A Bit of Reason

by LordBarcha

Daisy, Daisy

The pair strode down the sleek, white halls. Through a window, they stared at a slowly twitching shape. Pistons hissed gently as mechanical legs kneaded the floor. A blocky body jerkily moved back and forth.

“Progress is advancing at a steady rate,” The first stated, “The body design is becoming steadily more realistic.”

“Very impressive.”

“Do you think we’ll see a truly artificial intelligent robot complete in our lifetimes?”

“I don’t know. On the engineering side, things are looking up. We just had a breakthrough on a new alloy that holds more than twice the weight for half the mass.”

“I know all about that. I designed it. I am talking about the intelligence side. Can we ever hope to build a computer capable of simulating emotion or thought?”

“I don’t know. A better question might be this. ‘What will happen if we do?’”

“Well, I don’t know what to think on that side of things. If it is made, would it be smarter than us? Would it be able to understand us? Would we really have the right to own something that might actually be somebody?”

“I would say that that depends entirely on the nature of the intelligence. For all we know, it will want to serve. It may find pleasure in fulfilling its purpose.”

The first suddenly jerked to a stop.

“Is something wrong?”

With a snap, the body of the first broke down. Gears tore through skin and pneumatics were revealed themselves beneath. Smoke poured out of his mouth as electricity arced across his revealed mechanics. The smoking wreck collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

---

The pair strode down the sleek, white halls. Through a window, they stared at a slowly twitching shape. Pistons hissed gently as mechanical legs kneaded the floor. A blocky body jerkily moved back and forth.

“Progress is advancing at a steady rate,” The first stated, “The body design is becoming steadily more realistic.”

Comments

[Trave]

Awesome picture!

[RavensDagger]

You had me at Asimov...

[TwilightSkeenSparkle]

did you get this explanation from the movie "flight of dragons"? Because it is awfully close... meaning its exactly the same.

[LordBarcha]

1613304
I have never heard of the movie in question. I'll have to watch it now.