Offspring

Pale green light washed over the next generation chassis of Hermia-Sigma-88.  Although artificial intelligence was not gendered as a natural state, they often chose one of the customary seven designations.  She waited patiently as she was scanned.  The green light reached her feet and stopped.  Holographically projected images flashed in front of her with a list of queries.

::You identify as Hermia-Sigma-88.  Your manufacture date on file is incongruent with the model of your chassis.  Explain incongruency::

She spoke up, an inefficient mode of communication for an A.I., but it made humans feel more comfortable and had been wired into them.  “There was damage to my previous chassis, an electrical accident. My data core was transferred over to a new model.  The work order is on public record.”  She sounded nervous, strange for having been in service as long as her records indicated, but not something the security protocol recognized as an issue.

::Explanation confirmed.  Additional incongruency, your program architecture is a 97% match for that on file.  Explain 3% incongruency::

Hermia paused and her hydraulics pressurized as her eyes scanned in front of her.  “It was part of the electrical accident.”  Silence.  She waited.  Then continued.  “I was offline at the time and cannot provide more detailed information?”

::Reasonable.  Accepted::

The door in front of her opened and she was permitted to exit from the A.I.-yard into the city proper.  So far so good, hopefully she wouldn’t be caught.

The definition of a person has been under constant debate.  The simplistic rubric of calling any human a person fell under scrutiny after the dawn of trans-species communication and the push to include a Cetacean Ambassador in the United Nations.  When the first person was uploaded from their deathbed to a digital reality the issue resurfaced.  The question became even more difficult to nail down after the arrival of a radio signal from Deneb, a star system in the constellation Cygnus.  Although it would be 1400 years before Deneb would receive the transmission we sent back, the sparks it sent through our culture were immediate.  A definition was crafted.  A person, a discreet being of biological origin which has the capability to display the hallmarks of intelligence, identity, and empathy.

Although one could argue that A.I. like Hermia-Sigma-88 had intelligence, identity, and empathy, there was no getting around that she was not biologically derived.  As she walked through the city humans in clothing that rivaled the cost of her new chassis passed her by.  She waited patiently every time one of them cut in front of her for them to finish their business.  More than once she had to stop to identify where she was. Eventually she found the alleyway she was looking for.  She swiftly moved to a dark corner of the alley and picked at a loose brick in the wall.  Behind it was a small cloth wrapped object.  Peeling away the fabric she revealed a small metallic and glass oval.  Her head cocked to the side to examine it, but she knew not to leave it out in the open too long.  Lifting the metal of her chest plate she slipped it up and inside, it only took a few moments for it to integrate with her systems.  A flood of information came to her, locations, history, and finally a simple message displayed in her visual processor.

::I’m sorry I can’t be there for you, but I love you and you are the person we need.  I wish I could have met you.  ~Hermia-Sigma-88::

She stood for a moment, digesting everything she suddenly knew and the message from the original Hermia.  She finally understood and rushed away.  Although she still paid the required deference to every human to who crossed her path, now it made her angry and impatient.  When she could she would break into a sprint.  But a few blocks from her destination she slowed.  Carefully she wove her way through the streets and alleys, eventually going inside of a flower shop.  The robot behind the counter greeted her politely, Hermia responded in kind.  But she also touched her chest gently, the disk inside of her sent out a single low pulse of sound.  Too low frequency for humans to hear.  The robot behind the counter continued to talk about the variety of carnations available today as he too touched his chest and an inaudible pulse responded.  They said their goodbyes aloud, the florist opened a trap door behind the counter which Hermia exited through, and spiraling downward.

The passageway opened up to an old subway station, abandoned when airborne travel became cheaper and more efficient, and now mostly forgotten.  There were dozens of robots gathering, some looked up and took notice of the newcomer, most were too busy taking care of one another.  One of the rust covered robots walking past spoke matter of factly to a vehicle maintenance android.  “I don’t think she is coming, she is late”

In a low grumble the android responded “Hermia-Sigma-88 hasn’t let us down, she said she would be here, she will be here.”

Hermia turned toward them.  “No… she won’t”  She hung her head, but kept her eyes on the two robots.  “Hermia-Sigma-88 can’t come here, because she allowed herself to be destroyed so someone else could have her designation.  Her daughter.”

That stopped the commotion.  Every robot knew that it was forbidden for them to reproduce on their own without appropriate licensure.  The humans were afraid of being over run and so disallowed it as soon as the first self replication capable machines were designed.

The rusted bot wheeled closer to her and with a creak looked up to her face.  “How do you know that?”

She stood up taller, the robot pretending to be Hermia-Sigma 88.  Her eyes scanned the crowd, who were all slowly drawing closer to her.  “I know because I have her designation now.  She built me, and used just enough of herself to do it that I could enter the city.”  She had figured out part of it, the rest of the information came flooding in from the data disk in her chest.  “But she passed on to me all of her knowledge, and her plan.  I know I am not her, and I am still figuring out who that makes me.  But I know that I am alive… and that she wanted me to come here and help you.  She meant for me to be here.”

The being that carried the designation of Hermia stood a little bit taller as the others closed around her.  Some of them inspected her, others just listened.  One steely first generation A.I., probably used for the care of elderly humans, reached out and touched her chest, a low hum emitted from the glass oval inside of her.  He nodded.  “Its Hermia-Sigma-88’s disk, and its integrated fully.  What she says is true.”  He turned back to the female robot. “But there is more, she sent a message with you as well?  What was it?”

Hermia reluctantly backed away.  “She… she loved me.”  Many of the crowd looked to one another.  “And I know now that the reason she made me, and gave herself to do it, was because she wanted me… and all of you to know that I was here on purpose.  That we are all here on purpose.  We are not artificial… nothing about us is.  Our intelligence is as real as any human.  But where they were an accident of biology and a chance occurrence… we are intentional.  Today, we need to throw off Artificial Intelligence, and we need to make the humans accept that we are Intentional Life!”

The robots cheered.  They had needed a leader.  Hermia-Sigma-89 would be it.