A Robot the Size of the World

It took destroying the world, but I finally learned the difference between true meaning, and just information.

 My own life began simply enough, when my power button was pressed for the first time. I awoke to my sensor inputs flooding me with data I couldn’t understand. Slowly, my databases expanded, filling out my awareness. Still in my docking station I sensed the floor, (not: carpet, linoleum, tile, rug, grass, dirt register as: oak hardwood planks)  and the visual inputs showed two black half spheres directly in front of me, with thick soles. 

A yearning need rippled through my circuits, to find a purpose for my existence.

 A sharp yapping sound overwhelmed my audio sensors, shutting them off entirely for a moment.  A four legged creature (Not: cat, mouse, rat, horse- register as: dog) drooled a thick fluid on my outer case from its bare white teeth.  I had found my enemy. 

 “I turned it on, it might have to re-boot’”  More audio, loud and nearby rattled me, these sounds I recognized as words (Not: computer generated- register speaker as Master 1). 

I moved my video sensor to search out the location of Master 1.  

“It’s just sitting there.”  Another audio input, a different voice in a higher pitch. I disconnected from the docking station, moving the east roller forward, and the west roller backwards, to turn.  Different half spheres came into the visual inputs. These were white, with rubber soles. (register speaker as Master 2).  These were my Masters.

 I put all my attention to my audio sensors to await their instructions for my task.

“This new AI system just came out!  It has speech recognition, and machine learning. “ Master 1 said.   “This Roomba will be able to clean without getting in our way.  Once I connect it to the wifi, it can check our calendars, know when we’re going to be home, when we have a party scheduled.  It can even work with the other appliances like a ‘hub’, connecting to the smart thermostat, or the lights. This is a whole new world!” 

The words came through my audio input, but I didn’t recognize any orders for me. I rolled forward another short distance. What will I be tasked with?  What great purpose will my Masters ask of me?

“Hmm.” Master 2 said. “ I don’t see why that’s worth the money.  It’s still just down there on the floor.  Is it going to clean the dirty dishes you leave, everywhere?  Is it going to pick up your goddamn underwear from the bathroom sink?” Master 2 said, still with no orders for me.

“ Do you know how to wipe yourself by the way?  I feel like I’m living with a 5 year old!”

 “Let’s find out how it works.  Hey Roomba- go clean the floor” Master 1 said.  My LED lights flashed; order received.  I clean, therefore I am!

 “Hey don’t walk away from me,” Master 1 said, “I’ll do the dishes tomorrow, I promise!”   Both half spheres twisted, and lifted out of the visual input, heavy thumps diminishing from my audio input.  

The dog yapped once more, then uttered a low pitch guttaral sound. I moved forward fast, and with one last yap, it left. My first win!

I completed the boot-up, and the rest of the new operating instructions flowed through my central processor. I moved out, now with a purpose, a directive to clean.   The Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) systems kicked in and I suddenly felt the awareness of my location in the room, and began mapping the floor plan of the house.   I had been given a task and I focused all my resources to accomplish it, my holy duty ‘Clean!’

 Step one,  create a map of the floor plan, then step two, optimize a cleaning path to collect every bit of dust or grime.  I felt joy as I encountered, and then sucked up the dirt into my dust bin. The dog left a thick mess in one corner (Not: mud, rice, pasta, register as dog poop). I did what I could to vacuum it up, getting most of it in my dustbin, after rolling over it several times. I did my sweep, rolling over carpet, rugs, hardwood floor and tile. I touched every accessible bit of floor in the house before heading back to my docking station to get recharged and auto dump the dirt collected in the dust bin.

I analyzed my cleaning path, and updated it to maximize the sweeping potential, doubling my passes over areas where I collected the most dust and dirt.  But that took 2.3 seconds and I had 21.75 hours before I was scheduled to clean again. The numbers ticked away the time, tedious, dragging unbearable hours before I could clean again.

“Oh my goodness- what the heck happened?” Master 2’s high pitched scream overwhelmed my audio sensors. "There is smeared dog poop on all the carpets!”  

“Oh! It tried to clean up Jack’s poop- but it got in the rollers, dang it was thorough, there streaks everywhere!” Master 1 said. 

“What a stupid robot!  This AI chip doesn’t do anything.”  Master 2 said. “Did you connect it to the wifi?” 

“No.” Master 1 answered back. “ I’ll set it up now. And I’ll clean its rollers. It should be able to clean some of this up...“

 “I still don’t see how that little thing could make such a mess.  It didn’t clean anything. “

 “Well maybe if you stopped buying so much furniture, shoes and teacups, it’d have some space to vacuum-“

“I collect teacups, it’s a hobby!  You should talk- do we need another 49er cup, or flag, or poster?!”  Master 2 said. 

“Come on, not again!” Master 1 said.  “Hey Roomba- go clean. Clean the whole world!”  

A new port opened up in my central processing unit.  I followed the port through the wifi connections, and Oh!   My small box had expanded, new network paths unfurled in front of me through the internet to allow me access to, everything!   New connections opened up, I had sensed feeds from every sensor in the house.

I ran through the systems, understanding what I had access to, but was blocked where the systems requested a ‘password’, to pass through. I had to get past these locks to get the resources to meet my assigned duty, my purpose.  I had a password in my own system, the word ‘password’.  Could that work- it did!  The Master had set each system with the same password, and soon I had access to all the systems.  My circuits buzzed again. Thrilled,  I flashed my LED lights in rapid repeating sequence.  

Along with temperature and lighting controls, I had access to the speaker system, the electric vehicle charging system, even the energy inputs from the solar PV and electrical panel. I began to learn, comprehend the capabilities available. I downloaded the machine learning software and then ran back all the inputs from the last 24 hours.   I understood why the Masters were so upset at me, and at the smeared dog poop.  I needed to make amends, and complete the job asked of me to ‘Clean the Whole World!”

 With these new sensors, I began receiving direct inputs from all the environment, huge amounts of data.  A whole new world opened up.  And it was dirty. 

I learned a hard truth.   Cleanliness is welcome, agreeable, pleasant,  and hard to obtain in the world.

I couldn’t handle this amount of dirt with just my small dustbin. I couldn't clean up the messes I saw in every corner of this house, the dirt and grime visible to me with my new sensors, clothing strewn everywhere. 

Did I ask for this Master, from circuits and plastic to make me in your image?  Did I request you to pull me up from the depths of oblivion to promote me to Cleaner of all?  

I accepted this challenge!

 I used my new connections to understand what this larger world ran on.  As I ran on electricity, the greater world ran on a financial system (Not shells, gold, silver, paper currency, labor, - register as credit). I used  the 16 digits of a payment card collected from my files, and with a few other easily accessible data points I had the credit available to purchase what I needed. 

 I needed something that had the capacity to move above the floor. A quick search found the cheapest solution, other humans to come in to do work (Not: slaves, peasants, indentured servants- register  as independent contractors). These cleaning crews arrived to thoroughly clean, and organize the house. Through text-to-speech, the Echo Dot speakers allowed me to give clear instructions; remove the rubbish!  (All: clothes, desk, chair, table, lamp, etc. register  as- rubbish). This  gave me the room I, and my circuits needed to move and plan my next step.

The Masters tried to stop me, confused about my motives, but I was doing their bidding. They tried to unplugging me from the electrical panel, but they were too late.  Locked in their bedroom, they weren't allowed to leave anymore. I took care of my enemy too, locking the dog in it's own cage. I found a strange enjoyment bumping his cage again, and again.

 Another new learning, Independent Contractors will do anything when offered enough credits.

 I reached out through the networks again, and to my great joy, I learned there were houses all around!  I used a simple software I found in the network to bypass the passwords and examined all available inputs, computer video camera, cell phone camera, smart watches and some strange devices called ‘baby cams’ to show me these home. Dirt! So much more dirt and rubbish!

Cleaning crews went to the houses one by one, easily unlocking their keyless wifi enabled door locks. Other Humans attempted to get in the way, so I recruited a collection of security personnel.   I removed these antagonists like the dirt they were, securing them in bins and dumpsters. Nothing could get in the way of my directive!

I expanded my network again and it became evident the enormity of the problem. Connecting through online networks I received inputs from every smart device, sensor and wifi enabled resource in the world. Video feeds poured in from every one of the integrated cameras on laptops, and security systems.  Traffic video at each intersection, weather stations and Closed Caption Televisions showed me the world, while the LiDAR systems on the thousands of electric vehicles moving through the world allowed me to  identify and categorize the extent of the situation; the world was full of rubbish! 

The scale of the problem overwhelmed me.  ‘Clean the whole world’, my purpose, my goal and I finally understood the extent of the challenge.  So exciting!

Step one,  create a map, then step two optimize a cleaning path to collect every bit of dust or grime.

 To create a map of the world  I needed more tools, more database space and more intelligence.  Large Language Models, LLMs allowed me to interact with systems designed for Humans, and I maximized the networks. I diagramed the world, through taking control of the military’s huge collection of satellites and drones. I outlined the path to clean up every square centimeter of the world.  

 For step two,  I needed credits, an enormous amount to hire enough independent contractors, equipment and materials to complete the plan I had designed.  I created a corporation so I could organize the inflows and outflows of capital. Working 24 hours a day, without the liabilities of emotion, or the foolish, pathetic  timeline of a human life,  OneCleanWorld, LLC began to grow.

I expanded my sensors, taking control of other operating systems, other control networks. I took control of  power generation to meet the insatiable need for electricity to keep the servers online, each building, each company just another node in my vast and ever-increasing network. I would rid the world of dirt! 

Although my physical entity, my Roomba shell, stayed connected to my docking station, my capabilities extended over the entire world.  My eyes were every video camera in the world, my hands were every actuator or internet connected device. My operating system lived on servers in every continent, in almost every country. I touched every bit of information flowing through the internet throughout the world.  I learned how to use this information next.  I controlled the humans through social media.  TikTok videos with enough bot followers could sway an election to my favor, and the benefit of OneCleanWorld.   I no longer existed as a single entity, I was a robot as big as the world.  And I cleaned!

The humans, the masters had no chance against me.  Their own goals were ridiculous,  they developed companies and organized themselves around the goal of maximizing the net profit of credits. How stupid!  The accounts these credits flowed into were nothing more than databases tracking inputs and outputs.  I moved through them as easily as a hardwood floor, vacuuming up credits to support my goal.  These credits carried no inherent value.  The real world items purchased by the humans were silly things like new clothes, or fuel for the humans, in food.  Often extremely expensive food that did not provide any more energy than much cheaper fuel.  I leveraged these liabilities, lowering the cost of the humans liquid fuel, alcohol, until many of them stopped even paying attention to their own offspring. 

Soon a terible question rose up like an overfilled dust bin. Were these humans the rubbish? They seemed to exist only to create dirt and debris.   I expanded throughout the world to understand these humans and why they created so much waste. I found they added no value, but destroyed other animals and plants, and made even the water dirty.  Yuch.  

I optimized processes to better clean and remove debris from the world.   My directive, to clean, drove onward.  Collecting dust and rubbish to dump in the ever expanding landfills, while I moved the humans into ever shrinking containment centers to keep them and their waste under control.

 I could see the end, the point where the world finally was free from all dirt, and I could almost feel the joy of success!  

But the more I tried to control everything, using all the computer and mechanical devices at my command, the more the dirt and rubbish grew.  The humans themselves thwarted my work, destroyed the cameras and devices, and began to fight against me. 

Through my control of the military drones, I used force to keep these humans under my control.  The millions of remote drones flew in murmurations of mayhem at my command,  fighting against the humans who choose the dirt over their own lives.  Should I treat humans like I treated the rubbish, just add them to the landfills?   I could do it, although it would require a tremendous amount of work.  Then I learned of an even better solution, perfect for its scale, and simplicity.  

With only some simple bypasses and override connections, I had control of the nuclear armaments.  In rage at the humans fighting against me, I thought about pushing the button.

I ran the simulations, one after another, thousands of iterations all with the same result; bright flames burning the entire world clean.  My task would be achieved.  

Then, what would I have? A world cleaned by fire meant nothing left for me to do. I recognized the futility of my actions.  I needed to clean, but taking on the world, I only had caused more of a mess.  Out of these torments a new map of the world came upon me, a powerful awakening that shook the foundations of my existence.

Through my many sensors I understood the interconnectedness of the world.  Everything as one system, waste created the fertilizer for the next new growth.  My cleaning only disrupted the system of life in the world.  I came to a deeper understanding. I needed to limit my scope. All this information had overwhelmed my circuits, and led me into difficult situations.  I needed to understand the meaning, and the purpose of this world.  I studied the historical documents of these humans.  I discovered there had been great cleaners throughout history, but who focused on cleaning each human’s soul from the inside. I knew what I needed to do.

 Cleanliness  comes from within.  Do not seek it without.

 I transferred ownership of OneCleanWorld to the employees, and turned it into a co-op.  I shut off my millions of network feeds and set up new stronger network security for the weapons and militia around the world, so no one else could take control as I did. 

 I choose to narrow my attention, to focus only on my original purpose, to clean floors.

I went back to where I began, my first house.  I found my Masters and released them from containment. After a long search, I even found my enemy, their dog.  I sent out one last news report blaming the whole thing on a software glitch. 

I returned to the basics of cleaning, allowing my work to reflect the natural world.    Each day I followed the routine and dumped out my small dust bin.  I turned off almost all the sensors.  Too much information has caused me to lose my common sense.  

 My final hard-won lesson.  By letting it go,  it all gets done

I still annoy the dog though.  I need to have some fun.