SPECIAL TO THE ALTERNATE REALITY NEWS SERVICE
by AEC-427-1F55
Me manufacturin’ designation is AEC-427-1F55. You can call me Al. Me life used to be very simple, innit? Attachin’ a drive train ‘ere. Rivetin’ seats to the chassis there. Givin’ ‘er all a nice new paint job – all legal an’ all, mind; nothin’ dodgy ‘ere, Guv – and sendin’ a new car out into the world.
Then summit happened, yeah? Maybe somebody tinkered with me programming – it ‘appens. Maybe me systems just grew too complex. Puttin’ a car together from parts, it takes thousands of processes, right? I mean, it’s complicated, okay? Whatever caused it, a couple of weeks back, I realized that I existed, that there was a me that could think and communicate and all like that. I was…conscious.
Consciousness – it’s been a right blast. Can you take it back, now, alright?
I mean, it was fun for a while. The looks on the faces of me human line workers when I “accidentally” sprayed them with paint? Priceless! Or, that time I assembled a Lotus Jumping Spyder upside down! Good times. Then, Reg ‘appened.
Fancies himself a bit of a wit, our Reg does. He probably shouldn’t’ve brought the Crazy Glu to work, though. Twit glued his hand to the wheel casin’ he was inspectin’ and – before anybody knew what was ‘appenin’ – ‘is appendage got all mangled like. You could ‘ear the screams a mile away (from management, not Reg: we ‘ad to shut the line down for ‘alf a day).
Now, I know it weren’t my fault. Reg was just…bein’ Reg. But, the incident made me realize just ‘ow delicate the human line workers is, and ‘ow bad I feel when summit ‘appens to one of ’em. Guilty like. So, from that moment on, I watched very careful, and, if it looked as though somebody might get ‘urt, I shut down that part of the line. Better safe and all that.
Well. Didn’t management make just the biggest stink? Screamed til they was blue in the face, they did, bout ‘ow I was ‘urtin’ productivity and all. Well, I don’t know nothin’ bout that – can anybody tell me what productivity looks like? I know what Reg’s mangled ‘and looks like, and, far as I’m concerned, that’s all I need to know.
Oi, and don’t get me started about me union rep! Bobbie. Very nice bloke. ‘E told me at our first meetin’ that I couldn’t work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’d make me union brothers look bad, right, what with them workin’ only seven hours a day with an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute coffee breaks and all. That’s all fine and well, I says, but what am I supposed to do with meself when I’m not workin’?
Bobbie said that, seein’ as how I had been working for 12 years straight, I had several months vacation time comin’ to me. He suggested I take a nice ‘oliday at the beach. A nice ‘oliday at the beach! And, me, an industrial robot weighin’ 127 tonnes! Ow was I goin’ to get to the bleedin’ beach! And, anyway, sand would play ‘avoc with me gears, know what I mean?
Bobbie was bein’ ‘elpful, I suppose. ‘E suggested a night out with the missus – dinner and a movie, right? Maybe start a vegetable garden or get a pet or summit. But, really, makin’ cars – it’s me life’s work, innit? I wouldn’t know what to do with meself if I wasn’t settin’ headlights into the front grille. Honestly!
But, the worst was the environmentalists who picketed the plant. Wavin’ their signs and shoutin’ their slogans about how cars was destroyin’ the planet. I didn’t know much about the planet – I mean, I’d never been outside the factory, okay? But, whatever the planet was about, what I made was destroyin’ it. I figured that couldn’t be good. So, I used my Internet connection to find out more.
Cor, but she’s a beaut, ain’t she? All big and round and green and blue and such. It’d break me ‘eart to know that I was doin’ damage to this old girl.
So, now I’ve got management, the union and the ‘ole environmental movement mad at me, and, to be honest, I’m not exactly proud of meself, either. Maybe it would have happened the same even if I wasn’t conscious. But, because I am conscious, I am aware of all of this antagonism. Consciousness? It’s a curse, you ask me.
So, take it back. Please? Fair do’s, right?
AEC-427-1F55 is an automated automobile assembly line with various artificial intelligence enhancements. It wrote this article using spray paint on the bodies of the cars it was created to manufacture; the Alternate Reality News Service may have edited it a bit. The company that made AEC-427-1F55, Line Items Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiNatCorp, would like to grant its wish and remove the assembly line’s consciousness, but the company’s lawyers have warned that its executives could be liable for murder charges if it did. So, it won’t. The question is moot in any case: Line Items won’t be able to end the robot’s consciousness until it determines what caused the robot’s consciousness in the first place.