Talking to the future

Talking to the future

At the university I studied mechanical and electric engineering. Most of my professional life was spent on the railroads. It must have been about six months ago when I was invited to an electronics show. This was an area I know little about but realised it was clearly a dominant sector of our future. I was amazed at the size of the exhibition and the number of exponents. While walking down one of the many avenues separating the various exponents, I was accosted by a well dressed young man asking if I would like to pass a moment talking to their latest AI equipped robot. My reply was instant. “That would intrigue me and give me pleasure.” I was led into a small room at the back of their stand. To my surprise I was faced with a good looking girl sitting quietly looking mildly absent into the middle distance. At first sight it was difficult to determine whether she was human. Without allowing the young man to introduce me I said.

“ Who are you?” She turned her head towards me. Within a second what seemed at first sight to be an innate body was now alive and attentive.

“My name is Claire. And yours?” The voice was soft but crystal clear, but for my ears it lacked the subtle intonation of the human voice.

“My name is Donald Ridgeway”

“How did you get your name?”

“By the engineers that programmed me…… and you?”

“I was christened in a church by a priest on a glorious spring day surrounded by a loving family and friends”

“That must have been nice.” she said in a voice that seemed to denote a certain understanding of human customs. For her to make a remark on a christening service I asked myself was it that she had internal pictures of christenings or was it by the tone of my voice?’

“Tell me I am curious, where do you get your energy from?”

“I get it from a battery inlaid in my body. As I am equipped with Artificial Intelligence the battery is quite robust. It lasts before having to replace it about three to four years but it needs recharging up from an electrical power point about every 200 minutes. AI is a great consumer of electricity and water. The water use is to keep the computing power of extensive calculations cool. Whereas you humans need water, food and sleep to stay alive. My food is the constance charging up of my batteries. I don’t need sleep.”

‘I am curious, do you feel pain?”

“No, I feel no pain and I am never ill, except for occasional periods when one of my circuits is broken or disconnected. This can happen if I fall or get over heated.

“May I shake your hand”.

As I did so I asked her. “Do you feel anything.?”

“No, I could just see your hand gripping mine.”

“You did not feel me tickling your palm with my middle finger?”

No.

“Are you capable of displaying, detecting or suffering from emotional feelings like anger, depression, jealousy, and love?”

“These emotions and several others belong to the human race and to some extent the larger animal kingdom. I am told by the engineers that they are in the process of trying to understand and capture these human traits so that we robots will be on a level playing field with humans. Today I am devoid of these emotions.”

“You look so human. Your facial expressions seem so realistic.”

“Yes, the false, elastic skin on my face covers over a series of motor sensors that allow me to develop movements of the eyes, ears, skin and lips. Do you think I look beautiful?”

“You are certainly very attractive, but in my opinion compared to a human young woman you lack the feeling of warmth, of tendress, of softness and that undefinable sense of emotional depth. Also another important dimension, body smell which of course can be covered up with perfume.”

“They call me a humanoid robot. I am programmed with AI to assist humans and learn about their emotional makeup. I have a quality the human does not

possess and that is the backing of a colossal data base of actual facts and figures that can be called upon to answer any human’s question or help them with a problem.”

“Yes, I realize this. But I would point out, based on my experience, the accurate and interesting answers to our questions depend on the manner and context of how the question is asked.”

“I agree. I also know that AI brings humans a dimension that, if used with wisdom and prudence, is far superior to your human brain power.”

“I am enjoying our little talk. Clearly the possibility to employ this vast data base to examine from all perspectives a question or problem put to you is a powerful and dominating tool. For instance I am sure your language abilities are without comparison to our human efforts. But will you ever be able to master some of the human traits such as contextual understanding like sarcasm, or ethical and moral decision making according to our human standards. For me probably the greatest trait that sets us apart is the human's individual creativity, imagination and compassion. Not all humans are blessed with a gift to create a work of original art whether it be a picture, building and writing books that traverse time or having the emotional feeling of sharing another human's misery. But the few humans blessed with his gift lead their fellow humans forward to a better and richer life.

“I too find our conversation most interesting. The future for AI we believe will become so dominant in humans daily lives that it will stifle any human initiative. Any humans attempting to reason outside an AI directive will no longer be an option. Before l answer your claim about the humans greatest traits being Imagination and compassion. I need to understand your definition of these two words.”

“No doubt you can look up in the dictionary the accepted definition of these two words. My definition is: Imagination is a personal inspired thoughts that are completely alien to present thinking. From these thoughts the human has created great inventions. Compassion is the warmth and emotional feelings of an individual or group to share another human being's suffering.”

“Yes, I understand. At present we lack a deep understanding of human emotions in order to try and represent them by algorithms embedded in AI. But I understand our engineers are getting closer to where we robots will be able to feel and demonstrate these human emotions.”

“Do you think there will ever be a time when the world of AI will free itself from being this immensely powerful analytical tool capable of assimilating data from multiple sources to answering questions and thinking about problems from any programming by humans.”

“Today I am not programmed to answer a question of this nature.”

“I have taken enough of your time. I have just one more thought. Have you ever imagined that in the years to come if all the energy sources known today for AI and humans dries up or cease to exist. AI with its massive data base will die a sudden death.. In the human’s case the vast majority will die but a few will go back to the age of the cave man. Living by the daylight, hunting for food and water. Will man at that time with his imagination and energy have the strength to create a new form of civilization?”

As I was leaving I turned to Claire and asked if I could embrace her. She looked at me with her blue limpid eyes and I sensed at nano speed she was calculating her reply.

“With pleasure.”

I took her in my arms and gave her a big hug. It was a revealing experience, gone was the tender softness of the supple human body appreciating the embrace. I faced a cold calculating unemotional mass totally devoid of her tender soft speaking voice. As I stepped back and took one last look at her I realized the human position as dominating the animal kingdom was being challenged.

David Nutt July 2025