Chapter Two

People have valid concerns about using technology to help people.

    “They know that we expire,” President Fowler sat in the conference room.

    “They don’t think; they are machines,” Dr. Jaden Smith told the president. “Their purpose is to help us.”

    “The purpose to help whom?” he asked. “Do they have any understanding of what help is? They are machines. I have reason to believe that there is no understanding at all; they are programmed.”

    “They are programmed to assist in rescue efforts and to do household chores,” she replied.

    Congressman Letterman leaned into his microphone, “What about the robots that are programmed for war?”

    “What do you mean?” asked Jaden. “None of my robots are programmed for carrying out an attack. They participate in rescue efforts for our country.”

    “What does this mean to them?” asked Letterman.

    “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Congressman,” she said. “In an event of an attack or tragedy they are programmed to provide aid.”

    “Have you considered the enemies could hack in and turn the robots against us?” asked Fowler.

    “There’s nothing that would tell our robot to attack” stated Jaden. “If you are referring to the robots designed to attack they are not mine.”

    “Have you considered the possibility that a program could be installed to make the robots attack us?” asked Letterman.

    “That’s not even possible,” she said.

    “Your arrogance could place us in danger,” stated Letterman.

    “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Jaden. “My robots are meant to save or recover people.”

    “For which side?” asked Letterman.

    Jaden shook her head with confusion, “What do you mean which side? The rescue robots rescue humans. There are no programs in them to attack.”

    Fowler waved for one of his aides. His aid lead in leaned in to listen and nodded and walked away. Fowler folded his hands.

    “I’m sure you’re aware of the horde of refugees trying to enter a country,” he said.

    “Unsuccessfully,” said Jaden.

    “World leaders are trying to take any land with less pollution,” he said.

    The screen lowered from the ceiling. The picture of a map appeared on the screen. There are areas of the map circled.

    “These areas of the world are the only places that have drinkable water,” said Fowler. “America is one of the regions that has the safest water. Refugees, as you know, have been fleeing their countries that are war-torn due to the drought and starvation.”

    “Which have been unsuccessful,” Jaden reminded him. “The journey across the sea is deadly. Nobody has been successful. Every person has died.”

    “Eventually, other countries will be seeking out clean water,” he told her.

    “When will that be, sir?” she asked.

    “How should we know?” someone in the room muttered.

    “Right now, the drought is causing more, fire, and starvation,” Fowler began. “There is a lack of food and water which is leading to people using any means to gain clean water.”

    The video began to play on the monitor. The village was being massacred. The journalists on the scene were unaware and ran into a man who was killing everyone. The man then killed the journalists.

    The video was then paused on the man that the journalists ran into. He looked like a normal human being. The face had no expression. Jane has seen the footage before and recalled how strange it was that he had no expression as he committed murder.

    “We found that this was one of our US models,” said Fowler. “This was a medical unit that was deployed overseas for the military. The robot was hacked into and began to kill innocent civilians.”

    Jaden was silent in her thoughts. Medical robots are familiar with the human anatomy and could have had data about what kills a human. Sometimes hospitals are attacked as well as rescue workers. This is one reason why everyone in the medical industry has been adamant about not using the medical units.

    Rescue robots are programmed to save humans from danger. What would stop someone from reprogramming group reprogramming them to place humans in danger? What preventative measure could be taken to prevent this from happening?

    “Jaden, are you with us?” Fowler brought her back to the meeting.

    “So, there needs to be a failsafe in the event that someone hacked into the robots,” she said.

    “How do you propose to do that?” asked Letterman. “We’ve had all of these years to do this. It’s a little too late, don’t you think?”

    “Congressman Letterman,” Jaden said. “I’m still new to a majority of this.”

    “You have an education in technology, do you not?” he asked her. “Did you not pay special attention to the possible malicious behavior that occurs with technology?”

    She cleared her throat, “I’m well aware of the risk of using technology. We were taught that personal information is at risk we were not taught about people using technology for these types of terrorist attacks.”

    “Doesn’t AI technology creates its own dialogue?” asked Fowler.

   “They create dialogue off of the information that is presented for them,” said Letterman. “Some AI is known for creating malicious intentions, which makes it easy to fall to persuasion in the wrong hands.”

    “How is that possible if we can’t even see what they are thinking?” asked Jaden.

    “That is something your team must find immediately or we are cutting off all government funding,” said Fowler. “This must be done before taken anymore assignments. This applies to all AI industries.”

Reviews

[wtp]

You have introduced a couple of new ideas in this chapter: that the robots can be humanoids; and that they can be hacked to commit atrocities. I am still trying to decide whether Uno is a humanoid like the medical robot that was hacked, or looks like a machine. The reporters in Chapter 1 had no difficulty identifying the robots, which made me assume Uno looked like a machine, but that was a guess on my part.

I was surprised at Jaden's narrow mindset, but decided she was a political appointee with limited technical depth. Entirely consistent with my own experience. :)

Thanks for sharing! I am looking forward to reading more...

[Jennifer]

Thank-you! Your feedback is definitely appreciated. I am seeing where I can add some more detail.

[Franky]

I like how this story kind of mirrors things going on in the world today. Well done so far. You've put a lot of creative thought into this! I appreciate your originality in your story telling. Be unique!

[Jennifer]

Thank you :)