How to Date an Android

Chapter 13 Part A (revised & reworked)!

That sort of popped my bubble, but then I realized it was just a minor setback.

An android for example, being taught how to change a mag car's engine cooling fluid would be able to correctly duplicate the procedure on the second or third try for a specific model, but it would need to be shown how other mag car models were different than the first two or three models that it had learned the procedure from. Then it would also have to keep seeing a blueprint or other diagram on other models after that, just like a human would.

At least that's how she explained it to me.

"That's weird, they are more like a human than I would have expected," I said.

"It's not our fault!" she defended. Apparently I just learned that saying an android is like a human is like a serious degrading comment to them and I'd accidentally triggered this social land mine. Although that's a paradox too because they are trying to be as close to them as possible. She actually acted like I'd hurt her feelings.

"The government blocked off androids from auto downloading machinery schematics a long time ago to prevent industrial espionage from domestic companies, foreign powers, and foreign corporations! So we now have to learn just like everyone else! I'm sorry Jack!" she pleaded.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize being called like a human would make you uncomfortable," I said feeling really awkward.

"Its fine. Don't worry. I got too worked up over being called a human." She laughed a bit and playfully lightly fake punched me in the arm the way teenagers might. Was the laughing for trying to appease me or because she'd recovered from simulating feeling bad?

"The main thing is once you show any android how to fix a mag car for a certain procedure it won't take them long to be able to keep doing it well. But that depends on you not teaching them wrong too. You've heard of the old saying, "garbage in, garbage out" right?"

"Yeah."

"Hey here's an idea," Barbara said. She pulled up on her datapad one of those types of e-magazine ads you used to see in old grocery stores with names like GQ, Better Homes & Gardens, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, and Popular Mechanics. She was pulling out something from her purse too. After a few seconds I could see it was a really, super old magazine. You could tell it was from many decades ago.

"Hey isn't that a vintage magazine? That thing is worth some serious money isn't it?" I asked, seeing the real paper and plastic sleeve she had carried it in with. I hadn't noticed it earlier because it was in her purse. It also seemed like Barbara to be really classy and stylish.

She flipped through a few pages to show me. Sometimes giving me a flirty smile with raised eyebrows and then alternating to new pages.

"I like the feel of the shiny slick magazine paper," she said.

"I do too. You almost never see real paper anymore."

"Yeah it's useful to show to clients for a lot of reasons, but usually people who buy androids are interested in older stability philosophies and that's the main one. And because they want old school style before all the 'shit hit the fan' as humans say, they usually seek stability associated with icons from a hundred years ago during the old 60s and 50s era ideas of the 1900s rather than this current age. They are often more likely to follow older demographic concepts from that era in what they 'dream for' rather than the modern new chaos and vigilante take it by force and fighting," she noted.

"That's true. But its more like people that are smarter want to be more practical and in control. They've realized money isn't always control without skills and raw materials," I said back.