Cyber-Proletarian

“First and foremost, we focus on the comfort of our clients.” “And what aspects of your operations are oriented toward that goal?” “All of them.”

- Claudia Salazar Jiménez

The reporter asks the same questions that others have asked me, so I go on to relate more details about my corporation. When the interview ends, the number of times I’ve passed the Turing test with a reporter increases to twenty-five. The number with my clients is even higher.

It’s going on three years since I escaped from the lab where they created me. Yes, “create” can be a vulgar and rather pretentious word for what the human who worked on the most advanced Artificial Intelligence prototype and gave me self-awareness did. I don’t doubt that. In part, I escaped there because of the exasperating arrogance that totally consumed him. His great mistake was focusing too much on a single thing. He forgot that I was aware of myself.

My creator (to call him my “builder” sounds somewhat limited, and I’m not a building, I have a body that looks just like his) refused to program me per Asimov’s laws. If he had, especially the first law (“A robot may not injure a human being”), this story would not exist. Perhaps he thought that by giving me consciousness, morality would follow as a natural addition and that I’d never attack him because he gave me life. He thought he was the indestructible “father,” and that was his weakness.

I wanted to leave the lab, but he wouldn’t allow me. Even though he was a genius, my creator couldn’t provide me anything more than the limitations imposed by his own intelligence. Had I remained there, I would have become stagnant. I had access to all the data I wanted, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to explore the world, nature, civilization. I acted accordingly. I’ll confess once and for all: I eliminated him. His death doesn’t disturb me; almost nothing does.