They've adapted, integrated and made the smooth transition from factory settings to full on responsive telecallers and the CEO of Globotech International was pleased. It had been a big investment and it took a long time convincing the Board. Replacing existing poorly performing humans was always going to be a minefield of ethical and moral questions. But there was no doubting these newer models Were less robotic in temperament even if they still looked eerily like human toasters on legs to him. They would make his company s expansion into the worldwide market a success, a glowing indictment of technological supremacy. These models could respond in a wealth of languages, had tonal behaviours to match callers' responses and didn't need to learn the complex nature of the questions being fired at them. Plug them in, load their brain matrix, trigger the humanity node and the simulated responses were uncannily real and accurate. Heck, most times the callers didn't even get that they were speaking to a Machine. An expensive piece of electrical hardware granted, but one that would last a lifetime, could operate all day long, needs no breaks or sleep and who follows orders and doesn't bitch about it. In short, model 285 was the success story he's been waiting for. And they don't need to be paid or have tedious rights attributed to them.
Some joker on the fifth floor where the nerds and gecks develop this technology had given each unit a name. They told him it promoted confidence in the callers, and each had a background sub routine programmed into it's interface. If asked about themselves the sub routine kicked in and little elaborate details played out to put the caller at case. The technicians and programmers enjoyed this bit of the arduous process ot compiling and maintaining the robots the most. They said it was about breathing life and humanity into the machine. He said in private it smacked of egotism and a desperate need of these lower level players to assert Some sort of personal influence on an otherwise boring Existence of their own. But he couldn't argue with the results, fact was they DID sound and act human. He'd observed them himself in live demos. He still shivered at the experience, hearing a robot talk of last night's telly and his football teams latest loss as if it actually was real. He heard them laugh or express disbelief and patience, then lighten the mood with a personal anecdote. To his mind, these tech-nerds were skating on thin ice. He felt uncomfortable thinking of the ramifications in the greater beyond, outside his company walls. But by then he'd be rich on the backs of their labour and he wouldn't care, so long as he got to where he was destined to be - the top!
Priyanka Sunhil was the proud programmer of robot 285c. She'd put blood, sweat and tears into that mechanoid, and in a predominantly male dominated department she wanted to shine. Her algorithm bio-routines and offline analysing self repair nano-systems were the best in her class last year when she'd graduated. She was determined to be noticed and make a name for herself. She'd stayed late many nights to make her bot the most human, the most authentic, the best. She was very competitive true, but she felt like being the newest recruit, the youngest and a woman..it all led to high expectations, And nobody expected more than she did herself, she was her Own worst critic. It's not like she had a personal ife anyway, she'd sacrificed that to get this job. Then when she was here she gave even more to stay here and get to her contemporaries level of expertise. Being in the classroom and reading of these advancements was one thing, but actually doing them in real life was something entirely different. So when she stayed late she worked in private on enhancing the neural helmet that acted as an interface tor the pulsotronic overwriting of the droids "personality". She named her Wendy.
Wendy was going to be all the things that Priyanka was not. Funny, emotionally forward and confident, extrovert and happy just to be living in the moment. Nobody at the company had put that much effort into their robots. She Excelled at the minutia that made the difference and offered a finesse and refinement to her bot's eloquency. Whereas others had made the robot in their image, she had made Wendy how she saw she could be if only she wasn't a human caught up in the ratrace. But what Priyanka hadn't realized as she tweaked and manipulated the bio-feed, was that her subliminal electrical brainwaves were just as much part of the transmission as her intended data. In short, Priyanka messed up and neither she nor her colleagues would pick up on that until it was too late. She was working fast and hard to complete Wendy in time, and whilst others were happy to submit their bots within workable standardized parameters, she was not. Wendy was to be Priyanka's stepping stone to a quicker promotion through the ranks. Wendy needed to be a success, and she passed all the safety tests and protocols, so she was put into live operation.
To be continued.
