Page 42 of Chaos Theory
‘So we’re up to saying “him” now, are we? You do know Kobi is just a machine, yeah?’
Josh squirms in his seat. I know he’s dying to chime in. He adds sugar to his tiny coffee and stirs it in, spoon clinking noisily. I’m pretty sure Josh doesn’t take sugar in anything.
‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ I say. Perhaps a bit of authority is called for. I decide to channel some of the language from the MIT robot course. ‘But we find it helps us to enhance interactivity, communication and collaboration systems if we anthropomorphise Kobi.’ Josh is nodding along. Emboldened, I decide to add, ‘Also, it’s more fun.’Authoritative, but still approachable.
Sam smiles. ‘Ah, fun.’ He takes a long slurp of water. ‘Let me ask you something. Have you actually worked with the Kobi bot? Like, day-to-day?’
‘Well…’ I begin, but Sam cuts me off.
‘I mean, have you tried to do anything other than take care of Kobi when Kobi’s around? Because I have and let me tell you’ – he pauses for another sip of water, probably for dramatic effect too – ‘it’s exhausting.’
‘Go on.’ I throw Josh a look to pre-empt any interruption. He’s knocked back the espresso and I fear it’s about to kick in.
‘It’s supposed to be a collaborative robot, yeah? Supposed tocollaborate. That means help us – help the humans on the line. There’s meant to be some kind ofmutualexchange going on, right? It helps us and in exchange we teach it to be better?’
‘Human–machine collaboration—’ Josh begins.
‘He – I mean,it– was probably the most annoying work colleague I’ve ever had. It was supposed to make my job easier, butit actually made it much, much harder. The constant questions. It never stopped. Honestly, my five-year-old niece asks less questions!’
‘Well, he’s still learning!’ says Josh defensively. He can’t help himself. ‘He’s just getting going. You wouldn’t believe how much he’s learned already?—’
‘Oh, I would,’ says Sam. ‘Because most of it he’s learned from me. Not he – it,it. Now I’m doing it.’ He shakes his head, then speaks more quietly. ‘Sometimes I used to hide behind the machines and hope it wouldn’t find me. But damn that supersonic hearing – it always found me. I didn’t know I’d had it so good before – wearing headphones, listening to podcasts while I worked. All that changed when Kobi came along.’
I feel a bit bad for Kobi. He just wanted to learn, to help. To learn how to help. I decide to give Sam a moment to wallow in memories of how great work was back in the good old days. He’s clearly no fan of Kobi’s. Was probably glad to see him taken away. Could he have had anything to do with the malfunction? I want to dig a little, but not head-on.
‘Can I ask you a question? Whydon’tyou refer to Kobi as “he”? Laura does.’
‘Yeah, well, she’s…’ He stops himself mid-sentence. ‘That’s her choice. I think we should remember it’s a machine and act accordingly. It’s not “one of us”.’
Josh goes to speak, but I make a subtle hand gesture and he stops. He’s too attached to Kobi to be objective.
‘Are you worried that machines like Kobi might replace you one day?’ I ask Sam.
He laughs again and sits up straight. ‘No way. A machine can’t do what I do. We shouldn’t even be talking about that. Why can’t machines just be machines and people just be people? Why do we always have to be pushing the envelope? The envelope is pretty perfect as it is – a simple yet elegant solution for sending letters. Do we really need to be reinventing envelopes?’
I smile. ‘I agree, we don’t need to improve on envelopes. Butthe messaging system as a whole has been reinvented – many times over.’
‘And is it any better?’ He smiles back at me.
‘Well, that depends on how far back you want to go. It’s better than never again hearing from someone who emigrated. On the downside, we now expect 24/7 access to each other. I suppose we still need to figure out the happy medium.’
‘Exactly,’ says Sam. ‘And who gets to decide that?’ I get the sense that he’s enjoying the debate.
I sip my fancy tea, which has finally reached the perfect temperature. ‘Decide what?’
‘Who decided that 24/7 messaging was what we wanted? Because I don’t remember voting for that.’
‘You know that’s not how it works,’ says Josh, a little too sharply. ‘If you’d asked people, before we had cars, what they wanted, most of them would have said a faster horse. So that’s not exactly a great way to make technological progress, is it?’
‘But why areweadapting toit?’ says Sam. ‘It – the tech, I mean – should be adapting tous.’
‘Sam has a point – the technology always comes first,’ I muse.
‘Exactly,’ says Sam. ‘She gets it.’ He clunks his water bottle against my cup as if we’re three pints deep on a night out.
I clear my throat. ‘Anyway. Let’s bring this back to Kobi. Tell us about the night of the incident.’
‘There’s not much to tell. I’m sure you’ve seen the footage.’ I wonder if he’s being evasive.
