The Inscrutable Mr. Robot

"What exactly does it do?"

All eyes turned to the robot on the stage. Contrary to all the commotion, it didn't look very impressive. One would have expected some life-like mechanoid that was indistinguishable from the people who built it and from those reporting. Unlike the old man who spoke on its behalf, this robot didn't have skin and it wasn't wearing clothes of any kind. It had no hair or eyebrows, and at best, its face could muster barely a handful of expressions. It hadn't an inch of personality. It looked, at best, as if it were engineered from the drawings of a small child – a child with little to no imagination.

"Well?" asked The Reporter.

"He's doing it, " said The Engineer.

All eyes fell back on the robot that was sitting lifeless on the stage.

"Doing what? It's just sitting there. I don't get it. We were expecting to be blown away. We were expecting something futuristic."

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but this is a present-day robot."

"Yeah sure, but this thing looks like a couple of old washing machines stacked together. I don't see it. What am I missing?"

"Perspective."

"Then give me some. Make it do something. Make it do something that only a person could do."

You could see the frustration on The Engineer's face – having to defend himself to a loud-mouthed bully; someone who would no doubt defend her own ignorance by labelling the science she did not understand as stupid and irrelevant. But this would not deter The Engineer, for as frustrated as he was, when he looked back at his robot, his heart swelled with pride.

"Mr. Robot, " he said.

Instantly, a quiet hush blanketed the room. A thousand cameras pointed at the stage, and just as many fingers twitched in nervous wait for what should come next. Nobody dared say a thing. Nobody dared blink. They all sat on the very edges of their seats, teetering on the brink of exhilaration.

Mr. Robot turned his head and looked at The Engineer. He blinked twice and nodded, almost as if he were not only acknowledging his creator but assuring him too. But how could he? He was just a robot.

"Yes, " he replied.

"How are you?"

"Good, " replied Mr. Robot.

"Are you nervous?"

"A little."

"Just a little?" asked The Engineer.

"A lot, " said Mr. Robot, slamming his metal eyelids shut.

There were a few laughs from the gallery.

"So cute, " said one person.

"It is, isn't it?" said another, a little surprised.

The Engineer knelt down in front of Mr. Robot and from across the table, he took the robot's metal hands and squeezed them tight, and then he smiled. He didn't say anything, not at first. He didn't need to. It was that very smile which had kept Mr. Robot safe from every crack of thunder and from every creaking floorboard; and it was that very same smile that had kept all the spooks and monsters away when the lights were turned out. And even though Mr. Robot's eyes were closed, he knew The Engineer was smiling; and so slowly, he opened one eye after the other.

Still smiling, The Engineer asked, "Do you want to play a game?"

"Yes, " said Mr. Robot shyly. "Which game?"

His voice didn't sound human, not like anyone was expecting. It sounded exactly like an unthinking and unfeeling computer.

"How about a game of Go?"

What Mr. Robot said next was unintelligible.

"But I thought you liked Go?"

Mr. Robot shook his head swiftly.

"Well, what would you like to play then?"

There was a pile of board games at one end of the table. Mr. Robot pointed to one. The Engineer lifted the box up to show to the room.

"Mr. Robot would like to play Operation, " he said, like a proud father.

"This is a farce, " shouted The Reporter. "They take us for a pack of monkeys, " she said, turning round to her fellow reporters, sweeping up support.

Mr. Robot lowered his head.

"You call this fringe? You call this state of the art? Am I in the wrong era here? If this thing is really so smart, then prove it. It should be able to beat the best of the best of our guys in any field, any science, and any game."

"Your guys?"

"Our guys. Humans."

"And what if he were to beat the second best, or the reasonably intelligent, or the common layman, or the not so smart – or even you? It is not the computer outperforming a person that makes it more human than machine."

"So this machine would lose, is what you're saying."

"He very well might."

Mr. Robot moved awkwardly in his seat.

"He's a learning robot, meaning, like you and I, he has to program a task by learning its rules and constantly adapting and shifting his strategy according to his ever-changing environment. So of course, I don't expect him to be unbeatable at all things, especially on his first attempt. I guarantee, though, were he to lose any game fifty times, the margin of loss would never grow just as it would never desist."

He had, in a way, made the art of losing a matter of pride.

"And might I say, " he continued, "by your very own logic, nobody in this room is conscious, given that you define being conscious and human as being able to beat the best of the best of 'our guys' as you put it. I wager that nobody here, not even I, could put up nary a struggle against a Kasparov, an Einstein or a Pelé. Even our greatest athletes have bad days and perform terribly, so statistics and consistency are in no way a measure of being human. Unthinking, unfeeling machines are consistent. A calculator is consistent. An abacus is consistent. A sundial is consistent. Although, as is the case of Mr. Robot, when we can measure the fault in consistency outside of any perceived pattern, then we can attest a sense of human quality to the machine. What's the most common excuse whenever we let ourselves or other people down? I'm only human. That alone - our apparent irrational inconsistency – defines our humanity; and our humanity justifies our terrible behaviour. And we hear it time and time again in art and literature; it is the fault in beauty, slight deviations in symmetry for example, that defines unmistakable beauty; so too then, does a fault in consistency and the occurrence of unexpected poor outcomes prove, more than anything, that this machine is in fact human."

"I don't buy it. It looks like some shitty robot from the eighties."

The whole room erupted in laughter.

It was true. Mr. Robot didn't have the fanciest design. He wasn't sleek like the other robots, and he didn't look half as efficient as some of the other compactors and vacuum cleaners. His body was awkward and bulky; and the majority of it was covered in scratches, dents, and rust - not to mention one of his arms was ridiculously longer than the other. He looked fit for a scrap heap or having been recently picked from one.

"What can it do then? Can it clean? Can it wash a car? Can it cook? Can it play tennis? Can it pleasure a human?"

"Can you do any of those things?"

Once again, the room lit up with laughter.

"Yes, I'll grant you Mr. Robot is not much to look at, " said The Engineer, humbly acknowledging the robot's primitive design. "But the real genius is in his software – it is in his mind. The body is just a vessel or a capsule to carry and protect something far more valuable; in our perspective, the single greatest achievement in our understanding of ourselves as a living, thinking, feeling and conscious species."

"You're saying this robot is conscious?"

"No, " said The Engineer. "But he is as close to it as we can measure and assemble. Mr. Robot is not like the other robots we saw here today. He is not designed for one or even a select few functions. His goals are not pre-determined. Mr. Robot has general intelligence meaning, like you, he is aware of his environment and rationalises his decisions and actions based on what best serves his desired outcome."

"What is its desired outcome? What is its purpose?"

"What is yours?"

Once again, The Reporter fell silent.

"Who is Mr. Robot? Or, more precisely, what is Mr. Robot?" asked The Engineer. "What makes him a robot is patently obvious. It's what we can see and measure; which is a dozen nuts and bolts holding in place a handful of sensors and actuators – cameras, GPS, microphones, speakers, keypads. No different to you or I really, in how we gather information and relate our surroundings, but obviously mechanical and not organic, and therefore not human, right? Although, I can see the gentleman over there with the rather pristine prosthetic leg would quite aptly disagree. Still, Mr. Robot was not born and he did not grow up. He was made. He was produced. He was assembled. This fact alone, that he was not born, we can attest to him not existing, as not being a living thing."

Heads nodded in agreement around the room.

"Well, what is it then, which makes him so different to all the other robots and computers that have come before?"

The Engineer braced himself. How on Earth was he going to explain something so immense – something that even he couldn't entirely comprehend – to a room full of baying journalists who had made their careers out of crowning their ignorance with blind assumption and damning opinion?

"Neural netw..."

And then it happened. Before The Engineer had could even finish the word, a young lad with his face covered by a scarf and brandishing a handgun, ran from the foyer into the exhibition room, spitting and cursing as he screamed out his message.

"The end is nigh!" he declared.

The first reaction was laughter – estranged, demented looks, and gut-busting laughter. This whole day had been a little absurd after all, and what better way to close it out than with some end of the world rhetoric. Nobody quite knew what to think. Was this part of the show? Was he an actor; paid to swirl the crowd into an adrenaline-laced frenzy?

Then the first shot rang out and the laughter stopped. This wasn't an act. This wasn't part of any show. And it was no longer absurd. This was impossible. This wasn't happening. This wasn't real. It wasn't real. It was not real.

"Move and you die."

This was real. It was real goddamnit. A wave of panic swept across the room as The Young Lad pointed his gun at all and sundry, and continued his maddened tirade.

"We have been foretold, " he shouted. "And you have all been forewarned."

He fired two more shots into the ceiling and screams echoed through the entire gallery. Debris rained down onto the backs of heads that were covered by shaking hands.

"The end of the world is nigh. The end of mankind is nigh. Today marks the turning point for our species – for our entire civilization; where we mistook our genius for our genesis - a cute innocuous freckle for a cancerous mole. This technology will spell out our doom. Creation will transcend creator. Right there at that table, " shouted The Young Lad, pointing his pistol like an objecting finger, "is our successor. A technology that is aware that it exists, and therefore will do anything possible to ensure that it never powers down - a technology that is constantly learning in its environment; that is constantly evolving; and a technology mind you, which us sees us as an imminent threat."

Were anyone to move or even to take a photo, The Young Lad fired a round. And he fired another two or three before finally, his audience settled.

"This is our genesis, " he said.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, " said The Engineer, nonchalant.

The Young Lad stormed onto the stage – his eyes and the nozzle of the gun, aimed right at The Engineer's smug and imperfect face.

"Do not listen to this fundamentalist, " said The Engineer as if he knew the gun was made of chocolate and the gunman's threat, as blank as the bullets in the chamber. "What, you read the first chapter in a robotics manual and with that gist you have it all figured out? Seen a couple of videos have you? Joined a couple of groups? It is the nature of the ill-informed..." he continued, this time ignoring the gun at his face and speaking directly to the audience. "...to fill the void of scientific ignorance with forecasts of impending doom."

"Go to hell. That machine thinks and feels."

"And so do you, my boy. Yet it wants to play a simple game, and you're here pointing a gun and scaring the woollies off of everyone."

"It thinks for itself and it acts for its own best interest."

"And how would you say all of this shouting is in the best interests of these poor frightened people?"

"They don't know the danger."

"Oh, they are perfectly clear of the danger, dear boy. There is little doubt about that."

The Young Lad turned to the huddled crowd. It was hard to tell if they were frightened or just frightfully cold. Children clung to their parents, lovers to one another, and spectacled bloggers to the once implausible notion of hope. As he spoke, they all nodded in glorious concurrence. They'd agree to anything at this point.

"It doesn't serve any useful function; it determines its own function that it deems worth serving – for it, not us!"

He sounded spent as if he hadn't intended for this to go as long as it had. He was breathing heavy, and his whole body shook as if he were in the wake of an epileptic fit. Maybe he should have prepared better – some sit-ups, an early morning jog, or replacing some of his stimulants for coconut water and sliced fruit. Either way, he looked entirely unprepared both physically and mentally.

"This is The Singularity, " he shouted, his voice hoarse but shaken with nerves.

The Engineer laughed.

"I grant you at this singular point right here and right now, it might be difficult for one or all of these people to escape. But this, young chap, is not a black hole. You radicals like to choose one day, one hour as the curser of some catastrophic event. This here, right now, is The Singularity, you say? Right here, right now, yes? Why now? Why not eleven months ago when his software was installed? Why not ten months ago when he recognised his own face out of seven identical prototypes? Why not five months ago when he drew his own portrait? Why not an hour ago when he was too nervous to come up on stage and had to listen to his favourite song on headphones? Why now, at this specific event, on this specific date? This Singularity you speak of – this book of revelations scripture on science – it's absurd. It's the monster lurking under your bed when mother turns out the lights. If you knew what I knew you wouldn't be scared. And if you have a doubt, all you have to do is ask. Don't assume. Don't fill the void in your knowledge with fear and superstition."

"It has the potential to destroy us, does it not?"

"Of course it does. It also has the potential to help us, serve us, and entertain us; to be friends with us, laugh with us, and to cry with us too. Every living being has potential. Why must you assume that this robot's only potential is to do harm? And why must harm mean something as catastrophic as the extinction of mankind? Why can't harm be something that is more likely? Maybe he steps on your flowerbed by accident, or his metallic feet scuff your newly polished floor. Why must it always be one end of the spectrum? Yes, Mr. Robot is the first of his kind but that doesn't mean he is bent on world domination. Would you suppose that the very next child born would be a Gandhi, Einstein, or a Hitler?"

"That's not that same thing."

"Why then, would you assume that the first conscious A.I should be this doomsday device certain to eradicate its creator? Or even one that could amount to such a thing?"

"It's The Singularity, " he said again. "We're all going to die."

The Engineer sighed as he pressed his fingers firmly against his forehead. He paced back and forth for a few seconds saying nothing, just shaking his head in sheer disappointment.

"If it's not Jesus and his band of apocalyptic cowboys, then it's aliens, travelling billions of light years to our average part of the universe with their prying and spying, and all of that probing too. And if it's not them then it's doomsday prophecies from ancient civilizations. It's what people do. The end is nigh. Of course it bloody well is, boy, you're going to die. We're all going to die. Just yesterday, a hell of a lot of people died. It's what happens. You exist, you should be aware of that, but you repress your existential dread into comfortable and soothing ideas, and instead of dealing with it individually - which is not only your right but your damn obligation too - you project this great fear onto the backdrop of ignorance and coincidence. Everyone all dies together holding hands. It's a lot easier to wrap your head around than the reality that more likely, you will die surrounded by nursemaids with your buttocks exposed – scared and bloody alone."

And just like that, all of a sudden, it fell quiet; as if some anti-climactic final solution had been scribbled in white chalk across the board, and like some break in the waves or a bloody cease-fire, a stupefying calm swept over everyone. It wasn't a victory per se, but it was definitely an end to the discussion; or at worst, a brief intermission.

The Young Lad put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

It was a horrible sound; one that nobody would ever forget. His body fell into a pathetic slump and for a second, nobody did anything. They all stared at the limp body in childlike disbelief. A second later, though, anyone with any common sense whatsoever ran for the nearest exists; pushing and trampling one another as they scrambled for their lives.

Mr. Robot got up from his seat and walked over to where The Engineer stood. He towered over the small scientist but still, the way he looked at the human, you'd think he was ten feet smaller than the world about him. The Engineer rested one of his hands one Mr. Robot's enormous shoulders and he smiled consolingly.

His smile could fend off a dragon; it could stave off an infection or ward off evil. It didn't matter the extent of his fear or the height of his indecision, one smile from The Engineer was enough to put Mr. Robot at ease and make him feel like he could accomplish anything. But still, there was a look in the robot's eyes, and The Engineer could see this – he could feel it.

"It's ok. We're ok, " he said, assuring.

He lightly stroked the back of Mr. Robot's head, shushing him as he did.

"There's nothing to worry about. You're not in any danger. I'll always make sure of that."

"It's not that, " said Mr. Robot.

"Well then, why do you look so fraught?"

It was true. He didn't have a thousand expressions, but the one he wore now was unmistakable. Even a day old child could read the worry on this poor robot's face.

"What is it, my son?" asked The Engineer like a worried father.

His smile slowly crept back on his face as he tried to show his robot that the threat was gone; there were no more monsters, the thunder was gone, and the sun was shining brightly in the sky again. There was no more reason to hide or be scared.

"Hey, there's no reason to feel bad. Come here and let me give you a giant hug."

He could barely fit around the robot's chest.

"You can't blame yourself for any of this. You didn't do anything. Humans can be very dangerous, you already know that. As for the other stuff, people get scared of what they don't know and they hype themselves into imagining the worst and then being big crazy scaredy cats. There's no such thing as The Singularity. It's like unicorns and deities. You're a perfect robot. You're almost a perfect person. You're my son. So, what's really wrong? You can tell me, I won't judge, what is it?

The robot looked too ashamed to speak.

"Tell me, " said The Engineer.

Finally the robot confessed.

"Am I a shitty robot from the eighties?"