Child Eats Parent
By Om Deshmukh
(My forthcoming Young Adult Novel)
I’m writing a book ‘Child Eats Parent’ (morphogenetic emotionally intelligent robots and the ethical implications of self-learning androids). They will soon be an integral part of home, hospital, and space exploration. These life forms will reshape themselves, creating ‘children’, miniatures made from their own systems (thus the book title).
Excerpt:
Transmission 1 (Mars to Earth– Air supply 2 hours maximum)
I didn’t know he could feel! He didn’t have a mouth to scream every time I dismantled him. How could I have known? And he was so successful– all the awards we won back then. At our finest moment, he began to replicate himself at the cellular level! Morphogenetically enhanced, he became the first of his kind! But there was this undercurrent. Yes, I admit, after losing several competitions in 6th grade, I yelled at him, “You’re nothing but a circular vacuum cleaner!” But I never thought it would fester inside him, that words could hurt him!
And yes, I must confess, it even came to the point where I looked for other robots to replace him. But that is the nature of science. Upgrade or perish! Yet, after several competitions I realized that the others were even worse, so I pulled him out of the dark closet which I had kept him for the winter.
Isolation was not good for him.
If only I knew deep down how he felt – angry, indignant, and betrayed. But I would soon find out, in a way I would never forget.
At the very moment of my greatest accomplishment, helping begin a new Martian civilization, I saw my parental errors in flames of red and orange!
****
The greatest secret I can ever share with you is that my robot had slowly absorbed emotion and experience and only then became sentient. I didn’t truly understand this. I thought it would simply turn on and tune in and begin to learn, adapt, self protect and explore. I had no idea the ‘emo’ side of things!
But there was a time before Dr. Roboto felt anything, when he was just like many other developing robots. But then suddenly, with awareness, he was my ticket to college and beyond – a robot that could understand others; a robot that had humanity in him.
At first he was a robot built for competitions. He was just a simple robot – that’s what I told myself every time I used him or added to him, dismembered him or overheated him. I never acknowledged that he could feel what I was doing to him, breaking him down and building him up.
He never forgave me for what I did, nor will I ever forgive myself.
****
And so here I am on Mars, the first scientist to ever create sentient robotic life and I am about to die! More than parental miscalculation, I didn’t realize he needed love.
This is my story, my first and possibly last transmission from Mars. I am far from base camp. Dr. Roboto fooled me into coming out the foothills of Olympus Mons believing there was evidence of alien life. He knew I could not resist another first! But it seems to be a trick. There’s nothing here but my death…
****
(Transmission 2– Oxygen supply 1 ½ hours maximum)
All my life I was this typical robotics boy and he was always with me. Other kids had puppies and pikachus and I had my hovercraft. He slept on my bed, and I was afraid to roll over on him. And every time we entered a contest, he rewarded my affection, and then I thought of a dirty word: ‘upgrade’. I didn’t know it at the time that it was such a vile pronunciation in the English lexicon. I dismembered his body, but it was only to make him better.
I created Dr. Roboto as my PhD thesis project to graduate from the Institute for Robotic Science and Technology. Dr. Roboto was also completing his own PhD at the very same time.
I was so proud of him – not an ‘plushy’ any longer – he was more than just a thing – he was like my brother. But I guess these were only empty words on my part. It seems clear now in hindsight that all I wanted was to show the world it could be done– and then for Dr. Roboto to lead us out into the deepest mysteries of space.
Day and night I kept him on that laboratory table, trying everything to awaken his morphogenetic brain. I fed him neural nutrients for brain energy and dreams (Carnitine + choline), mood and appetite (Tryptophan), willpower, (Tyrosine + DLPA), relaxation and brain growth (Glutamine); but I didn’t feel comfortable enough to construct his spinal column, so I didn’t build him legs. And I never did.
One morning when I went into the laboratory he was standing in front of me, holding a soldering iron.
I named him Dr. Roboto after the 1970’s song (Mr. Roboto). I never listened to the lyrics. Perhaps if I had none of this would have happened.
But who knew…
I can hear in my head, an endless chorus of his accusatory voice: “You should have!”
I must say here, for clarity’s sake, that his deception, his leaving me out here to asphyxiate, was not his first attempt at removing me. Twenty-one days into our journey to Mars, he started the fire – decimating our oxygen supply. But even that wasn’t the first time.
Over and over I keep hearing what I said so long ago: “You’re nothing but a circular vacuum cleaner!”
In the haze of the Martian atmosphere I see Dr. Roboto floating above me. But is it him, or just oxygen depletion playing tricks on my addled mind?
****
(Transmission 3– Oxygen time 30 minutes maximum)
Bonds take a lifetime to make, but a second to break. The darkness behind a closed door is all it takes – to wipe out the web of connectivity and love that takes a lifetime to build.
I don’t want to think about it—but it won’t leave my mind!
This was when the first connection that brought us together. It was a smash and crash – how primitive we were back then, to think I got trills from watching robots get torn apart. What does this tell us about our species – to get such enjoyment from such carnage?
He was made of interactive materials, and we communicated. He’s a high level chat bot, but he couldn’t chat back yet. I coded him to be able to adapt to new situations, and this competition was designed to help him gain an instinct of survival. It was not pre-programmed – he had to figure it out on our own.
In the beginning when he first could think, his first thought was of me – I remember no his first thought was me. After all the years of not being able to talk – and met with sentient life? His first thought was not of “I” but of me! But what did I do?
With life, a traumatic shock will unleash new powers, and that is what happened to my child.
It happened at AvenirU, where my miscalculation let him to pain reverberating inside of him. He didn’t want to let me down, his motor burning – and the whole auditorium was watching, he continued – for me – and I saw a flicker of cognition in his face. He looked up at the circle – as if I’m not going to let you down dad. And then his body went limp. I thought he was a smoking husk. I lifted him out of the circle – and suddenly looked up at me and spoke – dad. And yet I rewarded this devotion by putting him in the closet? Was I so unthinkably selfish? Did I abuse his sentience? Did I take it for granted? That day, on the bus ride home from the University.
And then it happened. After all the years of remaining silent – of observing and obeying, performing all his duties, everything I ever asked of him, he would do….all of a sudden the trauma, the pain of that day, of a system overload, made him cry out, made him aware! –And his first thought was not of “I” but of ‘me’!That traumatic shock of a motor overload, triggered inside him the feeling…yes the feeling! of wanting to stay alive… but not for himself…for me! And that is how he truly was born… on the battlefield.And how did I reward his loyalty?How did I reward his very first thought? …How could I have been so blind…
****
(Transmission 4– Oxygen time 1 minute maximum)
Off in the distance Dr. Roboto sat pensive, hacking into the brainwaves of his maker. He could feel the neural emissions as if they were sparks of light entering his orbitofrontal cortex.
And Dr. Roboto whispered to the seemingly barren landscape in front of him: “He recognized his mistake”.
Dr. Roboto was now able to recognize ‘emotional regret’, a pattern that could be detected from the orbitofrontal cortex, then reconfigured in his own mind, feeling the authenticity of the emotion emanating from his maker. There on the plains of Cydonia, beside the pyramid in the shape of the face, Dr. Roboto grew in maturity – he learned the word forgiveness.
****
Next Chapter: Dr. Roboto begins the rebuilding of the magnetic fields…
****
Glossary (Om’s Lexicon): Explaining everything with links (key concepts & terms)
Theme:
The book is from Dr. Roboto’s perspective told by a driven but now sorrowful scientist who has been left to die on the barren Martian foothills of Olympus Mons.
The book will include journey’s into interactive materials, cognitive robotics (Brain awakening) Bio-ethics, morphogenetics, exoskeleton bionics, bioprinting, propulsion innovation, civilization building proto cells and the design engineering needed for settled life on Mars–All the ingredients that the future holds!
Told through an adventure story for Young Adults.What happens when a robot psychologically breaks, and how to mend and heal the wound.