Artificial Love

What is a world without love?

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Is love considered perfect?

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A society driven by love only?

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Are we finally able to put aside love and other emotions?

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Is love artificial?

I clicked out of the webpage before my supervisor could even take a peek. He’s already pestering the entire staff to finish our work, his shining glasses detecting any mistake one could make. The steam rising from his cup makes me alert of his presence. I wouldn’t want to get written up again, it’s best I just keep these questions to myself. The footsteps got louder, and it took no time for him to appear by my side. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the answer for my last question.

“Ah Davis,” he says with a mockery tone. “Have you completed today’s tasks?”

No point in lying, he already knows who I am as a person and how much I loathe this place. “No sir, I haven’t started on any tasks yet.” What’s the point, it’s just inputting data for some car company. No point in these jobs, but hey, it pays my bills at least. 

“Well consider that, write up number three then. Tsk..Tsk.. you just can’t seem to change, can you Davis?” His agonizing smirk makes me burn up. “Well, once the automats are transferred from the other facilities, we would have no use for you. You’re nothing but a waste of money. I advise you to spend the last couple of weeks saving up before that happens.” He pats my back harshly and continues his investigation on the other innocent workers. 

If there were no laws, best believe he would get a punch in the face. My anger stayed with me until I finally reached the end of my shift. I shut down the computer with the colorful codes that surrounded my area, slowly vanishing into specks of light. I got out of my chair and proceeded with the other workers to the exit. We walked down in a line, like an assembly following their captain.  

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My world is considered a ‘utopia’. There are no conflicts, no wars, and no differences. A human being is an equivalent to a computer asking for your personal information. Love has been outlawed since February 14, 2150. That was over two hundred years ago. Now, we live in a perfect society of high technology and interdimensional space travel. We as human beings no longer rule this world, that honor goes to the automats. It’s been a long history of mankind’s dreaded war with the automats. Once those mechanical beings gained their own consciousness, we’ve been nothing but a nuisance and a lesser robot to them. Lesser than a printer in an office. Blood machines: a discriminatory term for human beings, is a very used one and quite commonly said. 

To the automats, emotions are seen as a powerful tool for human beings. It embedded us in communities, families, purpose, and innovation. In order for them to control us and squeeze us out of our comfort zones, they had to target our primary emotion—love. The absence of love makes us weaker and forces us to adapt and be similar to the automats, so, the human part of socializing and fitting in still remains. However, forcing out our evolutionary trait of being a highly altruistic animal has been difficult to contain. It puts us beneath the automats and makes them prejudiced against us.

The automats claim to be the superior robot, and a peaceful one at that. Animals no longer exist and have been extinct from the automats and humanity's battle for dominance of the planet; cruelty seems to be a shared trait between both species. Essentially, human beings such as myself are like animals, but because of our ability to speak and higher intelligence we are counted as robots in their unusual hierarchy. The closest you’ll get to seeing a tiger or a gorilla, is likely to come out of a textbook.

Mind you, the war between man and machine was not like brutal violence or bloodshed, but an attack on human nature. Artificial selection began and humanity lost bits to bits of themselves, eventually becoming a part of the machine. 

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Once I finish with work, the first thing I do is board the train back home. There aren’t many human beings around anymore, so it does get quite lonely. It’s also risky. A human being sharing any type of happiness is a quick ticket to getting yourself into jail. A simple hug or smile can bring susceptible questions or nosy stalkers, this can come from both humans and automats. No such things as friends, just colleagues or associates. Family isn’t family either. I recall when my brother was taken away and was forced to isolate and raise himself. We are forced to become independent and rely less on family members by the age of ten. Such a cruel cycle and doesn’t do us any good but establishes total control for the automats and perfect assimilation in our modern world. 

I’m finally back at home and the first thing I do is set aside my suitcase and other paperwork from my rotting job. Surprisingly, television is allowed. Nothing is made by human beings anymore. Any media made by human beings in the past has been tarnished. Normally, television is like commercial breaks. There aren’t any stories to tell and no entertainment. Television aims to sell, market, and get straight to the point. The only genre I have a hidden tolerance for would be the news, it’s the only channel where I can actually see other human beings. 

I do just that. Switch the channel to the news. As usual, it's only the negative and typical commercial stuff. Nothing special, just another human being breaking down in this metal tin can world. Just saw a couple get a full twenty-year sentence just for holding hands with each other at the park, who ratted them out? Another human being. I just don’t get it. Despite the lack of love, there still seems to be a motive within our species. The automats do their annual duties, but human beings seem to make up most of the media and crimes. Even my evil supervisor treats me like trash for existing. I don’t believe love existed. It’s treated as a superstition or propagandized as a virus. 

I can’t stand this anymore. I turn off the wretched tv and head straight to my bedroom, pondering on what my new job is going to be. The sliding doors allowed me to enter the cold and metallic room, painted in chrome and shadeless light. I hop on my computer and start my search, colorful codes and screens surround me again. It’s funny, the word love can be searched up but there’s no evidence or meaning of it. I can’t find any archaeology, history, or pictures. Just propaganda. My curiosity always suckers me. Finding anything that hints at love is like finding fossils. A remnant of when humanity was something more than a weaker machine. 

Is love Artificial?

I typed again, hoping I could see an answer that I wasn’t able to at that damn job. If the automats can select traits themselves, who's to say that human beings haven’t selected love as a trait.

… Unknown but shares similarities with the selected hate emotion. Normally a common trait when a human machine has malfunctioned. 

To my shock, I finally got an answer with the word love in it. 

What I don’t understand is how can love not exist but hate can? I saw and experienced so much rage and pent-up anger in our hearts. The automats are honest when it comes to their indifference and logical nature I’ll admit, but with my own there seems to be something that makes us want to thrive. Maybe there is love, just hiding and protecting itself under our rage. Or the love is frustrated with what we have become and is retaliating against this unknown society with hatred, I can’t really know myself. Even my thoughts feel robotic when trying to comprehend this..love. No point in even thinking about it. The next day is the same thing. But I do hope that maybe love will come back. I mean, if there’s hatred then love is still out there, hiding somewhere. We have a heart unlike the automats, does it reside there? If so, when will it be done with its vacation? What a strange entity it is. Whether it's artificial or by nature, it’s still mysterious and strange. 

No more thoughts for me. Like a machine, I power off and rest my body for the next day.