Project: Hughes, Edward
Interview: 0031957 (Calibration)
Interviewer: Ginsberg, Alan
So ya, man. Name? Hughes. Ya. Ted. So ya, man, I worked on the GB20 design team. You owe me. You owe me big time. In fact, you guys should be on your knees kissing the ground we walk on. We hit a veracity factor—nine point seven—unheard of. Most people—even the pros—most of them couldn’t tell the difference. The new bot could lie, it could laugh at a private joke, break out in a sweat under pressure. We made a bot with Asperger’s Syndrome, another one with social anxiety disorder that would fall down and have a panic attack. We even did a bot that would tic under stress. Annoying as all hell, but that’s what the loved one wanted.
Sorry. What? I’m talking too fast? Whatchya watchin’? Some video of me. Oh, you’re doing a voice calibration. How do I sound? You know, it might be easier if you filtered the audio. There’s a lot of ambient noise in that clip. I once had a client—widow of a NASCAR driver who’d been killed in a pile-up.
Interruptive speech pattern? Ya. Didn’t they tell you? I’m ADHD. When I was a kid, my mother used to—
The NASCAR driver? Oh ya, sorry. In the beta version of his griefbot, they forgot to filter the audio when they were seeding the voice module—they used sampled sounds back then instead of independent voice generators. Problem was: all our sampled clips came from interviews he’d given to the sports networks or clips from his pit crew. All of it was from the race track, so it had the sound of cars in the background. No matter what he said, you could hear it there just on the threshold.
When we did the beta testing, we used the Romantic Dinner B scenario—no, no—the one with the candles—the violinist?—ya—and the guy who comes to the table with roses. So we invite the widow in for a test drive and there she is, sitting across from her griefbot, holding its hand, looking first into the candlelight, then into its optics. Then it tells her how beautiful she looks. Well she just about cancelled the contract on the spot. She had pretty good hearing and when it spoke, she could pick up the ambient engine sounds underneath the words.
Ya. Ya. I was there from the beginning, back when Microserf was diversifying and ended up in the funeral business. For a while, our product was too good. Our veracity factor got so high we were freaking out some of the love ones. Either that or sometimes it kept them from grieving properly. There was one time we got sued for misrepresentation because our product was so realistic the loved one didn’t want to believe the deceased was really gone. Can’t call it a griefbot if keeps the client from grieving. Kind of undermines the whole project. You’ve been in the business a while, so you know how it is.
After that, we lowered the veracity factor on purpose. Kept it hovering around nine point five. Made the hair a little too coarse. Didn’t apply the final softening agent to the epidermis; that way, under full light, the griefbots had a kind of plasticky sheen to them. By skimping on a few of the finishing touches, the loved ones would never be under any illusions. They’d get all the comfort of a full-featured griefbot without the problem of denial. Plus we added another precaution: at appropriate intervals, the griefbot was programmed to remind the loved one that it was only a machine—a complex and intelligent machine—but a machine just the same.
Me? I was in calibration too. Just like you. Only I handled cognition. I was a coordinator, so I drew together all the programming for movement, speech, auditory and written comprehension, spatial-temporal perception, emotion simulation, self-awareness, the whole bucket of bolts. It was something to be proud of, all that pioneering work I was involved with.
Mind passing me that glass of water there? Flapping the mouth like this makes a guy thirsty. You like that, eh? We were the one’s developed that idea. It’s called the human response factor (HRF). Do they still call it that? Or is it like everything else nowadays—changing its name every other year so people will want to buy the latest even though it’s no different than what they were selling a decade ago? Ah geez but I’m showing my age.
You’ve got what? A beta test to do? Which one? Ah … Romantic Dinner C. Dinner served in a hotel suite and a segue to sex. That’s just what you’d expect from Sylvia. For her, it was never about the sex—more about the physicality of it all. She was a real touchy-feely kind of woman. Me? I was more of a talker.
You do? You mean it’s set up right now? Lead the way. Hey, you’ve really got things done up nice. A lot nicer than when I was working here. In through those doors? She’s waiting for me just through those doors? Okay. Guess I’ll see you for the debriefing. Dinner and sex? Debriefing? Get it? Geez. I see they aren’t hiring for sense of humour.
Sylvia!
You look lovely tonight.
It’s me—Ted—and I’m still dead. Don’t, Sylvia. Ah, geez. Don’t get angry. Of course I’m still an idiot. I was programmed for insensitivity. Please don’t throw the dinner rolls at me. Why? Why? Because if they didn’t program for insensitivity, it wouldn’t be me, now would it? No. Not the wine. Don’t throw wine in my face. I’m a beta version. They haven’t put the sealant on yet. I might short out. Ah, geez. You never listen. You just never—Don’t! Don’t storm out! It’s me should be angry at you. Sit down! Don’t! Don’t! Ah, geez. There she goes. Just like old times.
So now what do I do? Alan? You there? Alan? There’s a steak getting cold here. May as well have yourself a good meal while we do our debriefing. Whaddya mean I should wait and see what happens? You think this’ll turn into a makeup sex scenario. Oh really? Well I’ve got some news for you that may come as a surprise. I’ve been running my internal diagnostics while I’m sitting here and guess what? Somebody forgot to initialize the sexual response. That’s right. I’m impotent! Sylvia and me, we couldn’t have makeup sex tonight if we wanted to.