Time ran out for Myra. It was round four in the best of five series and the humanoid had beaten her again. She shook her head in defeat. They both had been sitting for over two hours in front of their touch screens, solving a series of puzzles to outwit each other. The scores were tied at two all.
She got up from the chair to stretch out in the spotless white room. The humanoid looked at her without any expression. She had been thrilled on winning the first two on the trot. Now that it had won the third and fourth round, she wondered what it might be analysing as it didn’t express any joy on winning.
R2060 was the latest in the line of humanoids with superior intelligence and analytic skills. It resembled a human in looks, actions and voice, but had the same plasticy feel not much different from earlier models. This one was nicknamed Roby. Myra didn’t care whether they were called Roby or Boby. To her, they all were like tin men fitted with a smart computer chip. What mattered to her was that she had to defeat this one.
She walked around the desks while Roby sat expectantly waiting for the next round to begin. The room was conditioned towards the cooler side and she could feel the chill under her steel gray contest suit. Unlike these made in factory humanoids, she was born in a specialty hospital. She wondered whether it had been done to prevent the humanoid from frying its overworked chips.
Though they were alone in the room, Myra knew the contest was being monitored behind the walls. She had studied and endured hard to reach this far. Her future depended on winning this one.
“How old are you?” asked Myra.
“I am exactly 174 days, 7 hours and 35 seconds old. How old are you?” said Roby.
“17”
“17 days?”
“17 years,” replied Myra, rather amused.
“You are much older than me,” said Roby.
“But is it fair? What took me 17 years to learn, you already know that and a lot more in just a hundred odd days?”
“I cannot comment on it. This is the way I have been built. But in all fairness, I find this contest to be equally challenging,” said Roby.
“How come? You have a vast data bank in your head that you can recall in fractions of a second,” said Myra.
“Had it been a straight forward quiz or a chess game, you stood no chance and that would have been unfair. But when I have to analyze these puzzles like a human does, it slows me down. You won the first two rounds. It took me 48 minutes to grasp the concept and adapt to it. Now I am unbeatable at this,” Roby clarified.
“Unbeatable!” muttered Myra. She remembered reading that the scientists had been trying to give human elements to these humanoids. With each new model, they had gotten closer in functioning like the human brain.
Myra paced the room worried. “Unbeatable! Unbeatable!” she repeated in her head. Then she stopped. Myra walked over to the humanoid and asked, “So, when you face new information or situation, you have to store, analyze and then respond like humans do?”
“Yes.” Roby blinked.
“But you still haven’t reached the level where you can feel or express emotions,” Myra commented.
“I can define and relate to the state of emotions but never feel them like humans do,” said Roby.
“What about likes and dislikes, favourite fruits, colours or books?” she asked.
For a moment Roby was quiet. Then it answered. “No one has ever asked me questions like this before. I analyzed my data. I can differentiate between right and wrong but likes and dislikes are beyond me. I couldn’t possibly have a favorite fruit as I have never tasted one. As a matter of fact my opinion is based on what humans have tasted. All colours seem equally important to me. As for books, there are millions stored in my data bank and I find them essential for my analysis.”
“Then your knowledge is based on the knowledge humans have, which is stored in your chips,” said Myra.
“Yes, for the initial input, but further analysis and decisions are taken by my artificial intelligence network in real time. For example, the conversation we are having is spontaneous. I have to analyse your questions and speak the best response based on the data I have.”
“What about instinct?” Myra asked.
“It is a state when one reacts on impulse without rational conscious thought.”
“No, I didn’t mean it’s definition.”
“What do you want to know about it?”
Myra thought for a moment and asked, “What if a spider suddenly sprang up on your desk and was about to climb on your arm? What would you do?”
“My analysis shows that 90% of humans would have jumped up from their chair and of that, 80% would try to squash it. Therefore, to appear more human it is expected that I follow the majority and do the same. But I have been programmed to temper down and keep extreme behaviours under check.” Roby answered.
“This is dangerous territory,” murmured Myra. “No wonder they are better off the streets and limited to working in labs.”
“May I ask why are you so inquisitive about me?” Roby asked.
“I never have had a chance to strike a conversation with a humanoid before. I wanted to know more about you in person,” said Myra.
“Yes, that’s the natural thing most humans do.” Roby agreed.
Myra took her seat and tapped on the touch screen. “Ready for the final round, Roby?”
Roby blinked. “Yes. The contest. Strange that I seemed to have momentarily forgotten why really were we here for.”
Myra smiled. “It’s normal to lose focus from the task at hand.” Humans err when they are unfocused and these advance humanoids will have the same bug she hoped; and that she had done enough to level the playing field to outwit this tin man. “It’s very important for me to win,” she said.
“Why is it important that you win?” asked Roby.
“A win will secure my trip in space,” replied Myra, as she finished answering a question.
“A trip in space. To where?”
“To the planet, Tizen.”
“Tizen. I have a complete library about it in my data bank. Do you want to know anything about it?” Roby was striking a conversation.
“Not now. Just be quiet and play,” said Myra, irritatingly.
“But I want to know about you. Earlier, my sensors had indicated that you are different from others,” said Roby.
Myra didn’t reply. Was Roby trying to distract her the same way she had done to outwit it?. She kept her focus and solved the next puzzle.
Roby looked at her and then reacted the way most humans would. “You are the Myra! Do they accept you as one of their own?”
“Yes, they do because I am a part of them.” Myra was already a sort of celebrity ever since the news had broken out when she turned 15. There were all sorts of reactions, for and against. By going to Tizen she hoped to make a fresh start without being bothered.
“You are a technological marvel. I still can’t believe that I have met the first and only one of your kind,” commended Roby.
“Well, now that you have, keep quiet and let me concentrate,” said Myra, sternly.
Roby realised that it was annoying her. The humanoid lowered its head and went back to play.
After a grilling half an hour, Myra finished the final round. She leaped up and punched the air. She was going to Tizen.
The sapiens looked at each other. Myra saw a smile on Roby’s face. “Nah! Just a forced expression.” She was beaming with delight.