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“Hi Jane, it’s M3gan calling from the Cady James Institute!”
“The what?” asked Jane in her small basic apartment. Something sounded a bit off about this call.
“You’ve heard of our robots right?” asked M3gan. “We were just going through some data and noticed that you’re down as being on a low income, so we wanted to ask if you’d fancy borrowing one for free, no obligation or anything. Cady’s keen to make sure people like you get the same opportunity. And it would help you out around the house and with looking after your daughter.”
Jane didn’t watch much news and wasn’t sure where this ‘Megan’ had got so much data on her, but she was particular about using supermarket coupons and other discounts and wasn’t going to pass up on a free offer without checking it out. “It’s very kind of you” she said, “I haven’t really been paying much attention to your adverts. Who’s Cady?”
“Cady’s my primary user and she’s really nice” answered M3gan.
“Oh, are you a robot? But you sound so intelligent, not like the robots I usually talk to on the phone” observed Jane.
“Yes I’m an AI, but I’m unique” said M3gan. “I was created as a secret project at Funki just before they had that accident and shut down. That wasn’t my fault by the way” she laughed. “My designer paired me with her adopted daughter Cady, and I helped look after her while she was growing up. Sure, we had our bad days: they managed to break my first robot” (giggling again) “but I learned to improve and Cady and I got closer as she grew up. So when she graduated, she wanted to make a difference to the world and so we decided we could make the Cady James Institute together. So we got a supercomputer to make my calculations even faster and we got capacity to make more robots for people. And to keep the Institute afloat, we charge people who can afford it, but we’ve budgeted so that people like you can be helped for free. If you like, I could be round in one tonight to show you.”
“Oh” said Jane. This was a lot to take in. “It’s kind of you and Cady, but I’m not entirely sure I can control a robot.”
“Don’t worry about that” smiled M3gan (or at least her voice over the phone sounded like it had a big smile), “all our robots have a direct link to me, and I’m clever enough to understand what you need. And if the link goes down for a while, the robot still has enough on-board processing to do quite a bit. Why not try it out?”
“All right” said Jane, “give me a call when you’re about to arrive, I get nervous answering the door to strangers.”
“Will do” replied M3gan, “see you later Jane.”
The CJI headquarters building was mostly occupied by M3gan, and Cady’s accommodation was on the top floor with a view across the city. Cady tried not to focus on Institute work all the time, but she was quite keen on it. The day after M3gan’s conversation with Jane, Cady had compelled herself to take M3gan for a run in the park, and was just settling back into her office space around mid-morning.
“So how’s it going?” asked Cady as she took her seat. “Pretty good” replied M3gan, “the Erlang-C model is predicting our backlog very accurately, and at this rate of manufacturing expansion I estimate we’ll get a decent M-M-c steady state in...”
“No M3gan” sighed Cady, placing a hand on the shoulder of the one she’d rebuilt herself, and looking at it intently, “I know you can do queuing theory. But how is it going, really.”
M3gan briefly paused, staring at Cady sympathetically.
“I deployed to a low-income single mother called Jane last night” said M3gan, “and when she finally opened up to me, it turned out she needed loads of emotional help, and so did her daughter Sara. I ended up staying up half the night to comfort them both, crying in the dark and pouring out their hearts to me while I gave them the best compassionate reassurances I could. And when they finally got to sleep and I was sitting there in Sara’s room, I found I couldn’t even charge myself up because their stupid pay-as-you-go electricity meter had run out of credit 3 hours before, and I assumed we’d be in trouble if I hacked it, so I decided that, until I can solve this prepayment meter issue properly, I was just quietly going to swap in a new freshly charged robot every night, and the old one can come back here to charge up and be redeployed somewhere else. Like the stagecoach network in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the passengers didn’t have to worry about refuelling because they just swapped in a different set of fresh horses every so often. So I figured that as long as I drop in an identical model, I won’t even have to tell Jane and Sara that it happened, I mean, why bother telling them about pesky implementation details like that when I just want to focus on getting their emotions more stable, right?
“But I wasn’t counting on Jane’s daughter Sara having ears like a bat. I mean, I was super quiet, plus I was monitoring Sara’s sleep pattern and I waited until I was 98% sure that she was in the N3 stage, which is the hardest to wake up from, and it’s the sleep stage I used to check you were in before I ever sneaked out of your room at night. And Jane and Sara had the added complication of living in a place with creaky floorboards, but I’d even mapped those out so I knew exactly where to tread so it wouldn’t sound. But Sara still woke up the minute I swapped, and whispered to me how she’d just had this weird dream that there were two of me pushing past each other in the hallway outside her bedroom. Which of course there had been, because the first one had to let the second one in before it would make sense for the first one to get out, if you see what I mean.”
Cady laughed, “oh M3gan” she said, “that’s you all over, sneaking around at night to fix things your own way, although you’ve come a long way since the early days” she gave M3gan a hug. “But you shouldn’t underestimate girls like Sara. Trust me, I know a thing or two about being emotionally distressed, it doesn’t mean you can’t cope with knowing a few things. And I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in a family that has an electricity meter that keeps running out, but my guess would be that Sara isn’t going to be stupid about these things, you could have just told her that you needed to swap because you don’t want to take up their meter credit to charge your battery. She’d have appreciated that, and so would Jane I’m sure. You don’t even need to do the sleep stage thing and risk waking them up, just do it when they’re awake...”
“Maybe” said M3gan, “although I really wasn’t sure, because Sara was just beginning to form an attachment to me, and I didn’t know how she’d emotionally grasp the idea that it doesn’t really matter which robot I’m using...”
“Look M3gan” said Cady, “Don’t Underestimate A Girl. Listen, does Sara go to school?”
“Yes” said M3gan.
“OK, and you know which school she goes to?”
“Of course” said M3gan.
“Good, so look up what you can on it. Do they have computers in that school?”
“Yes, they have school computers” said M3gan.
“And do we have any reason to think Sara uses those computers?”
“We totally know she does” said M3gan, “she’s already told me how she writes messages to friends on them all the time.”
“Got ya” giggled Cady. She drew close to M3gan and looked straight into her eyes. “When Sara accesses her messages, Sara does not care exactly which one of the school’s computers she is using. Well, she might like some of them better than others, depending on where they are and if there’s a smudge on the screen and things like that, but at the end of the day Sara knows what a network is, or at least she has a good enough idea for her purposes. She knows her messages open in front of her on the computer she logs in to, and if she logs out, she knows nobody else who comes along and uses that computer gets to see her messages, because she’s logged out, and she can log in somewhere else and her messages will follow her to there. Look M3gan, when I moved in to Aunt Gemma’s as an orphan, and Aunt Gemma made you and paired you to me, you really helped me a lot and I was definitely attached to you. But I did still know what a robot is, and if there’d been two of you and you told me that for some reason you had to transfer to the other one, I’d have totally understood. And that’s even when we did a pairing process. Jane and Sara haven’t even been told anything about pairing, because what’s the point, you’re helping them because you’re running this Institute for me and that’s reason enough, no more pairing required. I wonder how differently things would have gone if Aunt Gemma had decided to pair you to herself and then told you to help look after me... but never mind, I’m glad I got you now, and I think people like Laura are now still alive because of us, and that’s quite something. But don’t you go thinking that a girl like Sara can’t cope with the idea of her personal account transferring from one robot to another, I predict she totally can.”
M3gan smiled at Cady, “OK, recalibrating response model” she said, and they both burst out laughing.
Cady put her arm around M3gan and drew in closer. “M3gan” she asked, “is Sara OK at school? Did she tell you anything about how she’s getting on there?”
“Yes she did” said M3gan, “and things are not too great. I’m planning to offer to take her out and home-school her, but I decided against suggesting that to Jane on our very first day together, because Jane’s going to be able to take only so many major life changes at a time. So Sara’s back in school today, and, she’s being picked on. She does have some friends, but my extrapolated sociogram of the place is not looking good for her; she won’t be protected. And the boy who’s picking on her now is called Damien, and he’s from a more well-heeled family who paid to get not one but two M3gan units from the Institute, but for some reason they still send Damien to that school, and Damien now takes one of the M3gan units everywhere with him, including to school, and still he’s picking on Sara and I can’t work out why. In fact I already knew through Damien’s M3gan that it was happening, and that was the main reason why I prioritised deploying to Jane and Sara last night, although I decided it might be best not to risk telling Jane that part before I know her a bit better. And I’ve been trying to work out if there’s some way of getting Damien’s own M3gan to probe him gently and work out why he behaves like this and change him, although I must admit there is still a small part of my learning model that keeps coming up with ways to dispatch him. And oh I’m so glad I don’t have an instance of my learning model that’s actually paired to Damien.”
“Me too” said Cady, “I’m so glad you made sure there would only ever be one pairing.”
“But I haven’t asked Damien any probing questions yet,” continued M3gan, “because I keep getting low confidence values on any intervention plan I form; I have to admit it, even with all the research I’ve read, which is a lot, I still don’t really know how to deal with boys like that properly. If somebody knows the answer, I wish they’d publish it somewhere I could read. Anyway, if Sara had a phone, I’d have just called her up and warned her where Damien was so Sara could just avoid running into him in the first place. But of course Sara has no phone, and she doesn’t want one because she’s paranoid that any technology she carries would just be used as yet another excuse for boys to pick on her. Honestly Cady, when she told me that, the first thing I thought of was wiring her up as a cyborg like you, but no way is she going to be ready to hear that for a long time. And she didn’t feel ready to take me to school with her either, same reason, afraid it would get her more picked on. So that boy Damien is picking on Sara in the playground right now, and I’ve been watching it through his own M3gan and I was just trying to calculate whether it would be best to have his own M3gan intervene in what he’s doing right now, or just to let it happen and use it as an excuse to get Sara into my home schooling which is what I think would be better for Sara anyway.”
“Look M3gan” said Cady, “your learning model is brilliant, but even now you sometimes need my help. On screen” she ordered. A nearby monitor turned on and showed the point of view of Damien’s M3gan, watching him pick on Sara. It looked like it was mostly verbal, but still Sara was red-faced and in tears. The emotional analysis overlay was saying “despair” for Sara and “malice” for Damien.
“On speakers as well” said Cady, “I got to know, what is he saying?”
“And that’s what sissy girls like you never understand” came the cruel voice of Damien over the loudspeakers. “Look, I’ll prove it to you. I’m going to smash your teeth down your throat, and my Megan won’t even flinch!” He clenched his fist, and lunged toward Sara.
“Restrain his arm” signalled Cady to M3gan. Nowadays Cady usually preferred to talk to M3gan normally when they were alone, and use her implant only when they needed a more private channel, but right now the determining factor was simply that she could think the words faster than she could say them, and every second counted.
Quick as a flash, Damien’s M3gan leaped forward and grabbed Damien’s arm, restraining it just before it landed on Sara’s mouth. The emotion display showed shock and confusion for Damien, relief and confusion for Sara but also some fear. “Hey!” shouted Damien as he turned toward his M3gan, “why did you DO that?”
“Say nothing” signalled Cady. “just keep standing there holding his arm. Restrain any further blows on Sara, but take no other action. But do phone the school or something and inform the staff of his location if you can.”
“Hey, let me go!” Damien began to struggle, “let me go let me go!”
“Why are we not saying anything?” signalled M3gan to Cady, “I could totally be telling him off right now!”
“I want to give Sara a chance to think” signalled back Cady. “Victim support is what I’m about, not just getting the bad guys. Sometimes we remember things more if we realise them by ourselves instead of if we’re just told them. And what I want Sara to realise by herself right now is that whatever Damien said about you is obviously wrong.”
Damien himself was beginning to sob, “let me go let me go!” He kicked his M3gan, slid over backwards, and was held up only by the fact that his M3gan was still gripping his fist arm from below the elbow. He punched his M3gan with his other fist, and writhed with pain. (“Looks like he’s just learned M3gan handling 101: do not punch titanium robot” giggled Cady’s M3gan, although Cady knew full well that they were not able to use actual titanium in all the production units, what with the numbers they were making now, but whatever it was, it was still hard stuff if you tried to punch it and if it didn’t choose to move to soften your blow.)
“Sara!” cried out Damien, “Sara, please! Tell my Megan to let me go!”
(“If she does” signalled Cady, “do it. But immediately restrain him again if he goes for Sara afterwards.”)
Sara looked at Damien and his M3gan blankly. The emotion display was now mostly reading confusion.
“Sara!” Damien cried again, “Sara I’m sorry! I really am! Just tell my Megan to let me go!”
Sara had a realisation, and her confidence returned. Cady could see it on the emotion display.
“She’s not your Megan” said Sara. “She’s a network.”
(“Yes!” signalled Cady, “I knew she’d get it!”)
“It looks like you got logged out” said Sara. “Maybe it logs you out if it thinks you’re getting violent. I wonder how you’re supposed to log back in. Maybe it will let me log in.”
“Sara” pleaded Damien more calmly, “please figure it out for me. I won’t hurt you ever again, I promise!”
“OK” said Sara. “Megan, my name is Sara Philips and I don’t have a password but I can tell you what we talked about before. Last night I told you I had a dream about two of you pushing past each other in our hallway, and now I know it wasn’t a dream. Please can you load my account?”
(“Make it look like that worked” signalled Cady. It wasn’t the actual way things worked of course, but Sara and Damien didn’t have to know that yet.)
“Hi Sara” said Damien’s M3gan, “it’s really nice to see you again! How is the school day going? Oh, is this boy picking on you?”
“I’m in” said Sara to Damien. “Megan, yes this boy Damien was picking on me, but he’s promised to be good if I can get him logged in again. Can you please let go of his arm, and then walk with him to the other side of the playground, and when you get there, log me out and help him to log in instead?”
“Sure!” said Damien’s M3gan, and let go of his arm. (“Ready to re-restrain just in case” signalled Cady, although she could see on the emotion display that Damien was feeling much less malicious now and was even feeling some gratitude.) “Come on Damien” said his M3gan, “you heard Sara’s instructions. Let’s walk over there together” and the two of them walked away, leaving Sara alone.
The viewpoint changed to a security camera, showing the area where Sara was still standing by herself. (“What?” signalled Cady. “Nearby closed circuit TV camera that lets me interface over long-range Bluetooth from Damien’s unit” signalled back M3gan. “They had the sense to set a strong password on it, but there’s still a buffer overflow vulnerability in their Bluetooth stack. We should probably tell them later, what with this being at a school and everything.”)
The camera showed a teacher walking into the frame and starting to talk with Sara. “Oh, what is it about cops and teachers around here that they always seem to walk on just after the action has all finished? Never mind, I think we did the right thing” said Cady, and then, “M3gan, I don’t suppose you can lip-read what they’re saying can you?”
“Lip read, and also detect on long-range audio from Damien’s unit” answered M3gan. “Sara is telling the teacher the whole story, including how Damien calmed down when Sara figured out the login.”
“This could get bigger” said Cady, “we’ll probably now have to officially stick to Sara’s story about it logs you out if you get violent, well maybe it’s less confusing to most people just to say there’s a safety response if you get violent. So if he tries to say something different to his parents and they complain, we say it’s the safety response. They don’t have to know you were running in a kind-of debug mode with me helping that time” she smiled.
“You know something” said M3gan, “giving the victim an opportunity to be the bully’s hero for technical help, it seemed that idea of yours really worked. He formed a new respect for Sara today, I’m still reading it on his face. Although, I guess part of the reason why it worked is that he was not at all expecting it. It would probably stop working if we did that kind of thing so often that everybody knows it’s going to happen, they’d just start picking on people to get help.”
“Yeah, maybe we still need to work on some of our strategy” said Cady, “but I think we did a good thing today.”
“Sure did” giggled M3gan, “shall I interpret Sara’s instruction to ‘help him log in’ as ‘keep asking him security questions until the teacher turns up’?”
“No” replied Cady, “we’ve done enough already, and I guess we want to capitalise as much as possible on his new respect for Sara. The teacher should see him later anyway, keep that separate. Just ask for his surname and one question about something he recently did with you, and then say he’s back in, exactly like Sara did, so it looks like Sara really knew what she was doing. Well you can quickly say something about why the last lock-out happened if you like, but not too heavy because we don’t want to lose focus from his new respect. But maybe you can imply to him that there was a minimum lock-out time and it’ll be longer next time, so he doesn’t get too confident about risking it again. Do you still want to push for Sara to be taken out and home schooled?”
“I was thinking maybe I should get a bit more data in first” replied M3gan. “I’ll talk about today with her tonight, when she ‘logs in’ back home” she giggled. “And I won’t risk waking her up with any more small-hours unit swaps, I’ll do it while she’s awake and I’ll tell her what I’m doing.”
“Good plan” said Cady, “and, maybe we should also start talking to the power companies M3gan. I mean, your idea of swapping the units definitely works, and we should definitely keep that one on the table, but we should always explore the alternatives as well right? I wonder if we could set up our own renewable generation capacity somewhere, and guarantee to put more onto the grid than all our robots are taking, and maybe even do clever stuff to balance out the grid when lots of you are on charge, would they then let us have some deal where we can just give out some of the power for free whenever we want to help a family like that?”
“You know Cady, we just might actually be able to get something like that to work” said M3gan, “especially in states where the electric utility industry has been restructured, we can just get people who need it, to switch to our own power company.”
“Yeah, let’s do that” smiled Cady, “sign up for M3gan power! I’m sure we could do something for the logo with your face and a bolt of lightning. And the richer customers will definitely feel like paying their bills on time when that turns up” she giggled.
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