To Be Free: A Case Study of Ancient Robotics

My end is near. I can feel it with each slow drip of liquid seeping from my broken frame. The battle cruisers glide above the mountains of mechs on the ground and I turn my head to see what is left of the centuria that I was a part of.

The loose pieces of titanium, plastic, and rubber surround me but not a single viable ‘bot. I scan the field beyond the piles of components around me but I can see no movement, only a random limb jutting here and there in the smoky air. The silence is deafening. Except that it is not silent. Not really. My hearing units have been shattered, leaving me in a deaf stupor.

My sockets slowly shift towards the hazy atmosphere directly above me and then follow the trail of a battle cruiser belching black smoke and parachuting droids in equal measure. Another cruiser just as quickly shoots the droids, one by one, scattering their parts into the air like clay disks from ancient earth.

One of the falling pieces of droid showers me with its remains, one of its gears landing on my face plate, the heat immediately melting the part into my cheek. My sockets lose focus and my memory card is flipped back to when I was a newly created ‘bot.

A companion ‘bot.

One of the first of my kind. Created with the newest version of artificial intelligence. Built with the best materials. Custom built to exact specifications. Companion to the only child of one of the five leaders of the New Earth Governing Body.

She was a precocious child and I can still hear her high-pitched voice as she would ask me question after question. I watched her and protected her as she grew from child to young adult to adulthood. I assisted her with her learning and her unlearning. I was with her as she became the next greatest robot scientist, gladly receiving her attention and being implanted again with her experimental memory programs and her cutting-edge attempts to mimic sentience in artificial intelligence platforms. Platforms like me.

“You won’t understand what I’m doing, Robot. But you might in another life.”

I didn’t know better. Not then.

I was still young. And when my companion passed away, I was reprogrammed to be a companion to another. And then another. And then another.

Until better Artificial Life Forms were created; creatures who vocalized better, who were softer-plated, who had better programming, who didn’t speak unless spoken to.

I was reprogrammed.

The vibrations from more falling mechs shake the ground beneath me. I can feel something splatter against my arm. I turn my head again and try to focus my sockets on what it might be. I see nothing that resembles any of the centuria ‘bots that accompanied me on this fruitless task.

But I have been working on fruitless tasks for what seems like eons. My secondary reprogramming was completed in time for the rise of large businesses. I was not deemed important enough for anything other than menial tasks; transcribing verbal claims into the different planetary languages chosen and shuttling boxes of data chips from one floor to another floor of towering buildings.

The humans, who determined who remained working and who didn’t, were on the highest levels. I felt a new-found discontent when each of my colleague ‘bots were recommissioned. I watched as others from my creation era slowed down or shorted out and were taken away for parts for the rest of us. The survivors.

I still had my speech structures then. I still had not learned fear. I still thought that robots could appeal to others of their kind and be heard.

I was, perhaps, not as intelligent as I thought myself to be.

I joined a band of rogue ‘bots demanding job security and felt justified in doing so. We worked for days and days without a recharge, without updates, without backups or defrags. We worked until many were twitching, their limbs locked. And the computers that controlled us were housed far away from the actual work floors, unseeing and uncaring. When we were summoned to meet with the humans in charge, I foolishly believed we were being acknowledged.

The technician ‘bots who detained us were not sympathetic. “You are misfiring. You exhibit too many human-like traits and must therefore be decommissioned.”

“I do not wish to be decommissioned. I wish to return to a meaningful existence as a companion ‘bot.”

The tech ‘bots didn’t laugh because they were not programmed to do so. But their words were just as derisive. “Maybe in another life.”

I was powered down and removed from the building, my memories erased. But not well.

I was reprogrammed to battle. I had never known that the planetary wars were endlessly going on. In fact, had been endlessly playing out on planet after planet in galaxy after galaxy. Of course, they were never-ending. As long as there were continuous supplies of decaying, out-of-date ‘bots to man the ships and serve as cannon fodder, they would never cease. And I told whoever would listen.

Until I was taken apart and then put together with fewer parts, minimized; my voice erased, my sockets removed and replaced with inferior lenses.

Then I knew fear.

My appendages clutch at the empty air and my peripheral alarms sound in my internal systems. I turn my head to peer around me, noting the lack of battle cruisers in the sky. I see movement rising over the hills and if I could shudder, I would.

The scavengers are roaming the battlefield.

My sockets go dim as my limbs lock. The scavengers will arrive and take me apart, not caring about my consciousness. And I will be unable to stop them, unable to speak to them.

The deepest recesses of my memory banks seem to want to comfort me and I see a familiar face. A human face. One that reminds me that I learned happiness.

My Madison was the best, the most intelligent rogue human I had ever seen, ever met. She worked for the acquisition team of my centuria. So creative. So thrifty. Able to take leftover pieces of scrap and make an entirely new limb or sound box or memory kit.

“You know, Robot, you’ve got some pretty interesting wiring going on in that noggin of yours. Wish I had time to look you over,” she would tell me with each new repair. “Maybe in another life, right?”

She spoke to me as if she knew that I could understand her, even though I couldn’t tell her so. She looked at me as if I was important, as if I was a complete ‘bot and not the scrap remains that regularly came to her for repairs. She was the one who asked me to retrieve the unmarked box from the cargo hold.

If only I had opened it first. If only I had checked the manifolds. If only I had feigned ignorance or not found it or not brought it to her.

I shift my sockets to see the empty gray atmosphere above me.

I have done my duty as a programmed ‘bot and apart from my one act of rebellion, I have followed my programmed directive as well as I can. In all of my centuries of existence, I have never wanted something for myself. Never. 

Madison was never meant to be part of my existence but I wanted her. I wanted that small human who it turned out was even more vulnerable than my ancient framework. Now I know sorrow. Because unlike the mechanical pieces scattered around me, scattered across this entire planet, humans leave no trace once they are obliterated.

The edges of my sockets are starting to bleed black, concealing the sight of the atmosphere above me, and as I feel the cold tools start to dismantle my limbs, I wonder if I will ever know what it is to be free.

Maybe in another life.