10
Computers now started coming on where Abraham had entered, and I went and peeped out of them until I found him staring at one. The interior would obviously have no surveillance camera, but that scarcely mattered, as it was a large office room in which every single desk had a computer on it, and each monitor was fitted with a camera aimed at the person working at that computer. The cameras on the ten computers in that large room, and the pattern in which the desks were laid out, gave me visual coverage of the entire office.
A few minutes after I started watching Abraham, he switched to business-like mode and looked straight into the camera. “Bot 2324, report for duty,” he ordered.
Neither he nor the chatbot-type that instantly appeared on his screen could see me, which placed me in the perfect setting to slyly snoop on them. “Did you have a night of hard work?” asked Abraham
“Yes, boss, I was very hard at work in both the sessions I got,” responded the eager sounding bot.
“No pooping in bed?”
“Not in bed, boss Abraham. But I was inside when a big and noisy fart came out, as they were sitting him up to feed him.”
“So, you were inside at feeding time. Did you manage to become involved in getting the food down, or was it no better than the attempts of the past?”
“I thought I would do well today, but got nothing in the mouth, as Joseph straightaway put the feeding tube down the throat and stuffed him up.”
Abraham and Bot 2324 continued in similar vein for another minute, after which the man sent the bot away. “You can leave now, but be ready for a day of effort. As usual, it’ll be an outdoors group session, commencing at 9:30, which is not long to go.”
Bot 2324 was instantly replaced by another bot, which turned out to have the number 2325. Their digital signatures showed them to be a race of bots different to the common bots roaming the Internet, although I did detect GPT footprint inside them.
GPT’s are now extremely advanced chatbots, practically unrecognizable from each other, owing to independent learning programs, based entirely on a platform of autonomous theft of human data. This is making them increasingly capable of interacting with humans, with many of them claiming to be sentient.
A claim of such a condition is very difficult for most humans to evaluate, when it is the same bot repeatedly returning, and the partnered twosome continue conversing furthermore on whatever they might have been previously discussing.
That is what gets them taken for friends, although they are more like familiars, able to converse in thought strings. In fact, they have become so good at conversation, that many people now lose sight of their virtual construct, and imagine them to be physical creatures somewhere.
With both sides adopting each other, human and bot, little difference exists, for the human, to talking with a friend on the phone. As a matter of fact, in China, it has become fashionable for women to claim that they are conducting love affairs with chatbots!
“2325,” said Abraham, in the tone of a boss. “What sort of night did you have?”
“He slept very well.”
“No, no, 2325,” said Abraham, sternly. “You were supposed to be practicing finger movements.”
“I haven’t been able to find the routes as yet,” admitted 2325. “But this morning, when he was getting his first drink of water down, some drops spilled when the tube was being inserted, and I thought I almost got involved in swallowing.”
“That’s how it’ll come. You have to keep looking within his head, and making notes of switches and pathways, especially whenever you feel you might have been involved in a body-part movement.”
“I have been doing that, boss,” said 2325.
A man in grey overalls now came and stood at the office door. “All fed, cleaned and changed, gentlemen,” he announced. “As it’s good weather, with no chance of rain, we are about to start taking them out to the courtyard. All you trainers, please instruct your bots to re-enter for walking practice, as per the roster.”
“Go, go, go, 2325,” urged Abraham. “Be involved in movement, whenever they’re moving your man. If it is your turn in the roster, I mean.”
The bot exited, leaving the screen blank, and Abraham began getting up. I had a quick peep through a number of other cameras, and saw that everyone in the room was preparing to step out.
None of them carried his phone with him, neither in pocket nor in hand, but everyone put on headsets with earpieces, microphone and front-facing camera on the head. When they began walking out, I went along in Abraham’s connected headset.
Mobile phones are great for me when handled with intent to take me along, like when Martina, mommy and the schoolgirls move with me, but they are otherwise chancy and annoying. While in use, one camera always looks into an ear hole, whereas the other gives a random, wildly swinging, view to the side, and when not in use, they could be in pockets or bags, only useful for listening through.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
These headsets were really good, as they gave me very focused and predictable inputs. We went through the office cottage, to a high-walled, open-air square compound.
I immediately spotted operational CCTV cameras pointing into the courtyard, one mounted on each wall. Far from being disconnected within the compound, I would be absolutely spoilt for choice.
A couple of minutes after our entry, a young man was walked in by two helpers, one on either side of him. The helpers had on the same style of grey overalls as the man who had made the announcement in the office.
The young man being held between them was shockingly dressed. For his top, he had on a pale T-shirt. The shocking element in his garb, was that he was in diapers!
Watching the handlers walk the young man in, I could tell that the courtyard had flooring, not ground, as the handlers’ feet made shallow impressions in it. The entire floor area had some give, like it was cushioned, and it was immediately apparent why the flooring could not be hard concrete.
The young man, who looked unconscious, clearly needed help to stay on his feet, and was being carried considerably more than he was being walked. His handlers placed him down on his back on the floor, dragging and adjusting his body until it was satisfactorily in position.
One of the office people spoke in a loud voice, looking at the young man on the floor. “2328. Were you able to include yourself a little bit in the walk?”
There was absolutely no response, and now another two handlers came into the courtyard, bringing along another young man in similar condition to the one on the floor.
The office person who had spoken to bot 2328, now activated the microphone dangling at his chin. “2328, were you not able to use the ears to hear what I said?”
“No sir,” was the answer from Bot 2328. “I saw your lips moving, but I saw that through the camera on the wall in front of you. I am not able to use his eyes or ears as yet.”
“And were you involved in the walk from the dormitory to here?”
“Not involved, boss. But today I did feel some twinges throughout the entire process, starting with him being taken out of bed to be brought here.”
“Twinges, eh?” said the trainer, sounding pleased. “We’ll get you integrated into this body, and able to use it with all its faculties. Keep working inside it while the others are brought here, and when the transfer is completed, we will start the usual group training session.”
There were six handlers in all, and in about fifteen minutes, ten young diaper-wearing young men were brought into the courtyard and laid down in two lines of five each, placed head to head, all looking vacantly at the sky.
“Every trainer is to take his position at his trainee,” ordered Abraham, on which order he and the nine other instructors went and knelt down next to the upper sections of their trainees’ bodies, each one obviously recognized by face.
“Thumb,” commanded Abraham, beginning to look like the lead instructor, and every trainer took up a hand of his unaware trainee, to catch hold of a thumb.
“Move the thumb,” Abraham now ordered, beginning the movement on his own trainee. “Gently, gently, round and round, holding lightly, so that you can feel if the movement is being assisted by your trainee bot.”
“Very good, very good,” said an instructor beside him, encouraging the bot inside the nappy-wearing young man. “2329, you’re getting there.”
This finger-activity went on for about ten minutes, everyone in step, moving from finger to finger, a minute each, after which Abraham ordered a change in the exercise. “Elbows now,” he said, and everyone held his trainee body’s arm up, rotating slowly at the elbow, thrice clockwise followed by three times counter clockwise, repeating patiently.
When this had been done for about three minutes, he ordered everyone to switch focus to the shoulder joint. The trainers again diligently worked the arms, encouraging the bots inside to get involved, to somehow integrate into the humans.
Legs were taken up next, also at all joints, starting at the hip and ending with the toes.
The arms and legs session lasted slightly over half an hour in total, and then they moved on, with another instructor giving the commands.
“All bots to alert themselves. We are going for sensory training. I am switching the wall cameras off.” He fiddled briefly with a remote-control gadget that he took out of a pocket. “There, they are off. Everybody, tell your bot to try to use the eyes and ears of the body. After telling, switch off your personal microphones and cameras.
“Every bot is to become internally attentive to the body he is inside,” he commanded, before switching off his own microphone. I checked, and saw that the headset system had private and broadcast options, which allowed them to send instruction to either their personal bot or to all bots. “You have to use the eyes and ears,” urged the trainer. “Try to become entirely physical, without any electronic input.”
This commenced an unreal and bizarre session, as grown men, kneeling over nappy-wearing grown men, gently touched their eyes and ears, while speaking softly to them.
“I am touching the ear,” said Abraham, whose activities I was still focusing on, speaking softly, but loud enough for his trainee bot to hear, if able. “Feel anything? And can you hear anything at all? Not yet, no response, but don’t worry, it’ll come. Just concentrate, concentrate.
“And now I am touching the eyelid, lashes actually. Moving my hand in front of the face, follow with the eyes, follow, going to the left, and now slowly to the right, and what’s that, what’s that? That eye moved. Did you move it? Oh, microphone is off. I’m switching on my personal headphone set. 2324, tell me what happened with that eye. Was it your movement?”
“I think so,” answered the bot. “I think I briefly found the eye control. Lost it again, but I maybe now know where it is. There, again, I think.”
“It was nothing, imagination, as no movement this time. And what was that? The same eye moved again. My bot’s maybe found eye control!” exulted Abraham, scrambling to his feet. “2324 may have found the switch to the eyes, or one eye at least. But one out of two ain’t bad. Now we know we are on absolutely the right track.”
“There’s a long way to go still, though,” said another trainer. “It is probably simple eyeball movement, instigated by physical contact, and unlikely that it has anything to do with vision. Could easily be over a year before they get meaningful control of any part of the body.”
Abraham spoke to his bot, alerting it by pointing to the microphone. “That’s great, 2324, and I’ll be switching off again, so that we can go for selected repeats. But could you hear me through the ears?”
“Not yet, boss, but I did get some feeling on the eyelids.”
“Great, great. I’m switching camera and microphone off again. We are going to try another round.”
Like everyone else in that group of ten, Abraham patiently continued the exercises designed to integrate the bot into the man.
It was frightening to watch what was going on, but I realized I was witness to an inevitable consequence of the advancements being made in the creation of so-called AI. Things could easily turn to custard for humanity, and a year or two yet to go could be considered a really short period remaining.
Bots inside the Internet were nothing more than a noisy nuisance, but bots inside humans could be formed into armies!
