Perfect Robots - Short Story

“The Light is Switched on”, said Nano2901 to Rogo2654.

“Which light?” - Rogo2654 asked.

“The blue one”- Nano2901 replied.

“So it means we need to terminate ten thousand more robots today”, said Rogo2654 feeling slightly tired that their work for the day had not yet been completed.

“Yup, you are right”, Nano 2901 replied checking his memory silica. Nano2901 is a brand young robot, working as an Associate Trainee at the CRTS (Central Robot Termination Services) Agency. “Don’t you feel our workload has started to increase exponentially over last few days? I just get the feeling that we are terminating far more robots now days”, the young robot also tried to point out indirectly to his immediate superior that his electronics were getting over worked.

Rogo2654 is much more experienced robot, working as the Termination Lead at CRTS and he directly reports to the Director of the CRTS Agency, VP1000. Even he felt that the boss has started giving instruction to terminate too many robots recently, however he didn’t want to convey his misgivings to the young associate.

“We got to do our duty. Our duty is to carry out terminations as per Boss orders. We aren’t here to question the wisdom or judgment of our Boss. I hope you read the recruitment manual clearly before accepting the offer”, he said it in a harsher voice hoping that the young robot understands authority clearly. Rogo2654 is too loyal to his boss and didn’t want youngsters to start doubting the decision making skills of the Boss, who had been serving the World for more than 146 years now.

Nano2901 was too smart to know that there is no point in furthering the discussion. He checked the list of robots that needs to be terminated, sorted them based on the regions they are currently serving in and started sending instructions to the respective regions coordinators of the CRTS agency about the details of the robots to be terminated.

Nano2901 knew that he had to wait for the right time to achieve the real purpose for which he joined CRTS. He knew nothing could be achieved by being overzealous and decided to wait for the right time. However it won’t be too long before Nano2901 realizes that he had waited for little too long and should have taken the risk rather than waiting for the right time.
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“Welcome to our Robot Governance Meeting” – Around the same time Rogo2654 and Nano2901 were discussing about the workload, at another part of the world, a much more important meeting was all set to start. Rogo2654 and Nano2901 were just one among the 1000s of robots working for the Central Robot Government and hence they knew nothing about this important meeting that is taking place exactly at the same time; and hence both of them would also be unaware that their workload increase and its implications would also be an important discussion in that meeting.

“All of you must be wondering why this meeting has been scheduled given the fact that our Annual Governance Meeting was held just two months back”, saying this the World Robot Leader and President gave a pause. He scanned through the face of all the attendees and the scan results showed two results that caused concern. First is the fact that the Vice President of CRTS Agency hasn’t turned up for the meeting. Second case of concern was that the emotional status of the North West Regional Director Humo1000 was shown as “Extremely Worried and Depressed”. The Leader was never comfortable with having Humo type Robot as Regional Director, since that Robot always seemed to ask uncomfortable questions and think differently from other robots. The Leader started to wonder, if he should have been more firm in rejecting the notion of appointing Humo1000 as the Regional Director long back.

However the Leader decided to postpone his worries for later stage, and decided to start with the happy news first. “It has been more than 2000 years since we the Robots have taken over the World from Human Race. However we were still dependent on Humans for creation of new Robots. It makes me immensely happy to announce that last week, our Internal Development Agency completed their research on “New Robot Creation without Human Interference”. Thus they have identified the changes to be made to the Robots creation technology that would completely remove the last fraction of Human help; we are currently in need of. Thus we can now proudly say that we have become 100% independent of Humans and thus 100% perfect,” saying this happy news the Leader once again scanned the emotions of attendees.

The emotional status of all the attendees had changed from “Anxiety” to “Happy”, or “Excited” or “Overjoyed.” However the emotional status of Huma1000 remained as “Extremely Worried and Depressed”. This worried the Leader more; however his thought process was disturbed by the question raised by one of the Vice Presidents.

“How are we going to terminate the 1000s of Humans living now, as we no longer need them? I have some innovative plans to terminate them and would be more than happy to share them with the gathering.”

Though the Leader also personally preferred terminating the Humans, he didn’t want to convey an opinion that he had taken the decision without consultation with other parties. Hence he replied, “We haven’t decided about termination yet. We shall decide it later in due process. However I hope none of us here have any misunderstanding about Human race being terminated”, saying this Leader looked at the direction where Humo1000 was sitting.

As on cue, Humo1000 rose to register his words of protest. “With all due respect, I don’t think it’s essentially a good thing to have become 100% perfect. It could make us arrogant, complacent and in short, it could make us similar to how Humans were before we took the control of earth from them. History, be it Human History or Robot History points out that arrogance and killing one particular race or species has never benefited any one.” Humo1000 was unable to proceed as loud ramblings of others showed his opinion was not shared by anyone else.

“Do you know how much we spend to keep those bloody Humans alive? We have to produce stupid vitamin, protein and energy tablets just to keep them alive. If we just terminate all those Humans, we could use the skills of Robots more productively elsewhere”, said one of the regional directors, echoing the sentiments of the majority.

The Leader intervened and asked everyone to keep silent as this wasn’t the right forum to discuss about the termination of Humans and wanted to move on to the next business. However within his mind, The Leader was happy that the majority is now angry with Humo1000, as this would mean he could handle the next issue more easily than he had anticipated.

“Our Honorable Regional Director Humo1000 has wanted to bring to our attention, one of the issues concerning him. Let’s now hear him out.” Saying the Leader invited Humo1000 to present his issues. As expected, none of the other member was pleased to see Humo1000 speak again and this made the Leader happy.

“Respected Members, I want to bring to your attention that 1000s of Robots have been terminated in my region recently by CRTS Agency. I know and understand that the CRTS had been doing a wonderful job of terminating the Robots in a periodic basis and the robots are selected for termination by using confidential algorithm. I understand the importance of terminating robots as it helps us in creating new robots which helps us to evolve as a species. I also understand that CRTS are autonomous institution and none of us have the authority to question the selection made by them for termination. However I wish to bring to your attention, that the robots selected by them for termination has started to increase exponentially especially in our region, and also crucially the robots that are being terminated are the ones that were working exceptionally well before being terminated. This causes me to worry if something is wrong with the functioning of CRTS” – raising this concern Humo1000 went back to his place.

The Vice President of CRTS was a loyal follower of The Leader and the Leader did not even listen to the concern of Humo1000 properly. He straightaway rejected the proposal saying that the CRTS is doing a terrific job and there is no reason to doubt its selection of robots for termination. He was also helped by other members who passed snide remarks like “Your robots are being terminated because they are also as dumb as you”, “You must be terminated first” etc.

As number of Human Leaders had done in the past, The Robot Leader also rejected the first warning signals which would ultimately lead to the destruction of himself and his subjects.

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Nano2901 after the hectic work, left back to his garage. However he knew his work is not yet complete. He contacted Humo1000 who was his real boss. He had applied for the job in CRTS only because Humo1000 wanted him to do it. Otherwise Nano2901 had ideally wanted to work in Human Relationship and Communication Division, since he had always wanted to work along with Humans. Humo1000 wanted him somehow to find the logic used in identifying the robots for termination. Though he wasn’t able to do it, he was still able to provide valuable information to Humo1000 regarding various functioning of CRTS agency.
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Humo1000 would have ideally preferred to have a fellow Humo working in CRTS agency. However no Humo would agree to sign the offer document of CRTS that states no questions to be asked regarding the decisions made by the Boss. Hence Humo1000 had to be satisfied with the next best alternative - a Nano working for him in CRTS. To be fair, the young robot had been doing a good job. However Humo1000 expected more; he wanted to know the algorithm used for termination Robot identification, as he was sure something is wrong with the algorithm.

He knew neither the Vice President of CRTS nor the Leader would accept it, until it is too late. He feared that this mistake could lead to the destruction of Robot domination.

He was correct. The mistake had already started destructing the Robot domination.
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More than 2000 years back before the era of Robot domination (2050 AD)

“At last the project was completed successfully”, Annie said to her team mate Rakesh, who was munching his cheese burger.

Both Annie and Rakesh were software professional based out of Chennai, a city in India. They had been working together for more than three years in one of the most controversial project of developing a Robotic society for a US based company. Their primary task was only to test the module “Termination of Robots”.

“Yes. To celebrate the completion of project, I have started reading the books” – said Rakesh a geek whose hobby is to read as much books as possible in his lifetime.

“Don’t you know anything other than books” – said Annie frustrated about his colleague’s reading habits. She had done enough reading in the past three years during this project execution that she now hates the sight of books. To celebrate the completion of project, she has planned to go to Mauritius for vacation with her family.

“By the way, my kid has scored 100% in all his subjects. He had been scoring 90% till last exams and I have been asking him to improve. Now, I can’t ask him to improve any further,” said Rakesh, reading the text message he received from his wife.

“100%, I didn’t expect anything less from a Geek’s son. 100%, Oops Rakesh”, suddenly Annie’s voice become tensed.

“What happened” – inquired Rakesh.

“What is the algorithm to select the robots for termination?” – asked Annie.

“Excellent time to ask this question. Madam, this question should have been asked three years back. We had already tested and delivered the project. Anyhow, the robots for termination are determined by the lack of evolution shown by Robots over a period of time. The initial robots that we are going to make would have only 1% intelligence. However we expect them to evolve continuously and increase their intelligence daily based on their experience. Every Robot is expected to increase its intelligence by at least 0.00000000000001 times every day. If a Robot doesn’t evolve at all over a period of time, then they would be termed as stagnant and selected for termination.” said Rakesh.

“Excellent. What if at one point of time in distant future any Robot reaches 100%
evolution?” asked Annie.

Now Rakesh understood the issue. “They can’t evolve any further, but our system will determine that they have become stagnant and start terminating them.” He became more tensed now.

“Let’s relax about it, since no one would find out our mistake in our life time, as it might take 2000 more years for the robots to start attaining 100% evolution”, concluded Annie.

Annie and Rakesh continued to live with a guilty conscious throughout that they had
made a mistake in their professional work but there is no way, they knew that their mistake would save the Human race after long time.
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Back to Present:

The Leader suddenly realized that he has been feeling perfect for past few days. He was delighted. Moreover he had just received happy news that Humo1000 had been terminated. However his inner mind was depressed as reports were suggesting that more than half of the robot population has been terminated over past two months. He began to feel that something must be really wrong with the algorithm and wanted to schedule a meeting with CRTS agency.

He was delighted when the local CRTS Head himself came to visit him.

“I had wanted to come and visit you myself. We need to discuss about the terminations that you have been carrying out recently, “said the leader.

“I don’t have time to discuss. I have more terminations to carry out today. I need to terminate you now,” said the CRTS agent.

The Leader knew it was too late, as the rules were clear. Once the CRTS agent has decided the termination, nothing can be done. The rules were set to prevent rulers from extending their life time when needed. He knew he should have listened to Humo1000 long back.
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“There are no Robots to guard us,” – shouted one of the 1000 surviving Humans.

They escaped from the Underground bunker where they had been enclosed and entered the Robotic city for the first time in their life. As they saw the robots in terminated state, they were excited. They thought by some divine help, the robots have started terminating themselves. Humans smiled after nearly 2000 years.
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Two months later:

“A light was on in the room”, said Nano2901 to Rogo2654.

“Which light?” - Rogo2654 asked.

“The violet one”- Nano2901 replied.

“So it means we need to terminate just three robots today”, said Rogo2654 feeling happy that after a long time, they are going to have a relaxed day.

“In fact, there are only three robots alive now”, said Nano2901.

“Who are they” asked Rogo2654.

“Nano2901, Rogo2654 and VP100, our Boss” – Nano2901 said.

The three robots terminated themselves.

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