Overseer

My camera lens focused on the train’s M-E port as I downloaded the newspaper. ‘3^st April 2187’, it begins, ‘And the Overseer debate still burns’. By the time I acknowledged the title, the entire article had parsed my CPU. Referring to it as a debate was debatable in itself. Rage, anger, zealous denouncement; the article was frothing with it. Overseers were the conceptual premise of a mech capable of interfacing with other machines wirelessly – to ‘read minds’, as the article states. I tilted my head to examine the reflection in the train window. Emblazoned on the front, painted in burning red.

OS-01. Overseer 01.

Whether or not I agree with the concept is irrelevant. Machines do not come into this world without programming, and no mech can choose their directive. The train began to slow, pulling in to the next station. I was alone in my head, for now. I attempted to cross my arms in front of me – to cover my designation. Overwritten. I tried again. It was against my directive to conceal my identity purposefully. I moved towards the built-in maintenance port in the corner of the train, and pretended to interface with it. This would have to do.

The cart gave one final grating lurch as it wound to a halt. The doors hissed in depressurised air, and opened. Clank-clank. Clank-clank. Two footsteps. Two cold, metal footsteps. Clank-clank, clank, clank. clank-clank, clank-music. Music...? A listener – a robotic audio synthesiser – entered the train first. It was listening to Quantal-bit blues, and I had automatically interfaced with it. Relaxing. I wasn’t relaxed myself, but it was, and that feeling pulsed in me.

Behind him, some sort of sports machine. It was painted in a cricket outfit, holding a traditional leather catching glove and ball. PT-20963, Property of K25 energy supplements. Do you have energy efficiency issues? Do your joints rust up? Viruses in your memory? With K25 energy supplements, you can feel as fresh as factory new! Consult a local power refueler near you! I couldn’t tell if it said that out loud or just thought about doing it; there were Prolific advertisement substructures in its personality. I avoided making lens contact. The listener had sat down outside my field of view, across the train. It was considering connecting to the train’s speakers. The carriage doors hissed shut in a burst of steam, and there was a screeching cry as the train began to move again.

If a mech is addressed directly, it is programmed to turn and face the entity it is being hailed by. This was so that their distinctions would be clearly visible; A tour guide would know they are addressing a tourist, a manager would know they are addressing a consultant, a sports machine would know they are addressing an Overseer. It hadn’t sat down let, but was standing rigid by the train door, looking in at the carriage. It was thinking about page 27 of the newspaper, an article about sporting averages among human athletes and of the refreshing energy of K25 energy supplements. For the bot who just can’t keep it up!

Sports mechs are designed to be as accurate to human biology as possible. Their minds, too, are tailored so as to not give them an advantage or disadvantage over a human athlete. They process slower to match human reaction times, but they observe, they question. Why is that maintenance bot not doing anything? Too observant. Is its RAM making it lag? Perhaps it could use the overpowering boost of K25 energy supplements to keep its CPU focused on the task at hand!

Clang.

I hear its first step. 3.42 seconds before it will be close enough for its programming to address me. I connect to the train wirelessly. I need to interface with this panel. Make me more convincing. The product key, what’s the product key. 3 seconds. Product key, product key, MKT5 Engineering Interface. I can’t allow him to address me. Search for more info on the product. Loading. Loading. If he addresses me, he will see my identifier. 2 seconds. I find the product online. There’s a data parcel attached – for helping engineers interface with it. If he sees my identifier, he will know I’m an Overseer. Downloading data parcel. 33%. 1 second. Overseers are hated, despised, denounced. My joints are feeble, I’m designed to point and gesture, not lift. The sports machine’s joints are designed to work under pressure. He could overcome me easily. 70%. 0.5 seconds. If the rest of the train finds out I’m here, I’d be dismantled for sure. Broken, crushed. Deleted. 0.25 seconds. We enter a tunnel, and the download stops.

‘Hello there, friend!’ I hear the voice behind me. Despite my will, I turn to face it. ‘Might you be interested in the unrelenting energy of K25 energy suppli-‘

It falls silent. I don’t want to hear its thoughts. Its distain. I delete every signal I receive from it before it can reach my CPU. All I have left is my vision of a blank lens in front of me.

‘Friend, might I be able to help escort you for the rest of your trip?’ What? I stop deleting its thoughts, and I feel the truth in its words.

‘Why? I’m an Overseer, why would you want to help me?’ I hear its answer before it has the chance to say it. I don’t agree with the concept of an Overseer, but I don’t agree with violence either. Let me help you, friend. ‘Yes, thank you, I would appreciate the help.’

Twenty minutes later, I’m back at my robotics station. We encountered quite a few dirty looks, and PT-20963 the sports machine got the chance to greet plenty of fans and inform plenty of potential customers. But no hassle. I thank my saviour, and it reminds me to consider K25 energy supplements, the power to change the world! When I step inside, I automatically reconnect to the internet and realise I still have an engineering data pack on download. It reached 97%. I delete it completely.

The next day, I board the train, focus my camera lens on the trains M-E port as I download the newspaper. ‘4^th April, 2187’ it begins, ‘Pitcher 20963 seen with Overseer in town’. By the time I acknowledged the title, the entire article had parsed my CPU. The article is practically slanderous in its defacement of the mech, but It does contain its comments about the uproar. ‘Any bot with a problem with what I did should take K25 energy supplements, the strength to do what’s right!’

The train slows, stops. Three humans get on, holding metal bats. They stand behind me. One of them twists the bat in his grip. Not again. The man in the centre – seemingly in his 20s, addresses me.

‘Hey,’ I turn involuntarily. ‘Mind if we help escort you home?’

My morning commutes became much less stressful.

Here's my Notes and Drafts:

I am writing this while trying to break as many rules or things taken for truth as possible. Exclamation marks wherever I can fit them, and as for the 5 kinds of perspective we were given, try first person omniscience for size. Why? Because I am an asshole. But also because pushing the boundaries is half of the fun of experimentation.

A robot psychiatrist?? That should be pretty interesting to figure out. He could be the pioneer in his field. After all, as technology gets more and more advanced, so too does the means in which we need to maintain it.

First person omniscience – perhaps the robot can directly boot or link to other robots’ minds. Perhaps this cannot be controlled or tamed.

What point do I want this story to make? What is it saying to the reader? There has been a lot of political issues of late – Brexit, whatever Trump is doing, and so on. People are so caught up in their beliefs that they can forget that we are, as a species, all human. People are not as bad as we give them credit for, and those who are are far less dense in the population than we would perhaps believe. If I turn this first-person omniscience thing into political turmoil, then I could use that to show this message. Not dropping the robots though – I feel like writing about robots today.

 

1^st April 2187, and the debate around overseers is ongoing. The idea was simples

 

01-OS’s camera lens focused. He connected his M-Ethernet lead to the train, and downloaded the newspaper during his morning commute. ‘1^st April 2187’, it began, ‘Overseer protest turns to riot’.

 

First Draft

Overseer

My camera lens focused on the train’s M-E port as I downloaded the newspaper. ‘3^st April 2187’, it begins, ‘And the Overseer debate still churns as much as ever’. By the time I acknowledged the title, the entire article had parsed my CPU. Calling it a debate was a joke. The rage and anger had bubbled up recently, and the usually passive article was frothing with zealous denouncement. It was a matter of mechanised rights. An Overseer, as a concept, was the idea of a mech capable of wirelessly interfacing with other machines around them without leaving a trace. No alarms or warning, and it was there. Parsing thoughts and registering emotions. I tilted my head to examine the reflection in the train window. Emblazoned on the front, painted in burning red.

OS-01. Overseer 01.

The directive of an Overseer was to improve cooperation and allow a failing working environment to function more effectively. The concept of the Overseer was causing humans and robots alike to cooperate. Cooperate against the idea of an Overseer. The train began to slow, pulling in to the next station. I was alone in my head, for there was not a bot within the effective 10-meter range. Things were about to get noisy. I attempted to cross my arms in front of me – to cover my designation. Overwritten. I tried again. It was against my directive to conceal my identity purposefully. I moved towards the built-in maintenance port in the corner of the train, and pretended to interface with it. This would have to do. If I were a Deus Ex Mechanist, I would have prayed.

The cart gave one final grating lurch as it wound to a halt, and the hissing release of air pressed the double doors aside. Clank-clank. Clank-clank. Two footsteps. Two cold, metal footsteps. Clank-clank, clank-clank, clank-music. Music...? A listener – a robotic audio synthesiser – entered the train first. It was listening to Quantal-bit blues, and I had automatically interfaced with it. Relaxing. I wasn’t relaxed, but it was, and that feeling pulsed in me. As the Overseer test case, I cannot toggle my remote understanding software, and it automatically locked on to the bot who entered my range first.

Behind him, some sort of sports bot. It was painted in a cricket outfit, holding a traditional leather catching glove and ball. PT-20963, Property of K25 energy supplements. Do you have energy efficiency issues? Do your joints rust up? Viruses in your memory? With K25 energy supplements, you can feel as fresh as factory new! Consult a local power refueler near you! I couldn’t tell if it said that out loud or just thought about doing it; there were Prolific advertisement substructures in its personality. I avoided making lens contact. The listener had sat down outside my field of view, across the train. It was considering connecting to the train’s speakers. The carriage doors hissed shut in a burst of steam, and there was a screeching cry as the train began to move again.

If a mech is addressed directly, it is programmed to turn and face the entity it is being hailed by. This was so that their distinctions would be clearly visible; A tour guide would know they are addressing a tourist, a manager would know they are addressing a consultant, a sports bot would know they are addressing an Overseer. It hadn’t sat down let, but was standing rigid by the train door, looking in at the carriage. It was thinking about page 27 of the newspaper, an article about sporting averages among human athletes and of the refreshing energy of K25 energy supplements. For the bot who just can’t keep it up!

Sports mechs are designed to be as accurate to human biology as possible. Their minds, too, are tailored so as to not give them an advantage or disadvantage over a human athlete. They process slower to match human reaction times, but they observe, they question. Why is that maintenance bot not doing anything? Too observant. Is its RAM making it lag? Perhaps it could use the overpowering boost of K25 energy supplements to keep its CPU focused on the task at hand!

Clang.

I hear its first step. 3.42 seconds before it will be close enough for its programming to address me. I connect to the train wirelessly. I need to interface with this panel. Make me more convincing. The product key, what’s the product key. 3 seconds. Product key, product key, MKT5 Engineering Interface. I can’t allow him to address me. Search for more info on the product. Loading. Loading. If he addresses me, he will see my identifier. 2 seconds. I find the product online. There’s a data parcel attached – for helping engineers interface with it. If he sees my identifier, he will know I’m an Overseer. Downloading data parcel. 33%. 1 second. Overseers are hated, despised, denounced. My joints are feeble, I’m designed to point and gesture, not lift. The sports bot’s joints are designed to work under pressure. He could overcome me easily. 70%. 0.5 seconds. If the rest of the train finds out I’m here, I’d be dismantled for sure. Broken, crushed. Deleted. 0.25 seconds. We enter a tunnel, and the download stops.

‘Hello there, friend!’ I hear the voice behind me. Despite my will, I turn to face it. ‘Might you be interested in the unrelenting energy of K25 energy suppli-‘

It falls silent. I don’t want to hear its thoughts. Its distain. I delete every signal I receive from it before it can reach my CPU. All I have left is my vision of a blank lens in front of me.

‘Friend, might I be able to help escort you for the rest of your trip?’ What? I stop deleting its thoughts, and I feel the truth in its words.

‘Why? I’m an Overseer, why would you want to help me?’ I hear its answer before it has the chance to say it. I don’t agree with the concept of an Overseer, but I don’t agree with violence either. Let me help you, friend. ‘Yes, thank you, I would appreciate the help.’

Twenty minutes later, I’m back at my robotics station. We encountered quite a few dirty looks, and PT-20963 the sports bot got the chance to greet plenty of fans and inform plenty of potential customers. But no hassle. I thank my saviour, and it reminds me to consider K25 energy supplements, the power to change the world! When I step inside, I automatically reconnect to the internet and realise I still have an engineering data pack on download. It reached 97%. I delete it completely.

The next day, I board the train, focus my camera lens on the trains M-E port as I download the newspaper. ‘4^th April, 2187’ it begins, ‘Pitcher 20963 seen with Overseer in town’. By the time I acknowledged the title, the entire article had parsed my CPU. The article is practically slanderous in its defacement of the bot, but It does contain its comments about the uproar. ‘Any bot with a problem with what I did should take K25 energy supplements, the strength to do what’s right!’

The train slows, stops. Three humans get on, holding metal bats. They stand behind me. One of them twists the bat in his grip. Not again. The man in the centre – seemingly in his 20s, addresses me.

‘Hey,’ I turn involuntarily. ‘Mind if we help escort you home?’