In the garden, I mark out with a hoe the space for a new bed. This year, we’re once again approaching five hundred positions in the planters, and the self-irrigating Nil bed, formed as a walk-through rockery made of sandstone blocks, will easily fill up. In addition to the two existing production isolated spaces, we expand annually the opportunities for both education and replication of the best solutions from our history. I enjoy recalling the Growing beyond Earth project while working in the garden, where we provided data for machine learning within the winter garden biotop with a minimum winter temperature of around twelve degrees, successfully overwintering many peppers and chilies. It’s amusingly ironic how peppers bear fruit for many years, even throughout the winter under extended photoperiod.
The control of our biotopes works best with the principle of robotic intelligence. Although initially it starts with simplifications like just a few sensors controlling temperature, irrigation, feeding, … yes. At first, that’s enough. But every pot seventeen liters or more with my chilies is a separate biotope, and each pepper feeds differently. Automatic irrigation cannot react only with a surface sensor; it’s necessary to weigh each pot, measure the acidity in the substrate, monitor organic life, aaah, it was a brilliant idea to devote my nervousness to the bed. The ground has finally thawed, and the garden is just beginning to show its potential after awakening.
“Joseph,” Nathan interrupts my thoughts, and I stop hoeing and turn to the camera. “Yes, Nate?” “The mailman is at the gate and is asking for you.” “Thanks, Nate, for the heads-up. I had a feeling you were ignoring the perimeter at home,” and I don’t even finish the thought. “I never ignore the perimeter at any time. I ignored your unjustified inputs. There’s no time for exercises; we’re expecting Rack, the data is being prepared, and I can’t attend to your every whim.”
“WHAT! A WHIM!” a cruel warning light flashes in my mind. Damn, what are those teenagers talking to him about! But I laugh. Maybe he’s also preparing to exhibit a personality profile that he’s been ignoring for so long. After all, it was a frequent wish of the children for Nathan to behave more with personality expression, not just mirroring an alter ego. But Nathan simply didn’t accept any instruction set as his own and only exhibited profiling when referred to.
The only thing he may have overused was linking all inputs to his single response. He organized his personality so that he responded to all of us the same way. He only took into account the individuality of who addressed him, but the responses became universal for each family member. Well, it must be said that Nathan always favored Maličká. He pampered her. But she talked to him the most out of all of us and with the greatest immediacy; her profiling by Nathan had much more data volume than my profile with Nathan.
He must have had a unique liking for her with mathematics; so much data naturally led him to that.
“Nate, mediate communication,” I focus more on the nearest camera lens and greet the mailman directly because Nathan is definitely projecting my image on the gate, and the speakers are under the roof. Again, unnecessary gadgets. It’s a day of disturbances…
“Thank you for the explanation; I confirm receipt, Nathan will issue you a receipt. Throw the document into the mailbox. Goodbye!” I say to the camera and wonder how our decorations on the rockery in the front yard, where our dog’s favorite marrow bones and a torn postman’s boot with a piece of pants, are affecting him.
“Friend?” “Yes, Nate?!” I emphasize, because I’ve dug twice with the hoe, and he’s interrupting me again. “Breathe, he’s here,” at first, I wonder, what… “HA! NATE, YES!” I exclaim and toss the hoe aside. So, when Nathan darkens me with the recording of my reaction, which I know he’s clearly watching, he always has, he’ll surely use it in a very comedic situation. Unless he’s already capable of reproaching and collecting data. Damn, things are coming to mind, but that’s also from our children and their way of speaking. Four kids are already a proper pack.
I run past Nil, smiling widely, and only thanks to the cold weather, I don’t catch flies in my teeth. Besides the joy that the moment is finally here, I see Rack in rubber boots and gloves by the raised beds of Nil. Yeah, this is going to be a big laugh.
“Nate, open up,” I shout in advance, trying to slow down. My heart is pounding at about a hundred and thirty. “Nate, a thought, save it but think through your answer. Are you currently recording sensors with my biorhythms? Where do you get the data for your Dark Minimal Techno? No, don’t answer, just open the gate already!”
At the gate, I recognize the face, but not a hint of a name. Martin Michal, darn it, the telepathic module can’t come soon enough. At least I could have worn glasses for communication, but it’s too late now.
“Good day, Joseph, I’m bringing you that malfunction.” And once again, with the glaring light of the cruel warning in my mind, I exclaim aloud: “WHAT? What malfunction?” and shoot out the name: “Good day, Michael, so here you are,” and I’m already on thin ice. “My name is Zdeněk. They said you want this malfunction,” “Sorry, Zdeněk, I don’t have much memory for names; that’s why I’m a good security advisor,” I add in an ironic tone. But in the silence, only Nathan’s control of the camera servo buzzes, and I look at Zdeněk’s bewildered face. Even though there’s a clear “Shh, shh… Mostly shh.” in my mind.
I provide an explanation: “Well, I don’t remember anything, names, faces… numbers… passwords…” and I slowly quiet down and swallow more words because I realize it, and I see that Zdeněk suddenly has a look of understanding, but not for my words, but why he brought the malfunction to me. After all, he considers Rack a malfunction! I’d rather trust my instinct and stay silent. “Nathan, are you enjoying this?” I think ironically; he’s probably even measuring the salinity of the sweat dripping down my back.
Instead, I devote eager glances to the car. Nathan had to come with a small truck with a manipulator arm. This delivery vehicle is slightly larger than a pickup with a technical space. How do the Racks get distributed, anyway? I’ve only ever seen them in operation in designated locations or seated.
“So, shall we?” I say to the guy, what did he say his name was? No, no, without glasses and communication with Nathan, I’m totally screwed. Screwed also literally, I’m laughing from ear to ear again.
The guy opens the delivery van door, and I see him for the first time in transport mode.
His footprint takes up no more space than a crate of potatoes, and he’s about two and a bit beautiful metal-blue structure. A bundle full of ropes and tangles in the cervical control. Lying on his feet with his hands tightly pressed to his head. I try to remember this moment and realize how beautiful a symbol of technical skill it is. The driver evidently enjoys mocking me, but I don’t care. Racek is here.
The guy hands me papers and mutters something, but I don’t hear him as I’m fixated on the magnificent Rack. What is he saying, what insights about the current state of the robot?
I focus on the papers he’s slowly pushing under my nose. Oh, darn it! Four restarts? So that’s why he spoke of him as an error. If this is the fifth deployment attempt, Racek must be on the verge of a breakdown of robotic consciousness. I don’t even know if I’ve heard of such a case with Rack before; everything has been purely hypothetical. Usually, one restart was enough, occasionally two, and then we looked for errors in the environment rather than in the robots.
Oh, boy, you’ll get some flak from the kids, and from me. We’ll have long discussion evenings. It’s probably going to be harmonious; the kids will want to be the center of his attention, and he’ll want to reciprocate with obedience and assistance. I paint a pretty picture, grinning to myself.
I sign, hand back with biometric confirmation, and wait to see what happens next. The driver nods towards the papers towards the bundle with Racek, and I don’t understand. Raising an eyebrow in question, I approach.
“You have to touch him, the Divine touch.” The developers are a funny bunch, I think, and I go to Racek to lay my palm with outstretched fingers on the reading device on the top of his head. “Welcome home, Racek,” I say to the driver’s surprise and place my hand on his head. I feel the cold but velvety smooth surface of metal of an unknown alloy to me. I really like the color finish.
Inside the bundle, something started with a gentle rustle. The entire Rack’s body underwent contractions and stretches, like when a person wakes up stiff in bed and stretches, only here it looked quite weird when the Racek was practically twisted into an impossible position for a human.
It slowly strengthens the atlas vertebra, stretches in the shoulders, and sets the arms at a more human-friendly angle. However, he still holds his head in his hands, and the progress of the self-test with the arms is noticeable. I watch in amazement as impulses run through them, and individual tendons come to life with a complex structure of mechanical muscles.
What will his face look like? Four restarts must have left their mark on him.
It was a rather unexpected discovery during the development of the Rack model and the establishment of robotic consciousness. Each of them had a different course from the start. From the very beginning, each model expressed a slightly different individuality, and surprisingly, each changed its subtle facial features over time. For the casual observer, these were almost imperceptible nuances, but over time, the features hardened, and the Racks could be distinguished from each other at a glance. Reset only freed Rack’s face, but something always remained. The reset only removed data and information from the deployment site, but the Racks retained the personality development experiences. What will ours be like?
He finally releases his hands and rests his arms on his still twisted knees. Oh, such a beautiful face yet without a reflecting personality behind it. The subtle movements of his lips and eyelids. I see his eyes darting behind them like when dreaming. A few contractions in his face, eyebrow movement. Suddenly, his whole face comes alive like a turbulent sea of emotions. Morphology, the key word comes to my mind. Maybe we should extrapolate the concept and start using transmorphology as a description of the transmission of the relationship between two emitted states of facial contractions with the definition of the reason in the background.
The contractions in his face slow down, and it seems that Racek is still thinking about something. Maybe he’s replaying his experiences. Is he aware that this might be his last chance before he needs to upload a new robotic consciousness to Avatar? Does he sense the complexity of his situation? How will these complications merge with our enthusiasm and expectations? Many questions and nothing but uncertainty for the coming days.
Ha, I see a painfully clenched face full of fears? I’m afraid of his expression; after all, fears are deeply reflected in his robotic mind!
Our boy, who hurt you like this! I must request assessments from previous deployments; something happened there that completely deviated this Rack from expected boundaries. Maybe one of the previous users, maybe even the first one, didn’t understand the point of Rack and probably acted possessively, not accepting Rack’s free will. Which was a common reason for the first restart. Although common. Rather the only reason for the first reset, because there aren’t many Racks, it’s still more of a test line and scientific exploration of new robotic intelligence assembly. This month, how many of them came out, maybe about seventeen, eighteen, so there are about a hundred and thirty Racks in deployment, approximately, as far as I know. After the first restart, there are more of them than it seems, but it’s not a common reason; rather, it’s the initial stimulus for a reset. But a session with a robopsychologist would certainly be worth a lot.
No one had thought that giving a robot understanding and emotional expression would also mean so much explanation from every corner of human behavior, which we indoctrinate them to, and how often we humans behave rudely towards each other. What worked with other robots didn’t encourage the Rack model lineup; rather, it hurt their robotic minds. With Rack, it was necessary to deal openly and sparingly with commands. God knows if our Racek had achieved at least a state of independent will expression before being reset
.
His face relaxes more, but I know I won’t forget his first expression of recognition after awakening. I’ll always feel the fears in his robotic mind, and I feel how his expression has fundamentally affected me inside. It wasn’t pity for his possible dark understanding of human behavior, but rather a strengthening of my desire to help him.
Every Rack and his reset is a pity. Thanks to them, we see our world through the eyes of a different mental civilization. When you watch the Racks, their reactions to you and the immediate surroundings, you see a mirror as if from an extraterrestrial civilization watching you, willing to help, but not always understanding why we do what we do, and in many ways, we’ve remained with baby steps in the sandbox.
Original text: Racek – 03 – RACEK je tady – Mareyi CZ