The Girl With Acrylic Eyes

by Greg Krojac

  Rod turned his attention to Professor Morris.

  “David – may I call you David?”

  The professor responded.

  “You may call me Professor Morris.”

  Rod was a little surprised at the refusal, but if the professor’s attitude could intensify any discord that had to be good for ratings.

  “Professor Morris. Can a robot be a person?”

  The professor laughed.

  “Of course not, Mr Barcode. That’s a ridiculous concept. We are people. You, I, the audience, the human race. We are biological entities. We are people. Not a manufactured contraption like the Coppélia android. She’s no more a person than the kitchen appliances we have in our homes.”

  Rod started to address Rachel but she interrupted him.

  “Yes, you may call me Rachel.”

  Rufus chipped in too.

  “And you can call me Rufus.”

  Rod was glad to have that cleared up. He carried on with his question to Rachel.

  “Now, Rachel. Your relationship with Coppélia wasn’t as close as that of Karen, but you did have experience of the android. What do you think? Is Coppélia a person? Can an android be a person?”

  Rachel thought for a second before answering.

  “I don’t know that I’d call her a person, but she’s not your average android either. She certainly has feelings. That makes her sentient, I suppose.”

  Rod thought he’d better clarify some terminology.

  “So what’s the difference between ‘sentient’ and ‘sapient’? I ask for the benefit of our audience, some of whom I’m sure would like to know the difference.”

  Rod also wanted to know the difference but didn’t want to admit on camera that he wasn’t sure what either word meant. Karen was rightly proud of the technical knowledge that she’d gained since Raef’s death but, as the CEO of Syber Android Industries, she felt it her duty to know as much as possible about the company and its products.

  “If I may explain, Rod?”

  “Go ahead, Karen.”

  “A sentient being can feel and perceive things. Any living thing that has some degree of consciousness is sentient. This includes reptiles, dogs, cats, dolphins and human beings, amongst others. A sapient creature has the ability to think, the capacity for intelligence, the ability to acquire wisdom.”

  “And you believe that your android friend is sentient or sapient?”

  “Both actually. She has feelings and emotions. But she also learns independently without being programmed to learn. She chooses what she wants to learn”

  Professor Morris interjected.

  “Poppycock and balderdash. The android responds to human cues, that’s all. It’s without feeling. It perceives a situation and searches its internal memory for an appropriate response. You’re seeing emotions because you want to.”

  Rufus had been quiet up to now but wanted to add his two cents’ worth.

  “Actually I have to agree with Karen. I don’t know if the android is sentient or sapient, but it certainly had a mind of its own.”

  Rod hadn’t expected Rufus to support Karen’s viewpoint –he’d been invited onto the show with the assumption that he would hold a grudge against her, blaming her for the five years that he spent in jail.

  “Can you expand on that please, Rufus?”

  “Well, as you know, I run a high-class android adult entertainment and companion service –.”

  Rod believed in saying it how it is.

  “You run sexbot clubs.”

  “Yes, if you must put it like that. I run sexbot clubs. Anyway, Coppélia was one of my sexdroids for a while. My best one, actually. As close to being human as possible, without being human, if you get my drift. Anyway, one day she refused to have sex with a punter. I thought there was something wrong with her programming at first.”

  “So she refused to have sex with a customer?”

  “Yes.”

  “But did she consent later.”

  “If she were a real woman, I’d have said no. She was coerced into having sex. Something I wouldn’t allow at my establishments. Well, to be honest, it never came up before ‘cos – you know – they’re robots.”

  Professor Morris jumped into the conversation.

  “Indeed they are. Robots. A term coined by a Czech playwright, Karl Čapek, who used it in a play over two hundred years ago, Rossum’s Universal Robots. It comes from an old Church Slavonic word meaning servitude, forced labour, or drudgery. That’s what robots are for – to do what we tell them to do. To do the tasks we don’t want to do.”

  Rufus shook off the interruption.

  “Anyway, she ran off and complained to the police that she’d been raped. That’s definitely not something that would have been in her programming. She reasoned that that’s what she should do.”

  Rod realised something.

  “Rufus. I’m not surprised that Karen and Rachel refer to Coppélia as ‘she’ but I’m surprised that you do too.”

  Rufus shrugged his shoulders.

  “She’s different. It’s difficult not to.”

  Karen was genuinely surprised to have found an ally in Rufus. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

  Rod had another ace up his sleeve – or so he thought.

  “Karen, did your husband Raef think of Coppélia as a person?”

  The answer to that question was going to be painful for Karen to give –it felt like she was about to air their dirty laundry in public – but she didn’t want it to come out later, through dubious sources.

  “To be honest, no he didn’t. She was just a robot to him. She’s the most advanced android ever produced, she was designed to have feelings, to be able to express what she saw in a way that a human might, but he only saw her as a means to an end.”

  “A means to an end to what, Karen?”

  “The Coppélia project was a demonstration of his technical and problem-solving abilities so that he would gain the contract for the colonisation of Mars – which he did. He wasn’t aware of what he’d created – until it was too late to do anything, that is.”

  The production team were pleased that this had been revealed; the programme needed a spark and this could be it. Rod heard instructions through his Telepathic Comms Implant and knew the direction his production team wanted him to lead the conversation. This was a golden opportunity.

  “Are the rumours true? Were you going to divorce Raef for his attitude about the android? Did he refuse to rescue Coppélia and that destroyed your marriage?”

  Karen said nothing. She just stood up and left the stage, followed by Rachel. They tucked themselves into a corner of a corridor. Karen’s eyes were full of tears.

  “How do they know that, Rachel? How did they find out?”

  Rachel couldn’t shed any light.

  “I don’t know. Did you tell anyone?”

  “No. Of course not. I don’t think so, anyway.”

  “Well, somebody must have known and told them.”

  “I’m not going back out there, Rachel. I can’t. Not if they’re going to talk about my marriage.”

  “I don’t blame you. Nor would I. But what about Coppélia? You’re doing this for her, aren’t you?”

  Karen nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Rachel. Can you find a showrunner and tell them that I’ll come back onstage – but only if the subject of my relationship with Raef is off the table.”

  Rachel did as she was asked, while Karen did her best to regain her composure. The production team agreed to her demands – they’d got their pound of Karen’s flesh anyway. There was no need to press on with that particular line of questioning – she’d stormed off the set. That was good web-vision in anybody’s book.

  Rod Barcode feigned concern.

  “Are you all right now, Karen? Would you like a glass of water?”

  Karen shook her head.

  “No thanks. I’m okay now.”

  Rod returned to the main subject.

&nb
sp; “Now, let’s just imagine for a moment that Coppelia and others that might be built in the future were classed as people. As people, wouldn’t we have to give them rights?”

  Professor Morris shook his head frantically.

  “You’re talking about giving rights to tools. Rights are given to protect humans or sometimes to protect animals. Machines don’t need rights, they need limits. Coppélia is a computer. A collection of bits and bytes, zeros and ones. How can we be certain that the android Coppélia is not just an excellent mimic? How do we know that it is not simply programmed to recognise human social cues and its code has a certain response to each particular situation?”

  Karen was feeling much better.

  “Because she thinks, that’s why. She recorded a video to celebrate – with me – the successful landing on Proxima b.”

  This was the first that Rod had heard about such a video.

  “Really? What was the video?”

  “It was to remind me of when we both attended a performance of the ballet ‘Coppelia’. She learnt the choreography on the trip to the planet and sent it so that its arrival would coincide with her arrival on the planet. It showed me that she cared.”

  “You mean, she downloaded the choreography.”

  “No, I mean she learnt it, just like you or I might learn something. She loves learning. The ship’s computer was packed with things for her to learn. She insisted on it before leaving. And it was done.”

  Professor Morris wasn’t having any of it.

  “Sentimental hogwash. Mrs Ulfursson is simply anthropomorphising the android. I don’t blame her – it’s a perfectly natural human reaction, especially when this particular android looks so human – but that’s what’s happening here. Nothing more.”

  Rachel and Rufus were quite happy to take a back seat and let Karen and Professor Morris slug it out between them. Rod took a sip of his water (which unbeknown to the audience was actually neat vodka) – he felt that he performed better with a little alcohol inside him and his show was the top-rated show of its kind, so the production team turned a blind eye.

  “Going back to something Professor Morris said earlier. We give rights to people and animals to protect them from us – humans that is. Why would robots and androids need protecting from us?”

  Karen looked at the show’s presenter.

  “Seriously? Have you been asleep all your life?”

  Rod looked embarrassed.

  “No. Of course not. Why?”

  Karen took the bull by the horns.

  “Look at how we treat each other. Agreed, we tend mostly to be good to each other, but there’s always someone who’s willing to – no, possibly enjoys – abusing their fellow human beings. If some of us are prepared to mistreat each other, then those people aren’t going to hold back from mistreating androids.”

  Professor Morris laughed.

  “What does it matter? They’re machines. They’re not human.”

  Karen could feel her blood boiling, as the unseen production team rubbed their hands with glee.

  “It matters because our behaviour is a reflection of ourselves as a society. We – most of us anyway – don’t hurt animals because it’s morally wrong. If we mistreat animals it says a lot about the type of people we are, and we don’t want to be thought of as inhumane. I’m not saying that all robots should have rights. Basic models such as cleaner-bots, security-bots, and – yes, even sexbots – don’t need rights. Their treatment is already covered by property rights; somebody owns them and by damaging them or stealing them, you’re contravening somebody else’s property rights. But sapient robots like Coppélia are a completely different kettle of fish.”

  Professor Morris interrupted Karen’s flow.

  “Mrs Ulfursson, you just said ‘sapient robots’. Plural. Are there more androids like Coppélia?”

  Karen had been expecting this topic to come up.

  “Professor, there will be more sapient androids. Coppélia is the first, but others will follow. Of course, I can’t speak for any other company that may, one day, produce sapient androids, but for our part, we take all possible measures to safeguard our proprietary technology and to protect mankind.”

  Rod wanted to know more.

  “So there will be more?”

  “When have you ever known something to be invented and then un-invented? Never, Rod. It just doesn’t happen. Once Pandora’s box is open, it stays open.”

  A member of the studio audience shouted out, picking up on Karen’s comment about protecting mankind.

  “What about hacking? Couldn’t somebody hack into the androids and turn them against us. We’ve all seen the old Terminator movies. They could wipe us out.”

  Rod turned to Karen.

  “Well, Karen. Can you give us an answer to that question? What precautions were taken to prevent the hacking of the android Coppélia?”

  “Of course, Rod. The encryption used in securing Coppélia from hackers’ intrusion is the most up-to-date and the strongest on the planet, OTP 5.0. That is, One Time Pad version five. A stronger encryption doesn’t exist. Of course, when a stronger encryption method is developed, that will be employed. Any future sapient androids will have the strongest possible encryption installed. We recognise the risks to humanity if this isn’t done.”

  Professor Morris saw an opportunity to leap back into the conversation.

  “Agreed, we may not be able to stop more sentient – sorry, sapient - androids from being built, but we need to put in strict controls to prevent them from trying to overthrow us. If we give them rights we’ll be undermining ourselves. If they turn on us, we’ll be so tied up with red tape that we will be beaten even before we have started to defend ourselves.”

  Karen responded before the professor had a chance to say anything more.

  “This is a new bridge that we’re crossing. There have been many books and movies that have looked forward to the moment when a sapient android will be created, and we’ve been fed a diet of malicious robots and AI that are basically out to get us; examples of good AI are far outnumbered by the malicious. And do you know why that is? It’s not to scaremonger, but because stories need conflict. Nobody’s going to read a book or watch a movie where essentially nothing happens. I’m not saying that they don’t present a scenario that couldn’t happen, but it doesn’t have to happen. Whether it happens or not is up to us.

  “Coppélia has been programmed to feel emotions, yes, but certain negative emotions have been blocked. For example, she cannot feel anger, jealousy, or envy. We aren’t trying to replicate humans or even produce something better than humans. Coppélia was created to do something that humans cannot do.

  “She was designed to go to another planet, a planet that we humans couldn’t risk travelling to ourselves. As well as collecting data and performing scientific tasks, she was designed to convey to us the wonder – in human terms – of experiencing an environment that we ourselves cannot by any stretch of the imagination expect to experience for decades, perhaps centuries. She was programmed – yes, I said the ‘P’ word – to learn from her environment and interactions just as a human baby would learn. But, much like a human, she has continued to develop to this day.”

  Rod tried to say something but Karen was on a roll and wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “When we think of life, we’re narrow-minded. We think of life in terms of organic life. Trees are alive. Our pets are alive. We, of course, are alive. But is being organic a prerequisite for life? I suggest not. There’s a misquoted catch-phrase of Mr Spock, a character in a science fiction television series from the mid nineteen sixties – It’s called Star Trek. Has anybody seen that programme?”

  The question was addressed to the studio audience and a large number of its members put their hands up.

  “The phrase I’m talking about is ‘it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it’. Coppélia is constructed from inanimate materials, but her capabilities have advanced far beyond those of other android
s. She is a walking, talking example of Gestalt – just like you and me. She can feel and express emotions. She can relate to the world around her. She’s aware of herself and is sentient. However, all the evidence points to the fact that she is also curious, and she learns. Not in the way that most computers learn, but she infers. Why would a machine desire to learn the choreography of a ballet the hard way – the human way? To my mind, Coppélia is sapient and, as such, she is life, but not as we know it. We give rights to animals – not equal to our own rights – but they nevertheless have rights. They have rights because we recognise animals as being alive. We should do the same for sapient androids.”

  Professor Morris wasn’t going to give up without a fight but struggled to make himself heard over the noise of the audience cheering.

  “Quite apart from its processing and apparent reasoning capabilities, we know the super-human strength that the android Coppélia possesses. Imagine what an android like Coppélia could do if it were hacked. There could be carnage. And now imagine that the android Coppélia has been reproduced a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times. Will we feel safe? Of course we won’t. And, if we give them rights, we waste time on hearings and debates – much like this one – whilst these androids subjugate humanity and take over the planet.”

  The audience began jeering as Rod Barcode looked straight into the camera.

  “Well, I think we all know who won that one.”

  27

  Coppélia looked up at the sky, her one good eye trying to focus on the distant light that appeared to be getting larger by the second. She wondered what it could be. Part of her hoped that it was a meteorite or asteroid, such as the one that had caused the extinction of the dinosaurs back on her home planet over sixty-five million Earth years ago. She wished that she had the temporal inaccuracy of humans but she knew exactly how long she had been on Proxima b; 35,947 Earth days or 98 years 5 months and 1 day. She even knew that she had been trapped on Proxima b for 3,209.55 orbits of its sun. A human could lose track of time – a blessing in some ways. She didn’t have that capacity.