Robotic Emotions Tom Witherfork
I nervously walked through my CEO’s office door and immediately felt my heart skip a beat, as the thump of my boss’s meaty fist slammed onto his desk and echoed across the room. I could tell he was angry because the veins were popping in his neck and his jaw was clenching. I knew I was in trouble. “Thomas!" he shouted as he thrust today’s newspaper into my chest. “These AIU bots are rubbish! They can’t understand human behavior, and consumer feedback has never been so low! Just read what The Daily Times has to say about it.” I opened the newspaper and read the front page article.
Yep, I was in big trouble. I looked up at my boss. “I’m giving you three months to turn this around Witherspoon. Here are the latest opinion polls”, he said as he handed me a file. “If you can’t make these AIU’s understand human behavior I may as well replace you with one!” “I…I…I won’t let you down Boss” I sheepishly replied as I hurried out of his office. My name is Thomas Witherspoon, and I am the Chief Developer of the Social Interaction Department at AI4U. For years our company has been at the forefront of AIU development. If you don’t know already, AIU stands for Artificial Intelligence Unit, and is the politically correct term for ‘robot’. You will find one of our AIU’s behind every bank desk, super market checkout, McDonalds drivethru and retail store chain across the country.
Apparently, with more AIU’s entering the workforce, the social divide between AIU’s and humans has been increasing at an alarming rate. According to the latest customer survey polls, it seems that the main reason behind human dissatisfaction is due to the AIU’s lack of emotional intelligence and understanding of human nature. Wondering what percentage of feedback was negative, I opened the file that had been given to me. I could tell by looking at the first pie chart that I had a lot of work ahead of me.
I had no idea our robots are that terrible! Only two percent of our consumer feedback is positive! “What if I can upload human emotion recognition data onto our AIU’s, would that improve human and AIU relations?” I thought out loud. There was only one way to find out, so I went to find AIU 387. Unit 387 had been deployed as a sales assistant for a large global retail store since its manufacture in 2025 and had just been retired, so it would make the perfect experimental unit. I rushed into the storage quadrant and went searching for 387, stopping every few moments to admire the walls of robots that I have programmed from scratch over my years of service at AI4U. Remembering that I had important work to do, I hurried along.
“Unit 387! State your location!” I yelled “Isle 201 row 5. What do you need Thomas?” replied the mechanical voice. “I need you to come with me to the lab. I am going to attempt to install human emotional recognition data onto your hard drive, and it may take a while”, I replied. “Activating test mode now sir” said 387 as he followed me out the door to the lab, where I expected we would be staying for a very long time. It has now been two months since I was handed my assignment. During this time I have tracked and recorded the human body’s physiological and emotional response to pain, anger, joy, fear, compassion and sadness. I have photographed facial and body images that correspond to these human emotions, and today, the time has finally come to upload this data onto the artificial Limbic System I created and placed into 387’s central processing unit. This is it…the moment of truth. I compress all of the required data and upload it into AIU 387 and patiently wait for the AIU to reboot. “Good afternoon Sir” says 387, when the rebooting is complete. “How may I be of service?”
“Finally”, I grunt with a sigh of relief, and rush to the waiting room to bring in the first test subject, a woman with a crying baby, and position them in front of 387. “Would you like me to remove this baby sir?” asks 387. “It is making a very distracting noise and interfering with my auditory sensors”. “Come on 387! Do you not feel any emotion for this child and her Mother?” “I do not understand sir” I bring in the next subject, an elderly women who has just had her dog run over, and introduce her to 387. “Would you like me to inform you of the closest animal disposal unit?” asks 387. “387, this woman’s pet dog has just died. I am commanding you to retrieve information from your emotional storage unit and react in a human manner” I shout. I stand there waiting but disappointment hits me when an error code is displayed on 387’s monitor.
The realisation that I have failed in my assignment hits me, and I prepare to phone the CEO. I am so overcome by sadness and disappointment that a tear slides down my cheek. As I pick up the phone, I feel a cold hand on my shoulder and hear a mechanical voice that kindly says, “Are you alright sir? Would you like a tissue? If it helps, I could make you a nice warm beverage to sooth your nerves?”