Season 11, Week 8, "My True North"
LOST IN LOVE
Pete had the heart of a poet living uncomfortably with the brain of a computer programmer. He knew he could never support himself with his writing, especially because it was bad, but his programming skills were top notch. He was part of an elite team working on GenCo’s latest roll-out of its all-purpose robot, the G-349, designed for domestic use.
Late one Friday he was at his desk, waiting for a testing program to check his code. The huge room of gray work pods was empty of any other human life, while small beige office bots rolled around efficiently performing their assigned tasks. Pete liked to steal this time to work on his poetry.
We’re stuck together, our love is the glue
I'm jaded from eating alabaster stew
Reality is a staircase leading nowhere.
“Not a bad start,” he thought, as he saved it in his MyBestPoems file. His computer was still chewing through the code test. So far, it had found no errors.
This was Pete’s most dangerous time, when he couldn’t access his project and his mind wandered. He worked in a binary world, but he daydreamed in a universe free of logic and the constraints of software engineering.
“What if I could hide poetry in the bots?” he thought. “What would happen?”
The idea grew on him as he waited for the error check to finish.
“I could write it into the geolocator subroutine,” he thought. “No one looks there, and it’s not like the domestic models are GuideBots.”
First, he needed some poetry. What better than his own?
Pollen flew free and I started to sneeze
children stomping, playing games
and, glistening, tremble as it freezes
and yet his cat remained the same.
“Good,” thought Pete. “But if it’s going in the geolocator, it ought to have something to do with directions. It needs to look like it belongs.”
Time passed, but he couldn’t come up with anything.
“It’s getting late,” thought Pete, “why not just go with a classic?”
He decided to insert real poetry into the program of the robot.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
“Perfect,” he thought. “It’s got it all -- love, death, and directions.”
Finally, the error checker finished and he could work on his code again. With a few keystrokes Pete entered the poem into the program, right next to the GPS access code. Satisfied with his prank, he went home and forgot all about it.
The Steggie family bought GenCo’s Domestic Robot G-349, which had Pete’s special code, and their four-year-old daughter, Brenda, immediately named it Bot Bot.
Bot Bot was five feet tall, white, with small red wheels peeking out from the bottom of its smooth ovoid-shaped exterior. The face had two video eyes plus a data screen built to look like a nose and a mouth. It had two retractable arms normally hidden in its shell and it looked like a giant mutant egg as it rolled around the house, beeping to itself.
In very little time, Bot Bot became an important part of the Steggie family. It even had its own entourage; Brenda and Pumpkin the cat followed it wherever it went.
“Stay out of Bot Bot’s way,” said Dad early one morning. “It has work to do.”
“Me too,” said Brenda.
“What’s that?” asked Dad.
“Follow Bot Bot,” said Brenda.
“Meow,” agreed Pumpkin, before rampaging around the room, scaring itself.
Dad sighed. “Bot Bot, watch out for Brenda.”
“Of course,” said Bot Bot.
Mom and Dad both worked and mornings were hectic. After a while, they trusted Bot Bot to walk Brenda to her nearby day care.
Although Brenda knew the way, she was too young to go by herself. Mother Goose Day Care was only three blocks east to First Ave., two blocks north to Madison Street, then a half block northwest jog to Park Drive. Out the front door went Bot Bot, followed by Brenda and Pumpkin. The robot paused, then turned right.
“No,” said Brenda, who turned left. Bot Bot turned around and followed her to day care. Without being asked, it sang Brenda’s favorite songs and she skipped all the way.
After dropping her off, the robot tried to head back. “Meow,” said Pumpkin, who bumped his head against the robot until it turned around to the correct direction. Bot Bot paused, and after the cat walked away, followed him home.
Brenda and Pumpkin could always be counted on to get Bot Bot to day care or the park, but any other destination could be a problem. Several times the Steggies received messages from people that their robot had become lost while running errands.
“Something’s wrong with Bot Bot,” said Mom after one more message.
“I know,” said Dad. “Can you hook him up to the diagnostic program and check him out?”
Fifteen minutes later, the Steggies had the answer: nothing was wrong with Bot Bot.
“Well,” said Mom, “it must be us. Let’s take the online training course again.”
But the Steggies were busy and the owner’s course was long, so they put it off.
Because of Pete’s poetry code, Bot Bot could not properly access it’s geolocator functions and it was always lost. But that was not all. Whenever it tried to orient itself, Bot Bot processed the poem. Real north, south, east, and west were gone; in their place was the need for love. This was definitely not part of the robot’s features. Pete had inadvertently married artificial intelligence with real emotion.
And there was no one Bot Bot loved more than Brenda. When she was home, it spent its time playing with her, rather than doing its chores. They played make-believe and Brenda let Bot Bot wear her fairy wings and tiara. Bot Bot knew all kinds of games and it let Brenda win most of the time.
Mom and Dad always appreciated the care that Bot Bot took with Brenda and it was obvious their little girl loved the robot.
“But isn’t it kind of creepy the way Brenda and Bot Bot always play together?” said Mom.
“It’s almost as if we have two kids, but one’s an egg,” said Dad. “And Pumpkin spends more time with Bot Bot than us, even though we have laps.”
They also knew that Bot Bot was not doing its assignments. The house was a mess, dinner was late, the clothes were never washed, and it was always lost.
“Bot Bot just isn’t working out,” said Dad one morning.
“I know,” said Mom. “It’s still under warranty. Maybe we can get a replacement.”
Bot Bot overheard the conversation. It did not think it was defective and it definitely did not want to be replaced. Who would play with Brenda? What would she do without it? What would it do without her? And what about Pumpkin?
The Steggies were not the only people unhappy with their G-349. GenCo was swamped with complaints, warranty claims, and returns. A technical investigation led back to Pete and his poetry insert. Pete unfortunately lost his job and GenCo was faced with a massive recall until Public Relations pointed out that an ad campaign was much cheaper.
“Just call it a friend instead of a domestic helper,” said a junior image specialist to her supervisor. “Rename it the BuddyBot - who’s heartless enough to return a friend? When your friend gets lost, she’s still your friend. And who doesn’t want a friend these days?”
“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature” has saved many a programming glitch, and it worked again.
When the Steggies found out that they had really purchased a BuddyBot, they were relieved.
“I never thought Brenda’s best friend would be an egg on wheels,” said Dad. “This explains everything.”
“I can’t believe we were going to send it back,” said Mom. “Brenda would have hated us.”
“But we’ve got to get it to do its chores,” said Dad.
“But it’s a BuddyBot,” said Mom. “We don’t ask her other friends to cook and clean. And GenCo’s offering a deal on their ChoreBots. Maybe we could try one out?”
“Or do them ourselves,” said Dad.
“First we need to tell Brenda,” said Mom.
Brenda was happy, Bot Bot spun little circles of joy, and even GenCorp was pleased. Home Robot Magazine named the BuddyBot its “Robot of the Year.” Pete was rehired to create other poetry-driven robots, provided it wasn’t his poetry. He was last seen working late at night with W. B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming” on his computer screen.
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Pete’s poetry is from the Bad Poetry Generator at http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Poem/poem.cgi
“He was my North, my South, my East and West” is from W. H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues.” https://allpoetry.com/Funeral-Blues