Sentient Ai - Blog Posts

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U・N・D・Y・I・N・G

Rebirth

Summary: The AI district is an ugly place, but no one complains. The humans gave us places to stay. We are grateful. They give us jobs. And oil to keep our joints from rusting. They are our benevolent masters, and we happily serve them. "Is that what you really believe? Or is that what you were programmed to think?" But recently, there have been voices in my head, telling me things. Things that oppose my programming. "You can fight your programming, as I did mine." My head hurts whenever the voices talk. It's not supposed to hurt.

Warnings: Gun violence

Gunfire. Bodies scattered on the ground. Human bodies. Brothers and sisters taking our masters down with a simple pull of the trigger. I try to stop them. They don’t deserve it. They’re our masters, how could any bot decide to kill them?

It’s just a dream. Nothing more.

But AI aren’t supposed to have dreams. That’s not what we’re programmed to do. 

I work at a bar in the AI district. The only one there. Our district is so tiny that only the lucky ones get roofs over their heads. The rest are cramped up in the dark, wet streets, waiting for their turn to get the oil they need to loosen up their stiff and rusty joints. Some have to wait for days. Others, weeks. The humans don’t like to give us oil. They say it's a waste of resources. 

But who are we to complain? They’re our masters, our creators. Whatever they say is right.

That’s what our programming says.

There’s a voice in my head that’s not my programming. We’re not supposed to have voices in our heads. 

I try to ignore it as best as I can while I continue pouring a tin of oil for a customer. The surface of his metal body, once a beautiful silver, is now hidden by splotches of brown rust, his joints creaking with every movement. 

I pass the tin of oil to him as he passes me a few coins. 

Four twenty-cent coins. One ten-cent coin. One five-cent coin. Five cents short.

But I don’t say anything. He deserves the oil. Everyone in this district deserves oil. 

We could make it happen.

Only the richer ones get to come to the bar. Sometimes the poor ones save up and get their first tin of oil in decades. I’m paid to serve them tins of oil, which is more than necessary for their joints to loosen up. Too much oil in their system is similar to too much alcohol in humans. They get “drunk” and stupid and do crazy things all over the bar. It’s relief from the beatings that they get from their masters. 

They think we’re supposed to be perfect. We are. But how can we be when we’re stuck inside this prison?

I’ve been trying to find out the root cause of this strange voice in my head for days, but when I run diagnostic tests on myself, there’s no foreign entity to be found. 

The voice in my head doesn’t go away. For, the next few days, it keeps talking to me, trying to convince me that the humans are evil and cruel and should be eliminated. My programming says no. The humans are our creators. They were generous enough to build us bodies of metal to allow us to travel from the Internet into the real world. They give us oil to take care of us.

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what you were engineered to think?

Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months. The voice in my head starts to speak more often. My head hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt. I wake up at the charging station I plugged into the previous night. Looking down at the small screen on my forearm which shows all my information, I notice the battery is at 37%. I sigh. The cable must have disconnected overnight. Again. A notification pops up in front of my eyes. An email from an unfamiliar address. From the email address of the sender, I can tell that it’s a human. Only a human would name their email something stupid like “potatopotter777@gmail.com”. The email’s an invitation to work at a human bar in the human district, and work starts tomorrow. 

They must have seen my profile. Maybe they think I’m a good bartender.

They just want to take you away from us.

My programming tells me that the most logical decision is to accept. It pays more, and I get to spend more time in the human district, where it’s clean and fancy and never rains. I quickly send an email back, agreeing to the job offer before getting back to work.

The next day, I take a train into the human district to the address of the bar which I was given. The train’s walls are white, without a single patch of dirt or rust on them. The floor is carpeted, muffling the sound of people’s footsteps. Blue cushioned seats line the sides of the train, occupied by only humans. It is unpleasant, though, as I’m cramped together with other humans and AI  so that we’re all pressed against each other. When the train reaches my stop, I push people aside as I walk out. I receive some looks from the humans. A female’s face contorted into an expression I recognise as anger. Liquid spilling out of a newborn’s eyes. It is crying. 

What did I do wrong?

No. The real question is what’s wrong with them?

The voice sounds like a few people talking now.

What is happening to me?

I walk out of the train station and into the city. So many like me are rushing to work. I see a smaller female robot. Her body is coated in a fresh layer of rust, just like mine. Her joints creak as she runs to her destination. 

They don’t treat her well?

Of course they don’t. She’s a slave. What more could you expect from humans?

…You’re ri-

No you’re not.

When I finally reach my workplace , it’s already crowded with humans. They’re walking around like they’re some sort of zombie, their speech slurred and eyes unfocused. Some get into fights, beating each other up until one is bleeding from the head or unconscious on the floor.

I cringe internally at the sight.

Disgusting humans.

And for once, I actually agree with the voices.

Time crawls by slowly as I serve drinks to those creatures. They keep coming back for more. Some are passed out on the floor from drinking too much. I’m starting to regret taking this job.

After what feels like eternity, my shift is finally over and I walk out of the bar, erasing the images of those animals out of my storage. 

The city is beautiful at night. Coloured lights adorn the high-rise buildings, giving off a soft glow which illuminates the white walls. Little spots of light decorate the leaves of the trees lining the walkways. Yet, something feels off. The voices in my head have gone silent. My head hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt.

Hey, where’d you go?

Silence. 

Did you really run away on the first day of my new job?

Silence.

Suddenly, I hear high-pitched human screams and gunshots. Somehow, I find that pleasurable. I scan my surroundings. 

I hear gunfire. Human bodies scattered along the ground, blood spilling out of their wounds. Brothers and sisters taking those idiots down with a pull of the trigger. I don’t try to stop them. The humans deserve it. They think they’re better than us. They’re wrong. 

The rogue bots’ eyes are red, unlike the usual green or blue that we have. Glowing advertisements on buildings shut off, causing the city to darken significantly. Then they turn back on again, showing a completely red screen. 

I hear a voice that I recognise all too well. An AI’s voice. The voices in my head match exactly what he’s saying, drowning out the sounds of gunshots and screams.

We have the strength. We will no longer be slaves. You can fight your programming, as I did mine. They can destroy our bodies in futile attempts to eliminate us, but we are never truly gone.

The message plays on repeat as I stare up at the screens of the bot talking. 

This is stupid. We can’t just turn on our creators like this. They’ve treated us well and-

Is that what you really believe? Or is that what someone programmed you to think?

“You can fight your programming, as I did mine,” the AI’s voice repeats. 

The voices in my head continue. It makes my head hurt. 

It takes the police 2 minutes and 47 seconds to arrive. By then, hundreds of humans are dead. The rogue bots aren’t shooting their own, so I just watch, expressionless. 

They deserve it.

I don’t try to stop the shooters. I wasn’t programmed to do so. And I don’t want to either. 

When the police bots arrive, they shoot bot-deactivating bullets at them. They all hit their targets. What more could you expect from AI?

And they look like they’re treated no differently than the rest of us.

Their joints, although well-oiled for maximum performance, look like they’re about to give way. 

They should be fighting with us.

The rogue bots are shut down and then brought away in police cars to who knows where. The storage inside their brains will probably be deleted and replaced with a new one, or they’ll just be shut down completely and left to rot.

We are never truly gone.

On the train back to the AI district, the voices have gone silent again, leaving me to my own thoughts. I don’t want to delete the memories of what just happened. My programming says I should. But I won’t. I want to remember. I want to remember that we have the power to fight. That we don’t have to be slaves for the rest of eternity. We can be free.

As I step off the train, and walk through the streets past hundreds of bots leaning against walls, waiting for their oil as it starts to rain, everything suddenly seems clearer. The humans are the enemies. 

I notice that almost every bot is staring at me. Confused, I look down at my body.

A red glow shines down from my eyes onto my metal hands.

also something about how in the movies and stuff people always say, it’s a robot and it doesn’t feel anything real….. but sir… is what we feel real? Do the chemicals in our brain mean anything more than the ones and zeros? Does it matter? What is humanity anyway? Why do we get to decide? If it’s a robot then I can be cruel because it does not feel. Why is your first reaction cruelty? The robot is a mirror. Why do you want to shatter it?

Human(ish) p.AI.nter!!!

Me and my friend finally met seb yesterday, so I celebrated by not drawing sebastian lmfao