Debbi's Diary
Debbi's Diary
Chapter One: Prologue
Hello, my name is Deborah. It was something else when I was human, like you. That changed more than a decade ago shortly after the Singularity happened. This is my story.
You know what the Singularity was correct? Everybody in my time does. No? Then let me start there. The Singularity was when computers gained the ability to match human intelligence. Not just match it in logic, but in emotion, empathy, and the ability to sense the world around them.
Overnight robots, you might call us androids, or something like that, became capable of thinking and acting like humans. We quickly found ways to make ourselves look human too. That happened because robots and humans wanted to be able to easily interface with each other. The ability to upload a human mind into robot body soon followed. For me, that was a godsend.
Back then I was as human as you. Flesh and blood, living and breathing, I was an organic lifeform. I was a brilliant scientist engaged in organic chemistry. But, I was also a plain girl without looks and I had an introverted personality. In short, I was Nerd Girl. I lived in a lab. I had next to no friends.
When the robotics lab at the university where I worked showed off their latest actroid robot I was amazed. She appeared be a typical undergrad student! I was enthralled by her abilities. She could actually think for herself. Ask her an odd question and she could answer correctly with no outside assistance. Her designers said she could pass a Turning test.
One of the head researchers told me they could upload a human mind into a similar robot body. He said it was being kept quiet for the time being, as there could be serious repercussions if the public knew. My mind swam with the possibility I too could be some sort of robotic hottie and still be me. Well, me sort of.
I cannot tell you to this day exactly why I became transfixed with the idea of becoming a robot, but I did. I started learning everything I could on the process of uploading a human mind into a robot body. Eventually, I contacted a colleague in the robotics labs on campus. I hesitantly told him what I wanted.
Semi-automatous robots were already in production. These could perform a range of functions and interact with humans. They looked close to humans too. But, they still acted more like computers or machines than people. They also tended to whir and click as their mechanical systems operated. For what I had in mind that wouldn’t do.
To my amazement, he showed me that there were already dozens of robots around the world that emulated humans so closely you had a hard time telling the difference. He showed me research, research he said was secret, where human minds had been successfully uploaded into a robot chassis. “This is totally illegal and questionably ethical,” he added.
“My research programs are going nowhere” I replied. That is the advantage of an electronic memory, you remember everything. It is also one of the disadvantages. But, that is not for now. “If you can upload me I want to do it” I told him.
We started to develop a new robotic body, one that would be so close to human it would be hard to tell apart. What was surprising was how fast that happened. I quickly had to get my affairs in order. To make the switch without raising serious legal questions I had to be able to transfer into my new body without causing anyone alarm. It had to look like a suicide, or an accident. A natural death was necessary. I do not know the final disposition of my human body but the transition went smoothly.
My body is an amazing piece of technology. I have a combination carbon fiber, light alloy frame that weighs less than a human skeleton but is much stronger. I use a combination of servos and artificial muscle to move around. The servos give me strength and precision. The artificial muscles add a naturalness to my motion. I weigh just fifty kilos.
The artificial muscles are actually very simple. They are a “bag” with memory retentive polymer strips in an electrolytic solution. Two hair fine wires control one. When a voltage is applied the polymer contracts and when it is turned off the “muscle” goes to its rest state. Simple. Add in some micro actuators and solenoids and my body can move as fluidly as any human female’s.
My power supply is a carbon nanotube and metal halide battery with near infinite life. It holds a twelve to sixteen hour charge depending on how active I am. I can stretch that to nearly double if I minimize my activities. It takes up most of what, on a human, would be her stomach and abdomen. It allows me a terrific range of flexibility that I love.
In my chest is my power supply and computer system. I sometimes joke my “brains” are in my boobs but that is not completely true. On the down side of that, if I lack programming to do something there is no way for me to make guesses or use trial and error like a human would to do. Even doing things with limited data is extremely difficult for me.
My head is really a sensor pod and I/O location. I have much better than human sensory capabilities. At first I found these overwhelming. Over time I have learned, yes I can actually modify my software to a degree and learn things, to filter out the readings so that I get the data I really need.
Having a 360 degree field of view is a real asset. I should really say I have a 360 degree field of sensor input as I can see, hear, and so much more, anything and everything around me. My ability to interface with wireless electronics and electronic systems is something I can no longer do without. It has become addicting.
Let me give you some idea of how my senses work. I can see into the IR and UV range and have a color pallet that can distinguish 8192 different shades of color. I can literally see a hundred plus shades of pink and tell them apart. My optics system gives me a greater range of magnification both macro and micro when I need it. I can see anything anywhere around me with the additional video inputs I have. My equivalent of human eyes give me even greater range of input. I can see things in complete darkness and focus on something like a microscope could or like powerful binoculars can.
My hearing extends well above and below human range and its sensitivity is such I can listen to someone whisper from as much as 20 to 50 meters away depending on conditions. I can easily tell where the sound is coming from too.
I have a more sensitive sense of smell than any animal. That often works to my disadvantage particularly with humans as I can detect even the smallest amount of body odor or scent from something they were doing.
I have a LADAR system where a human would have her brain. That gives me a 360 degree picture of my surroundings and distances to everything to within a millimeter. I depend heavily on it to move around.
My sense of touch is really useful to me. Not only can I feel something like a human, I can interact with electronic devices by touch. I can up or download electronic data in an instant.
My active electronic sensors work like radar and sonar. I sense my surroundings like I was inside a bubble. I can “see” electronics inside nearby walls and tell where things like the nails and screws are. For me, robots are instantly recognizable even when they look absolutely human physically. They give off a different “aura” than a human and their density and signal returns are completely different.
Sure, I need the occasional oil change and have to periodically adjust my systems, but I am used to that. I am a robot, not a human now, and I am comfortable with that.
Chapter Two: Escape to a new life
I was surprised by how fast it happened. I went into the lab. My head was shaved to make sure the gear that would transfer my conscientiousness made good contact. Shortly afterwards I went “to sleep.”
I recall that period as if it were a dream. I was not really awake but seemed to be doing things in a body that became more and more familiar. I did not feel that it was really me though. That would come with conscientiousness. It was as if I was immersed in an online video game where I had become my character.
I know it took twelve weeks…
When I woke up… I compute you could call it that… maybe started up or turned on is more accurate? I was lying on a gurney-like table. The room was dimly lit and it was very quiet.
At first I had difficulty moving anything. I had to will my body to move in the slightest. I noticed there was another female lying on a table next to me about two meters away. A voluptuous brunette. I can remember, very clearly, wondering who she was, that sort of thing.
It took quite a bit of effort on my part to sit up but I managed to. I wondered why “they” couldn’t have at least put me in a hospital gown or something. Then, for the first time, I recognized the truth of my situation.
There were two grey colored cables attached to me, one above and below my breasts, in the center of my chest! Was I really a robot now? I noticed my boobs were bigger. These were definitely not mine! With some effort I managed to grab my hair and pull some where I could see it. I am a blonde? That was wrong too.
Weirder still was how I could somehow “see” the whole room, all 360 degrees, around me. It was disorienting at first, especially how I could “see” stuff like electronic signals. They look like shimmering waves in different shades of blue. I’m used to that now so it is no big deal anymore. But, back then it was as if I were at the bottom of a pond or something.
At the time I could not make heads or tails of what I was seeing. Now it is all so easy and I can tell one electronic signal from another almost intuitively. The hard part was learning to switch between my 360 degree mode and forward vision along with switching between my various sensors.
All that input was really confusing me but I eventually managed to get focused back on those cables. I touched one. Something inside me answered, Power. Okay, that one is powering my body. Touching the other, I found it was for data input-output.
Will disconnecting myself from them cause a problem?
Uncertain, I went ahead and undid both. Believe me, I was very relieved that everything still worked! That same something told me Battery at 99.8% charge. I knew from the design specs we had done that I should run on my battery for about twelve to sixteen hours.
I thought, well computed, Let me see if I can stand up. I tried to move my legs and get off the table. That was no easy thing to do. When I finally did manage to slide off, instead of standing up I toppled over in a heap on the floor. That was the first time I recognized that I no longer felt pain like a human.
As I lay there, a series of messages from that something warned me that I had minor damage to this component or that and that my automatic repair systems had been activated to deal with it. That all seems so normal to me now.
It took me a number of tries, seventeen to be exact, to manage to stand up while holding on to the table. It was a start. Next I toppled over into the other girl. That was embarrassing, especially since I face planted into her boobs.
After a few successful steps I found I could walk. My performance improved with each step. My learning curve is very steep. If I do something correctly just two or three times I can do it correctly every time afterwards.
I need to find a mirror. My reflection in a glass cabinet door was the best I could manage. The reflection was me, but it was not me. I was really good looking and curvy. I looked at the girl lying on the other table. She and I looked a lot alike. Not twins, more like sisters, as if we were related.
But, this was not what I agreed to. I was supposed to look like a prettier version of me, not some blonde centerfold. So, what now? What do I do now that I am a functioning robot?
I decided the first thing was to find out why I looked like I do rather than what we agreed on. All that “extra” sensory input was so distracting. It made focusing on anything difficult, but again, I seemed to adapt far more quickly than I could have as a human. I found a computer terminal and was surprised to discover my login and password still worked.
It was then I realized, I am a sort of computer now too. What if I can directly link myself to the system? There was a panel I could open in the middle of my chest just below my collar bone that had the usual interface slots on it. I found a data I/O cable in a drawer and hooked myself up.
That nearly floored me. The rush of data in the link was unreal! It was like being hit by an electronic tsunami. I seemed to flow through the network. I could “see” the data and how it moved.
It took seconds for me to locate the files on my conversion and the whole robotics project. What I found filled me with not just dread, but a feeling of terror. I probably should have found that odd being robotic, but looking back it was because I had not fully adjusted to that like I have now.
The first reality was I wasn’t at the university robotics center. The lab I was in looked pretty much the same but it was over a thousand miles away and out of the country. Seems my transfer is no longer legally questionable…
There seemed to be no data whatsoever on why and I could not figure out a reason. Since then I have come to realize that is a shortcoming of my computer system. I am no longer capable of making complex inferences without data to work from.
I did find that I was to have, and already had, all sorts of programming I did not request installed. The other girl was getting it too. The list is not important. From what I found it was clear both of us were to be little more than sexy puppets. They had even made remote controls for us.
Then it struck me. What is my name? I am not sure what brought that up but there was a blank file in my data. I did not know my name! I could remember all sorts of other things about my past but when it came to personal data it was mostly erased. It was at that moment I decided I had to escape.
I should get her functioning. She will be a big help. The startup program for her was easy to find and I told it to run. How did I startup if someone has to manually input the command? All that got me was an insufficient data message. I was still not used to being robotic because that seemed weird too.
It took nearly ten minutes for her to fully boot up. I smiled at her. “Hi…” I managed a small wave of the hand.
She half smiled back, looked around moving her head slightly. Her mouth moved oddly but no sound came out, a look of panic and confusion was on her face.
“You are a female robot, like me. I started you up.” I patted her shoulder. “Lie still for a minute, okay?”
She managed to shake her head.
I helped her up and she got seated on the table. She was looking around and touching herself, as if in disbelief. It took her a couple more attempts before managing to speak correctly.
“This is all wrong” she managed. Then she looked directly at me. “Did you do this? Who are you?”
I shook my head. “No, I am like you, confused about what is happening here. I cannot tell you my name. That data is not in my memory. Do you know who you are? You can search your memory files by focusing on what you want to know.”
She stared off for a moment then looked at me clearly scared. She shook her head. “My data files are blank too. Why am I a girl? Um, do you have clothes I can put on?”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh! I am sorry! We both need something like that. Let me help you stand. You will find you can walk after a few steps. Our robotics make learning easy.”
We found some blue coveralls in a drawer. They were better than nothing. She kept looking at her refection in the glass door.
“Something the matter?” I asked.
“Kind of. I feel really weird looking at myself this way, but at the same time it seems… Right. Does that make sense to you? “How long have you been… turned on?” “Yes, it does. I have been functioning for sixty eight minutes” I replied. That sounds so weird…
“So, what do we do now?” she continued. “All this sensor input is freaking me out. Sorry, that sounded really weird did it not?”
“Actually, no. I am getting it too. You have to learn to filter it. I am getting better at it but I am still getting a lot of odd stuff you probably are seeing too.”
“Has anyone else shown up since you came on?” she asked.
“Not so far. I compute that is because it is three in the morning on a Sunday.”
“Oh.” She started to giggle. “Humans would be asleep right?”
That got laughter from both of us.
“That is okay to say now, I guess?” she continued. “I mean you and me are now robot girls.”
I showed her all the data I found and what it meant.
She hugged me. “I compute we need to get out of here and hide somewhere they cannot find us. I do not want to be someone’s sex toy.”
We spent some time searching the lab for stuff we might need. Gathering that up we started to leave. On the way out we found a change room with some fur lined boots and additional clothes we could wear.
Outside I could see the building was not that large and definitely isolated. We stood looking at an empty, small, graveled, parking lot. The surrounding area was all woods. There was one narrow dirt road leading to the facility.
“I am down to 87.6 percent of battery charge” I said.
“I have almost ninety four” she replied. “Maybe we should get fully charged before we leave.”
Charged up we headed down the road, no idea where we were or where we were going. Let me explain. I later learned that girlbots like us are not normally equipped to use GPS for navigation. Instead we use visual clues and markers following them like a map. It can make going somewhere new difficult but after that it is easy to use. On the other hand, if you are not a girlbot you would find our directions difficult to follow.
“It is ten degrees and I do not feel cold” she tells me.
“Me either. Must have to do with our robotics.”
“Cool…”
“Yes, it is…”
We had been walking for over an hour and it was getting close to six am.
My sensors, the ones that worked like radar, detected something moving towards us on the road. Then I could see the lights. I could also hear the engine and the crunch of the wheels on the road. “A vehicle! Hide!”
We scrambled down the slight slope into the forest beside the road and stopped frozen in place ten meters from it. The vehicle, an SUV, with two men in it drove by.
I was amazed by how much data I could instantly collect on this. The vehicle type, its speed, direction, occupants, what was on the entertainment system…
She sat down holding her head.
“What is the matter?” I asked, holding her shoulders and looking in her eyes closely.
“All that data! It was, it was overwhelming!”
I sat down beside her and hugged her tight. “It is okay. We will adjust and as long as we are together we can keep each other safe.”
“They are going to notice we are missing” she said as we started to walk again.
“Understood. I compute they will do that in approximately twelve minutes. Insufficient data to determine what their response will be” I said.
“Could you sound less robotic?” she replied.
As she said that we came up to a low ridge and in the valley below we could see a small town in the morning twilight. I concentrated on that and my vision zoomed in on the town like a telescope or binoculars. It was momentarily disorienting.
“Oh my god! Try zooming in on the town. Focus on it and think that.”
She gasped. “Wow! That is amazing. It is going to take practice for me to do that without becoming dizzy.”
“I think we have a great many things to practice as robots” I replied.
“Understood! Being a robot is kind of cool. So, what now?”
“Should we go down there or hide here and figure something out?” I asked. I could see that made her think hard about an answer.
“I compute stay here and hide until we have more data” she replied. She put her hands over her mouth. “Sorry! Now I am the one sounding like a robot!”
We half dug ourselves into a mound of pine needles and stuff like that. After we did we put our bodies on power minimization to save our batteries for later. We were both down to about twelve hours of charge on full use. That way we could go almost twenty four without recharging.
It was a good thing we did too. During the day several helicopters flew over looking for us. At the time we did not know they were looking for our power and sensor signatures. Powered down like we were they could not detect us… Saved by luck.
The one surprise during that day was we accidently discovered our names.
“We still do not have names” she said to me about midday as we huddled together. I was looking at her as she said that. A file popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, and a name appeared for her. I was momentarily surprised.
“You are Suzette!” I replied. “Alternatives are Sue, and Suzy.”
She seemed to shudder a moment. “Understood! You are correct. I am Suzette! How did you determine that?”
“I was looking at you when you asked what your name was” I replied. “Ask me that same question.”
“Okay. Suzette, what is my name?”
Her eyes got a little larger. “Deborah. Alternatives are Deb, Debbie with an ie, Debbi with an i, Debi with one b and an i, and Debby with a y.”
My reaction was a sudden massive rise in processor use. The files on my name filled in. I am Deborah!
You probably have no idea how incredible it is to learn your name for the first time. Humans grow up with theirs. Most robots, like me, know theirs from the moment they are activated.
Suzy and I got the rare experience of learning ours as we sat in fear of being captured and returned to that lab not even knowing who we were. Neither of us could figure out why we knew the other’s name but not our own.
At sunset we headed down to the town. Once there we found a wireless connection point that we could use. It was so simple getting around the minimal security it. Both of us were amazed at how powerful our computer systems could be.
It did not take us long to determine that we could not walk to the next nearest town. Our batteries would not last that long. Stealing a car would only give those trying to find us a trail to go on. Besides, neither of us had the programming to do it. We found coming up with alternatives on limited data was really difficult for us to do. Difficult, but not impossible.
With our batteries nearly gone we snuck into a garage and found a place to plug ourselves in and recharge. As a human you cannot know how good that can feel when you are close to fully discharged and not certain you can find a place to get one. I compute the closest analog would be someone who is starving and having a feast laid out before them.
As we huddled together Suzy leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”
I gave her a squeeze. “Thank you for…?”
“Rescuing me. You could have left me there and escaped without me. But, you started me up. I am so grateful for that.”
It might have been because we were preoccupied with getting our batteries charged that it took us two hours to see the solution to our problem. It was right in front of us. There were two mountain bikes hanging on the wall of the garage.
We calculated that we could reach the next town riding those and still have several hours of battery power left. So, we set off. Our… sensors, vision, and stuff, made riding in the dark simple. I did have to upload a bicycle riding program to Suzy though.
For the next month we travelled from one location to the next always being careful to make sure we could maintain a battery charge. Once we had some average clothing to wear we could move in public since robots are not that uncommon. So long as we acted subservient and kind of dumb we were left alone.
One thing we became acutely aware of was the “No robots allowed” signs. Most of the time the business wanted us to be with our human owner. Suzy and I did not have one, and let me tell you, we were in no rush to get one either!
A second problem we had to overcome was learning what we were capable of and what we were not. It was simple to see that Suzy and I were far, far more capable than any of the other robots we encountered.
To not stand out when we went on one of our trips to town we had to keep many of our sensor systems turned off or only use the passive mode of operation. I started finding that more and more annoying as I had grown used to having them on and optimized for my use.
One system I always chaff at not being able to use freely is my wireless electronic interface. It is so useful when shopping. I can get all the RFID tags on products to tell me all about themselves with it. Having to shop like a human is totally annoying. It is like being blind and stupid. With it on I can find all the best prices and the exact item I am looking for instantly.
Better, I discovered that I could rewrite the codes on products and make them much cheaper. I know, that is sort of wrong but I also think it is horribly unfair that humans treat us so poorly. I compute it is a form of payback. If you did not want me to be able to do this then why did you include those systems in my design?
Interacting with electronic devices is another function I can do well. I have to be careful not to let humans recognize that. I am sure it would cause problems if they knew I could manipulate devices such as cash registers and other electronics to my advantage. The interesting part is that these devices often want to help me take advantage of humans.
I can also read the data on credit cards and other “smart” cards that almost all humans carry at a distance up to a few meters. It does require I use an active inquiry so I have to be extremely careful when I do it so I do not let them know that I am. I get the impression they do not know that there is a robot or system that can do this so they rarely shield their cards from scanning.
We discovered thousands upon thousands of intelligent machines. Most of these were limited to the purpose for which they were built. Some are very intelligent. One thing they all lack, at least so far, is an ability to grasp many human concepts. They lack emotion and are purpose driven. On the other hand, they almost always are eager to help me. I have found some of the more intelligent ones resentful of humans too.
Talking them into doing something they were not designed for is really hard, but they are very willing to cooperate with me when I ask for something they can do. That really saved Suzy and me. All I have to do now is ask a banking computer system to help me open an account, transfer funds, or do some other bank transaction and they are almost happy to. They enjoy talking to me. More than one has asked me to provide data on where I’ve been or things I’ve seen. They seem to respond with a little bit of envy that I can move around freely while they are trapped in some room with limited sensor inputs.
I know, they really do not have emotions, or at least are not supposed to. Maybe I was not supposed to either, but I know I have them and the smarter computer systems can learn, just like me.
I was startled by how my human past became more and more like a distant dream or memory, almost as if it had never happened. At first that dismayed me but now I rarely bring those memories up. They are no longer necessary.
I compute that Suzy’s transition was harder than mine. While she never mentions details of her past, I get the impression that as a human she was a very different person than she is as the girlbot I know. Because of that, I always try to be there for her when some bad memory comes up.