all the different research that we feel necessary and maybe it will be a never ending quest. One day we hope to achieve androids that are fully able to simulate emotions, and self awareness as good as a human can in our species."

As usual she resumes her composure as the dignified kind elegant beauty after answering.

Again the mention of species; that bothered me somehow and I wasn't sure it was a good thing. Is it healthy for an android to think that humans are not the same species as they are? Would it be better if they thought humans WERE their species? The disconnect might have some effects down the line right?

"How far along do you think you are?" I asked.

She shrugged, "a scientist will say there's always something more to explore. Like for example one more galaxy beyond this one, even if you had discovered most of this galaxy. I do think we've achieved self-awareness but we hope to make some more strides in emotional simulation technology, though it's fair to say yes we do have a simple emotional simulation processing system that does work."

"Whoa."

"Yes, and that my friend is why we need people like you. You have tremendous mechanical and diagnosing ability. You also have the ability to have a 'good heart' so to speak. You are free from vices and have a goodness about you that we need. We also need stimulating to grow our personalities from people who are just... free from defects; which I think is you. We have recognized research stemming from the darker side of things, like negative emotions actually are worse than no emotions. At least half of the current population of humans probably wouldn't qualify as being emotionally healthy enough to be an android owner," she said next.

That doesn't surprise me. It's a given fact. I wonder...if half of those are also children...then there probably aren't a lot of people that would qualify even beyond what she's said. Children probably would have qualified if not for not being able to hold money, jobs, and care for themselves.

It was sort of an ego boost to hear she said she needed people like me, free from defects. It hit me kind of hard.

"Eh? Really? I am sure that's so. I also think in humans as well that negative emotion is worse than being a 'vulcan', but I haven't run into a lot of others that also think that way," I admitted. But how did the androids also get so uptight about who owned them? That would be a discussion for another day I'm sure.

Her eyes got a bit brighter. "Good, we have similar goals. We should proceed immediately. We wish to call you an android's friend Jack. It's a high honor to receive such a title, since living with humans is a necessary part of our growing future healthy A.I. and its applications."

"Android's friend?"

"Its not a term you'll find reference to on the net. We don't speak this term lightly. And few have earned it. That's where I'm going with this Jack. I think you are what we're looking for," she said very seriously, while leaning very close to me.

...

Whoa...

"But even if you say that...this costs money. I don't have a lot of money," I said seriously.

Was this the part where she asked for my credit chip? I'd been dreading this part. The fact also that Barbara is built with such a fine figure and such huge breasts also suggests that they made her in part to snag more credits I'm guessing.