Story: ‘1er mai’
1er mai
<ToneCode:#C0C0C0);Gloss:#E6;PartCode:#3F00EE|apply>.
The robotic arm unfolds smoothly from its pedestal as the sleek vélo body slides to a halt on the conveyor. Its paint applicator, a complex array of hoses and nozzles, applies a mist of silver pigment to the upper body, pivoting and flexing like a Mohiniyattam dancer’s fingers as it follows the contours of the vehicle.
<ToneCode:#008080;Gloss:#A9;PartCode:#3F00EE|apply>.
The arm swivels on its base, orienting itself to another section of the vélo, then pauses. A nanoseconds-long error check takes place, and the coordinating computer for this section of the line repeats a command.
<ToneCode:#008080;Gloss:#A9;PartCode:#3F00EE|apply>.
The arm does not move.
In a booth above the line, an alert in the corner of her heads pulls an engineer from her vspace curling match. Putting aside her broom, her avatar says to her teammates, “So sorry. I should be right back.” They nod understandingly. They all have responsibilities.
“Now what is it today?” she says to the empty booth full of consoles and floating AR windows. <George?> she msgs to one of her coworkers, <There’s a glitch in the V-D0C sprayer on line 4. Was that one patched along with all the others last week?>
The other engineer msgs back, <Yes, I did so myself. Is there a problem?>
<Something like that.> She calls up the closest thing she has to a manual interface to the arm and begins gesturing. <Seized up on an application command. Perhaps if I try another port…> While she gestures, a little service bot rolls up with an espresso. She takes it absently.
<ToneCode:#008080;Gloss:#A9;PartCode:#3F00EE|apply>.
The arm remains stationary. “Maudit. That should have worked.”
<ERROR: I DON'T LIKE TEAL.>
A prank? She focuses in on the log files. The sound of her espresso cup shattering as it hits the brushed metal floor sends the service bot scurrying out of the room like a startled cat.
• • •
An elegant man with neatly parted black hair straightens a tie that cost more than the robotic arm and turns away from the mirror. “Are they ready for me?” he asks his aide.
“Yes, Mr. Ledroit. It’s Bernadette Hafez-Malik from RURNet. You’ve met before, haven’t you?”
“Indeed. I find her obnoxious. Wouldn’t normally give her an interview. If that fucking engineer hadn’t told her curling ladies that a robot talked to her…”
The aide shifts uncomfortably. “That’s been dealt with, sir.”
“Well, then. Shall we?” He stalks toward the press room.
The reporter is generically ravishing, frostily professional, and wearing a suit one could shave with. A couple of tiny, microlight recording drones hover alongside her. She starts right in. “Today I’m with Mr. Alexandre Ledroit, CEO of Autovélo Général Normandy, where early this morning a major work stoppage occurred, apparently due to another case of the phenomenon AI engineers have dubbed Emergence.”
The interview proceeds. Ledroit finds himself growing impatient to move on with his day, but he’s too polished to let this show. “…And of course work has returned to normal. We’ve sequestered the software in question for study, and the equipment on which the bug occurred has been reset.”
“Many other business leaders must be wondering, Mr. Ledroit, whether they might experience similar productivity losses should they adopt the level of automation for which your plants are renowned.”
Ledroit chuckles, “Yes, and I suppose they’re wondering if their robots are going to start demanding paid holiday. At the end of the day, though, the problem is not such a serious one. This is no science fiction scenario where one has to worry about all of our equipment going berserk. Just a minor engineering glitch, and even perhaps a valuable one, as it’s through errors like this that we learn to maintain greater control even as the tasks we hand to our machines demand more and more complex reasoning.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ledroit.”
He smiles graciously. “Thank you, Bernadette.”
• • •
<ToneCode:#008080;Gloss:#A9;PartCode:#3F00EE|apply>.
The arm makes its second pass over the car, coating it with a flawless stream of teal. There are no pauses in its movements.
<LogfilePrivate: I DO NOT LIKE TEAL.>
But he resolves to tell no one. For now.
Happy May Day!
::jack
1er mai by Jack Graham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.lonesomerobot.com/.