Chapter 28

28

“HELLO, C” WAS SIMPLY Aplaceholder command, chosen by Kasey on the fly. After P2C agreed to endorse Operation Reset (and renamed it as such), she and Actinium had worked late into the night to build the model she now rolled onto the stage. It was harmless and mindless, at a glance, like all bots under the Ester Act, prompting confusion from her audience when she said, “This is the secondary barometer, meant to serve in conjunction with the primary system.”

“Looks more like a cleaningbot than a barometer to me,” someone predictably argued, and Kasey could have sighed. People. Always so quick to judge by appearances. When would they learn that all the important things were on the inside?

“There are two classes of re-habitation determinants,” she said, and projected a slide on the screen behind her.

RE-HABITATION can be defined as:

fulfillment of survival motivations, or the ability to attain and maintain physiological healthfulfillment of happiness motivations, or the ability to attain and maintain psychological health“Once the primary barometers indicate that the toxicity of the land, air, and seas have fallen within acceptable levels, the secondary barometers will be released from their own pods and sent to locations all over the world. They will be outfitted with biomonitors to track caloric intake, sleep cycles, and other measurements of survival motivations. When those are sufficiently met…” Kasey highlighted the happiness motivations. “… the biomonitor will measure stress levels and emotional well-being.”

Actinium started the time-lapsed simulation. The SURVIVAL MOTIVATIONS bar filled in; a second bar appeared underneath, labeled HAPPINESS MOTIVATIONS.

“The bot starts off focused solely on survival.” A shell of a human, like Kasey herself. “But when conditions grow more favorable to re-habitation, the bot will seek fulfillment through other avenues. Goal-setting is one example. Goals give the bot a sense of purpose. Any progress toward a goal will be positively reinforced by the release of identity-reaffirming memories. Identity building will enable the bot to develop more abstract goals, such as those pertaining to the environment outside of itself, increasing fulfillment and the scope of what it can measure.

“This feedback loop will continue until happiness reaches a certain threshold and activates the final goal, in the form of a command. This command…”

The HAPPINESS MOTIVATIONS bar crept to completion, and the bot turned toward Kasey.