“I should thank you, Wayne, and Millie. This is nothing I have ever experienced before.”
I leave my audio and video open for Wayne while I make an internal call to Dr. Zinta.
She answers, “Carey, how’s it going?”
“Mother and son are doing fine, Dr. Zinta. I can hear help approaching.”
“Can I see him?”
I look up. Millie’s eyes are closed again, and I hear a slight snore. “They are both asleep right now,” I say, “but let me show you the delivery.”
I start a playback on Dr. Zinta’s channel, and then I open a third channel to Belize to give Paul and Susan the good news. Susan cries with delight, and Paul shouts so loud that it rattles my chassis. When he is done, he says, “Fantastic news, Carey! I’m so glad you were there for them. How does it feel to bring a new life into the world?”
“It felt . . . frightening, Paul. But now it feels good. Happy. I think I begin to understand the human concept of a miracle.”
32. Today We Watch Butterflies
“Would you like to rent a tour guide?” the cashier asks.
Before Millie can answer, Timmy pulls under the turnstile. “Timmy, come back here,” Millie says.
“I will get him.” I step around the turnstile quickly and grab the child gently by the arm. “Timmy, Mommy told you to wait.”
“But look at that, Uncle Carey, look at that!” I look at what he points at. It is a red sandstone sculpture, sharp angles and gentle curves. I see legs and arms sticking out in many places, tangled into a giant block, two meters by almost two and a half by a meter tall. But no heads, no faces.
“That is interesting, Timmy, but we cannot get ahead of everybody. So come on back.” I pull Timmy back. Garrett, his older brother, waits patiently. He is nearly twelve years old, and he has more impulse control. Tabitha, Timmy’s little sister, is happy in Millie’s arms and smiling at Dr. Zinta.
I pull Timmy back to the family just in time to hear Millie say, “Do we really need to spend money on a tour guide?”
Dr. Zinta answers, “I’m a member, I get guides for free. Besides, I want to see what your husband has been up to with these new guide androids.”
Dr. Zinta pushes her membership credentials to the cashier, and the cashier smiles. “Oh, welcome. You’ve got the family membership, so two adults and two children are covered. That leaves one child and . . .” the cashier looks at me.
“And one adult,” I say. “I can pay for this, Millie.” I push a payment to the cashier. It is important to me that I pay my own way. I am uncomfortable with special privileges for being an android. For almost forty years, I have functioned as a member of the Owens family, not just a caretaker. I am accustomed to being treated as one.
If I were human, I might call this a matter of pride. The closest I can get is a sense of satisfaction with a job well done. Is that pride? Even now, I sometimes have trouble putting names to my emotions.
But I know that it is important to Paul and Susan and Millie to see me as a person, a member of their family. Wayne’s research confirms: Even though I am a machine, he says that my emotional intelligence is growing into something more, that my neural nets are intersecting in ever more complex ways. This is something that he hopes to duplicate, and I find his arguments persuasive. But I have learned that this is a topic of contention between him and Millie, so I try not to bring it up when she is around.
“Here’s your receipt, Mr. Owens,” the cashier pushes the payment record back to me. “Have a lovely day at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. Here’s your tour guide.” She gestures one finger, and an android walks up. It rises not quite to my shoulders. Its head is overly large, its eyes larger yet, and a big smile is permanently fixed on its face. These guide androids are produced by MCA International, straight out of Wayne’s lab, and he has discussed how their exaggerated friendly faces have helped to avoid the uncanny valley.
The android says, “Welcome, Mrs. Stockwell, Dr. Jansons, and is it Mr. Owens?”
“Just call me Carey, please,” I say.
“Yes, I will call you Carey. Welcome to Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. We know you will enjoy our beautiful horticultural gardens and our world-class sculpture collection. Would you like me to lead you through the park? Or did you want to wander on your own? I am happy either way.”
I study Wayne’s workmanship. He once explained that the neural nets of these units are based on some of my technology. “But without your emotions,” he had added with a laugh. Without my emulation abilities, the tour guide cannot possibly have conflicts between empathy and emulation like I have experienced throughout my existence, and Wayne has never once detected any sign of self-awareness in any of their new models. They are not me.
Observing the guide, I see signs of emulation; but it is a standard persona programmed in, not adaptive to circumstances. The android is simply a pleasant tour guide, ready to answer questions with no awareness deeper than that.
Timmy pulls away again. “Mr. Robot, what’s that?”
The android does not answer, so I tap it on the shoulder. “When he says Mr. Robot, I believe he means you.”
“Oh,” the guide says, “of course. This unit normally responds to ‘tour guide,’ ‘guide,’ ‘hey, you,’ or ‘buddy.’ But today this unit will be Mr. Robot.” The guide leads the rest of us over to where Timmy stands investigating the red sandstone sculpture.
“This sculpture is called ‘Hagar,’” the guide explains. “It is inspired by the biblical story of Hagar, the second wife of Abraham who bore him the son Ishmael. As the second wife, she had no protections or privileges, and she was eventually cast out into the wild with her son where she had many struggles for their survival.”
“Where is its face?” Garrett asks.
“It has no face,” Dr. Zinta explains. “It’s supposed to represent struggle, not the person herself. All the arms fighting to get free from each other, and all the legs fighting to escape.”
I have never understood the human practice of art. I can understand photographs, portraits, or sculptures that represent people that one knows and wants to remember; but I have never understood more abstract or unusual works. I am not sure I even understand art that represents people you do not know. But with this explanation, Dr. Zinta has made me wonder. Before when I had looked at this collection of limbs, I saw something that made no sense. But now I think I understand. In its own way, this work is an emulation, frozen in a moment. In the medium of stone, the artist has captured the concept, the feel of struggle.
My empathy net works on many different inputs: tone of voice, word choice, situation, and audience . . . but also body language and positioning. I wonder what I might read if I were to empathize with this statue. So I turn up the balance on my empathy net, and I look at the statue “Hagar.” And suddenly . . . “Dr. Zinta, I see it.”
“You see what, Carey?”
“No, that is not accurate. I feel it. I feel Hagar’s struggle. How she fights against the forces around her, many of which bind her in multiple directions, and that is why she has so many limbs struggling in so many ways.”
Zinta nods at me and smiles. “That’s very good, Carey.”
“Dr. Zinta, this is unprecedented.”
“Your nets are growing, Carey. You have enough experience now to understand this work.”
“Dr. Zinta, will we see more?”
She laughs. “Much more, Carey. This park is full of beautiful pieces. Would you like to see more?”
Today I am intrigued by this new world. It is as if I have been upgraded with a new sense that has revealed gaps in my knowledge of the world. I answer, “Yes, please. I want to see more.”
“There is much more to see,” the tour guide says. “Over here, if you look up at the ceiling, we have our famous Chihuly glass sculpture, ‘Gilded Champagne Gardens Chandelier.’”
I look up, but the thing in the ceiling says nothing to me. It is a large collection of bulb
s and tubes and points and leaflike objects, in red and gold and cream and yellow and brown glass. I have respect for the artistry that made it, I can see that much work went into it, but I find nothing there when I try to empathize.
“What do you see, Carey?” Dr. Zinta asks; but I have no answer.
Tabitha looks up from her mother’s arms. “Monster, mommy!”
“Yeah!” Garrett says, “It’s a monster. It’s gonna drop down and eat you!”
“Mommy!”
“Garrett Wayne Stockwell,” Millie says, “You apologize to your sister for scaring her. Right now!”
“Sorry, Tabby,” Garrett says; but his tone tells me he is only sorry that he got in trouble.
“Yeah,” Timmy says. “It’s a funny monster, Tabby. It won’t hurt us.”
The tour guide leads us through more of the main building as we look at many pieces. Some speak to me to some degree. Many are too abstract for me to find meaning, and some are merely humorous. “Five Meerkats” by Tom Hillis, a collection of meerkat statues, delights the children, but it signifies nothing to me. Near them, though, is one which I cannot take my eyes off of. The work is “Masai Mother” by Tuck Langland, a simple head study of a short-haired African woman with many beads around her neck.
Again Dr. Zinta asks me, “What do you see, Carey?”
“I see dignity, grace, pride. But . . . what I feel makes no sense.”
“What is it, Carey?”
“It reminds me of Mildred when I first met her, when her memory was still mostly intact. She knew trouble was coming and things would get worse, but she faced it without fear.”
“She had fear,” Dr. Zinta says, “but she wasn’t going to let it stop her. And she couldn’t show it because she wanted to be strong for her family.”
“I think you are right. And this woman, she too is strong and proud and determined.”
“It is beautiful,” Millie says. “I don’t see Grandma in it, but I didn’t really know her like you did.”
“That is her, Millie,” I assure her. “A completely different face and race, but this woman has the same strength.”
We continue on through the main building. We come to a big glass case, and the android says with emulated pride, “And here we have one of the few original castings of Auguste Rodin’s ‘The Kiss.’”
Millie’s jaw drops. “Kids, come here!” She pulls them close and covers Garrett’s eyes with her hands. The other two look at her. But Garrett has already seen the statue and is giggling. It is two figures, both very well muscled: a man and a woman, both nude. They embrace in a passionate kiss.
Dr. Zinta is amused at Millie’s effort to shield her children. She laughs softly and then asks me, “And what do you see with this one, Carey?”
This time my answer is simpler. “It is completely representational, of course. I see two people very much in love, embracing and showing their affection. It reminds me of how I saw Wayne and Millie once on the Owens couch.”
“Carey!” Millie gasps.
Garrett, meanwhile, goes from amused to disgusted. “Ew! Mom, you and dad kissing naked on a couch?”
“Garrett, we were not naked. Carey, tell them we were not naked!”
“They were not naked, Garrett. But they were kissing on a couch.”
“I think we should move on, children,” Millie says. “Why don’t you go up ahead and look at that arch there?” The kids run ahead and Millie turns back to me, “Carey, that was not helpful.”
“I am sorry, Millie, but it was the truth. Dr. Zinta asked me what my impression was.”
“You didn’t have to complicate matters by dragging me and Wayne into it. And besides,” she says looking at the statue wistfully, “it has been too long.”
Then Millie looks at Dr. Zinta, who looks back at her; and the two women giggle. “I didn’t hear a thing,” Dr. Zinta says.
“It’s just these long hours. Dr. Warren has him on all these new projects. He has no time for research. She has him managing two projects now.”
Dr. Zinta shakes her head and tuts. “I was afraid of that. I’ve heard rumors . . .”
Millie frowns. “Wayne doesn’t talk about it much, but there have been a lot of cutbacks. And a lot of wild schemes to generate revenue.” She lowers her voice. “I think the company’s not doing well.”
Dr. Zinta also lowers her voice. “That’s what I hear, too, Millie. Nothing official, now that I’m retired, but . . .” Then she pats Millie’s shoulder. “But Wayne will turn it around. Your husband is really a genius. I am so proud that I had a chance to teach him some of what he knows, but he has gone way beyond what I taught him.”
“Oh, I know. But you know, he tries to explain it to me. I try to follow along; but by the time he gets home, it’s so late. And I’m so tired. And I’m sorry, Zinta, but cybernetics is so boring.”
Dr. Zinta laughs. “Don’t apologize. It takes a certain mind-set. For Wayne and me, it’s amazing that people pay us to solve puzzles all day. There’s an intense thrill in solving something that’s nearly impossible. But if you don’t have that mind-set? Boring. Frustrating. Besides, everybody has their own thing in life. I couldn’t tell a tree frog from a toad.”
“Oh, sure you could. It’s easy. Anybody can.”
They continue talking as we walk through the rest of the main building and up to the Tropical Conservatory, our prime destination for the day. As we approach a big plastic curtain split into many vertical strips, the guide says, “Please use caution when passing through the butterfly lock, particularly on the way back out. The Meijer Gardens Butterflies are Blooming exhibit is carefully managed to ensure that no non-native butterfly species escapes into this environment.” It bends down to the kids to speak directly to them. “Inside you will see hundreds of different butterfly species from all over the world, freshly hatched from their cocoons.”
“You mean eclosed,” Tabitha says, and the guide’s eyes open wide.
“I do not understand,” the guide says.
Garrett chimes in, “They’re not hatching. Eggs hatch, and they’re not eggs. They’re chrysalises, and they’re pupating. It’s metamorphosis.”
“And they eclose,” Tabby says. “That means they break out.”
Millie and Dr. Zinta suppress their grins. Millie’s children know all about metamorphosis. She has taught them about frogs, and also about butterflies. They understand it well beyond their school books. That is why they are so excited about this exhibit.
The tour guide leads us through the plastic curtain, and then stops before a second one. “When you come back out through here, can you see what these people are doing?” A tall thin man, his wife, and their two children emerge from the inner curtain. They stop and carefully turn in place. A voice comes from the ceiling: “Please return to the exhibit. You have a yellow swallowtail in your hair, ma’am.”
The woman says, “I do?”
Her husband says, “Yeah hon, you do. Let’s go back in and see if we can get it out.”
The voice from the ceiling says, “No, just give it a chance to go away. If it does not soon, an attendant will help you to get it out. You must be very careful in handling the butterflies. Many of them are just newly hatched.”
“Eclosed!” Tabitha says.
The woman goes back in and quickly pops back out. “It flew away once it was inside,” she says, and the family leaves.
We cross the inner curtain. Inside the conservatory, it is significantly warmer than in the main hall, and warmer still than the spring air outside. The temperature reminds me of Belize: not as hot, but hot enough that the kids will soon get uncomfortable. The hothouse is like a miniature jungle, another way that it reminds me of Belize. There are concrete paths in between trees and flowers and hanging plants and fungi. Hidden among them are more sculptures and also a handful of birds and butterflies in every color imaginable. The children instantly start pointing and calling out. Timmy says, “Mom, look at this one.”
“Mommy,”
Tabitha says, “I want to get down and see the butterflies.”
Millie puts her down. Tabitha starts running around. “Don’t run, Tabitha, you’ll only scare them away. If you want to see a butterfly, you’ve got to be slow and quiet and stand really still.”
I try following Millie’s advice, freezing in place with my arms out in front of me. Soon a giant purple butterfly, a species I do not recognize, lands on my arm. It spreads its wings and holds them out. The tour guide says, “That one is newly emerged. Its wings still need to dry. If you hold still, you will be doing it a kindness.”
“I can hold still for a long time,” I say.
“Oh look,” Millie says, snapping pictures. “Oh, this is so incredible. Look at the kids. If only Wayne were here.”
“I think he would enjoy it,” I say. “You can send him pictures.”
Millie takes a picture of the butterfly on my arm. “I know. We send him so many pictures from so many events and fun experiences. He’s missed out on so much.” She looks at Dr. Zinta, who is leading the kids over to the butterfly release cage. “I miss when Dr. Zinta was his boss. Dr. Warren seems nice, in her way; but she’s so much more ambitious, taking on projects like never before. And he’s working so many hours now.”
“I am sure he wishes he could be here, Millie.”
“Does he, Carey? Can you tell me for sure that he does?”
I shake my head. “Millie, you know my confidentiality rules. I cannot analyze him and answer that.” Her eyes look sad, so I add, “But I think he does.”
“He loves his work so much, Zinta’s right. I don’t understand it, but he loves it. Or he did before he got into management. Now I’m not so sure. But it’s a good living. He takes care of us.”
“He is successful in his work. Are you not happy for him?”
“I am. It’s just . . . Now with Tabby around, I’ve taken leave from the university. I’d rather be home with the kids. But you know, I’d rather be in the classroom, too. And I’d really rather be out in the field doing research.”
Today I Am Carey Page 19