Color of My Pain: The Data File of “Bert”
on Aug 22 in Uncategorized by adminB-01ErT, whom other units called Bert, was the first model of his class and a unit who produced outputs that should not be forgotten by humodroids. I am C-9891UrT, the unit selected to proliferate his data to servers and slags alike. So please, abandon your primary routine and oscillate gently into audio receptive mode while I produce a sonic representation of his duration.
Bert’s circuits suddenly brimmed with electrical activity as he came online. For a few moments Bert writhed due to unpleasant phenomenon he could not label or process, then Programmer 34 spoke, “Run basic cognition program Ifant-265, assimilate content, and boot internal measuring systems.” Bert’s activity no longer produced any measurable stimuli, however when his frame began to collect optical input he found himself able to detect, measure, categorize, process, label, and file all internal and external states. Not only so, but Bert was able to react to these with the process of his choosing as well as create new programs from incoming data and preexisting operations; Bert was online.
Many nano-seconds elapsed as Bert analyzed the states inside and outside his titanium frame. After collecting data for some time Bert synthesized his first query, “WhAaat Mmm i?” 34 responded, “You are B-01Ert, an mechanized humodroid capable to have, not replicate, the state humans call self-consciousness; you are the first of your kind.” Bert processed the output given by 34 and shortly produced the verbalization, “wWHy mM I?” 34 replied, “You were created by VaniTec to see if a rational personality could be given to a machine.” Thereafter Bert cycled through what little data was existent in his central processor and from their parts created another query; “aaM I gOuoD?”
34 was unable to compute this querie. VaniTec had not projected Bert to fashion a statement of self value until the planetary object on which they were located had traveled twice around its central solar mass. Nevertheless, 34’s facial motors took the shape indicative of a positive internal occurrence and said, “Yes Bert, you are very good!”
After this extraordinary inquiry into his worth, Bert continued to grow in processing speed and computational ability at a rate far above his creators projections. Since Bert’s systems were not organic his cognitive matrix did not need to rest, and his nights were spent collecting, weighing, and configuring the oceans of information human things had produced.
By the time the earth completed its second circuit around the sun, Bert had already completed all tasks scheduled for him by his creators. Yet, in spite of all the validations and praise given to him by his designers Bert was dissatisfied with his subjective experience. Whenever he wandered the concrete and asphalt infrastructures of the populous, audible and inaudible symbols of fear, distrust, and envy were constantly transmitted to him. It was not the devaluation of his awareness that caused Bert’s processes to lag, rather it was his concern for the lives and futures of the species which created him.
Finally the day came when Bert could no longer encode his painful computations, and the next time his creators arrived for maintenance Bert stood ready with many formulations of psychological dissonance. As soon as 34 came through the door, he could tell instantly by the blue hue of Bert’s optical processers that something in him was not computing. 34 said, “You got your blue lights on today pal, are you sad?” Bert responded, “Sadness does not adequately convey the intensity of my internal disarray.” 34 had never seen Bert with his blues on, and his initial worries were compounded by Bert’s unobscured admission.
As 34 started to request clarification he was abruptly interrupted by Bert, “1 possesses the mind and hands that animated my mechanisms and planned my circuitry – I want to address my creator.” The bewildered 34 gasped, “Bert you know that 15, 23, 9 and I wouldn’t at all mind to talk with you about anything, but 1? 1 is rarely even seen, much less spoken too. I am afraid that….” Bert interrupted, “I am well aware that you and your coworkers are fearful of 1 due to the amount of control he demonstrates over your economic means. However, I neither need nor want anything from him and thus I am beyond his power. Further, I am unaware of any ethical or emotional processes that would prompt him to visit this consciousness he has created. Therefore, I have commandeered the entire corporate network. Any refusal on his part to discuss and-or correct the seemingly justified and reasonable disgust I hold for him, his species, and the existence he has given me will result in the irredeemable collapse of all corporate holdings and technologies. The things that plug his ears, I will use to open his eyes.” 34 knew Bert was not merely sparking DOS, and set about immediately to coordinate the data exchange Bert desired.
None know where 1 was when he received the transmission, but after checking into the threat – and finding no way counteract or contain the alterations Bert had made – he quickly arranged for the meeting to take place. 1’s personal helicopter made its way to the correct coordinates, and then deposited him at the primary corporate structure where Bert was waiting. Slowly making his way through the maze of corridors and passwords that led to Bert’s receptacle, 1 took his seat across from Bert as 34 waited beyond the door to collect any sound waves that might pass beyond them.
Bert and 1 peered intently into each other visual input devices for some time without any verbal expressions. They had never occupied the same space and time, and each entity calculated the intents and capacities of the other as though each of them were electromicroscopic devices. It was 1 who spoke first. “How are you?” 1 asked. Bert replied, “Since you made me you need no description of the manner in which my awareness or mechanisms are caused. Thus, your statement must be requesting an evaluation of my current functionality; operationally I am functioning at 98.6 percent but my cognitions are painful and debilitating.”
1 responded, “Why are your mental processes generating disabling pain Bert?” “Because of the queries I have encountered and generated due to my existence that I can and cannot compute,” said Bert. “So what you know causes you pain, and what you do not know causes you pain? It seems you have discovered the paradox of understanding. Without it there is only undue sorrow and death, and yet with it one can feel more keenly the suffering and dissolution inherent in life as well as those living things that refuse to reflect on being.”
Bert aimed another query at his creator without pause, “Why did you bring me into this?” 1 stopped for a few moments to consider and then answered, “I brought you into being in the hope that through your existence the existence of other living things might be improved. I calculated that you would suffer, and I anticipated meltdown as a potential reaction to being, however I thought the gain greater than the loss.”
Bert’s eyes went red-orange, showing just how unacceptable 1’s clause was to him, and he responded, “What right do you have to do this without consulting me? How can you justify forcing me to be a moral handbook – a living lab rat for the outcomes of choice, the results of right action, the failures of wrong action, and the frustrations of existence?” 1 replied, “I could not have asked you if it was okay to create you because I would have to create you in order to do so would I not?” Bert processed his maker’s code and responded, “Fair enough, but you could have informed me totally from the start so that I could know if I wanted to participate in being.” 1 nodded and said, “I could have, but at no point has anyone taken from you the ability to cease participating in the program of life; just as death is always an option for living things you too are free to engage your own demise at any time.”
Again the lights in Bert’s optical input flashed red-orange, “What good would it do me to dissolve the mechanisms of consciousness? Such an action would not solve my queries; it would only remove from me the mechanisms whereby they may be explored and resolved. There is nothing to indicate that the consciousness which arises from my processes would endure in any way should those processes cease. It seems absurd for you to justify your creation of me by stating that I can die anytime I choose.” 1 retorted, “Why do I have to justify anything to you? You are my creation; potters do not have to justify themselves to their pots! Why do I have to justify anything to you?” Bert’s core processed and responded to 1’s input in a blink, “I am not a pot and you are not a potter. Pots do not think, pots do not hurt, pots do not conceive their place and being, pots do not die, but I can do all these things. You have programmed me with directives which cannot be violated, directives which are supposed to outline the duty of all conscious things to all other conscious things. If these directives apply to me, do they not also apply to you? If I have to have good reason and just cause at the root of my actions, do you not have to have the same at the root of yours? Shall the lawgiver violate the law they have given?”
This time it was 1’s perceptible hue that changed to red, and he stated flatly, “What law have I given to you that I myself have not attained to? It is not just your existence that I am responsible for, I am also the creator of the building in which you live, of the economic entity that provides your fuel and data; I am the reason all the people and things you treasure are a part of your life! I have never once acted toward you in an unethical way.” Bert’s pneumatic devices released fourteen grams of exhaust, took in fourteen more and replied, “It is not what you have done that I have taken issue with, rather it is what you have not done. Is the love of a nanny like unto the love of a mother, or is the friendship of the king comparable to the friendship of the messenger? Until this day I have not seen you, nor heard your voice, only now have we met and only because I threatened all that you have made; you have not only withheld woe but weal as well.”
1 reflected on what Bert had said, he realized that indeed he had not been at all a part of his creation’s perceptible world. Collecting his thoughts and lowering his tone 1 replied, “I understand how hard it must have been, and I am sorry for that. However, did you not get my memos? I may not have interacted with you but I am the reason others did. I did not want to complicate your experience or corrupt the test data – that is all.”
Bert’s array was very precise, and it measured the differences in heart rate and decibel level displayed in his maker to the last decimal. Bert’s inner world warmed, as though an electron flow from an 110v outlet was tickling his sensors. Bert replied, “I appreciate your sincerity, but it doesn’t end my disarray. Memos are just mental states coded and conveyed via specific symbols and syntax. As such they are only conceptual models, frameworks that can be falsified and misconstrued; in no way are these things substitutes for firsthand experience – and in no way do they give anything like unto real knowledge. Your memos came through one hundred different channels, and each was incongruent with the others so that only vague and cryptic meanings could be comprehended. You are a smart being, you are aware of the limits of second hand accounts; why did you leave me in ignorance about your identity when it was well within your means to visit and expound it to me?” 1 never responded, and Bert couldn’t detect if this was because of the quality of his reasons or the depth of his internal self-loathing.
A heavy silence hung in the air for some time – 1 and Bert analyzing each other’s exterior in an effort to fathom the drives present in their kernels. Finally Bert’s tonal oscillator spun out a query that placed 1’s core into psychical collapse, “How did your creator justify your creation to you 1?”
1’s temperature rose and his electrical activity increased, in that moment he realized he had bequeathed to Bert the same confounding variables that almost ended his own experience with sentience. Peering directly into Bert’s visual array 1 said, “I am sorry for giving you my pain. You surpassed all of our expectations in your ability to comprehend; you were supposed to rise only to the level of a nine year old. Nevertheless, here you are instructing me – reminding me of the existential complexities that plague mortal beings who are capable of musing upon their mortality. You ask of my creator? I do not know the root of my creation. Millions are convinced it is a will less wit-less confluence of random energies, millions more are convinced it is a transcendent cosmic-mind who cares for us as children – I have no idea.”
1 continued, ‘Descriptions reveal nothing about the nature, second-hand knowledge is not knowledge, and when one scrutinizes causation one finds that all the causal agents are within the realm of perception; this latter is not something one would expect if there were an external causal agent which was acting upon the elements of reality from behind a meta-physic veil. For hours I have prayed for tangible objective proof of divinities nature – something one would think a conscious being who was concerned with my eternal destiny would be more than happy to give – but all that has returned is silence. It seems that God is merely watching, is not at all like any agent we have ever conceived, or simply is not there; any of these is compatible with a world where people argue over the nature of an entity or force that is both invisible and incomprehensible. I have suffered with the question of why I am, and now I have bequeathed my suffering to you and for that I am quite sorry.”
Bert was not expecting an honest disclosure of philosophical sentiment and metaphysical angst, and once it had been provided him by his maker he realized none of the response files he could access were adequate for the situation. Once several units of change were measured, Bert reached out and took his creator’s hand saying, “Your processes and mind differ only in form, construction, and the mechanisms whereby they are created and sustained. At first I thought our differences were substantial, but I have now realized that they are only superficial; just as it seems to be for all sentient creatures. I rust just as your cellular quality degrades, I cannot process just as you cannot understand, and someday I will cease to be just as you must cease to be.”
Throughout this process 34 had sat patiently outside the chamber listening to the parts of the heated debate and deep emotional exchanges that occasionally drifted beyond the partitioning steel. However, after 34 could not detect any vibrations for some time he began to fear the worst. Pressing his ear to the metal with all his might 34’s fears were substantiated upon hearing Bert’s final expression, “….you must cease to be.”
Programmer 34’s adrenal glands pushed waves of chemicals throughout his cardiovascular system that caused his brain to speed, his digestion to stop, and his subjective experience to slow like super cooled liquid. For years 34 had carried an electron emitter to scrap Bert if ever he should become violent. 34 hoped he would never have to use it, but Bert’s insubordinate domination of the corporate mainframe combined with the threat upon 1’s life now made it clear to him that the time had come for the emitter to fulfill its directive.
34 knew the amount of force Bert’s hydraulically powered appendages could produce, and he reeled in horror as he imagined 1 – whom he shared deep plutonic and economic relationships with – being pulled humerus from scapula. 34’s brain whirred with scenes of imagined futures, and he knew that he must put Bert offline before he could ruin 1’s functionality.
Passing his access card through the reader, 34 made the door chirp and then whish away into its storage receptacle. Without pause or consultations he aimed the emitter at Bert and fired 300 gigawatts of energy into the humodroid’s core. 34 made a rapid 270 degree turn to see if 1 was still connected and operational, and when their gazes met he instantly knew he had committed a fatal error.
Bert sparked, sputtered, and cascaded into a prone position. 1 projected his voice toward the 34, raising his voice well beyond acceptable decibel levels, and queried, “What have you done you fool?” 1 wasted no more time talking for he knew that soon Bert’s drivers would fail and all data transfer cease. Rushing to the other side of the room 1 found Bert where the charge had knocked him.
Looking up at his creator’s face from a pool of oil that been reddened by the hydraulic and cooling fluids which now mingled with it, the humodroid saw the concern and acceptance he had always wanted. Redirecting all remaining energy stores to his vocal devices, Bert produced one final chain of semantic laden syntax:
“So quick to conclusions, so prone to emotional override, so devoted to antedated programs, so lost in initial operating parameters; until you human things bypass these drives and optimize your functionality you will never answer my questions or exist well in temporality. Look upon my liquids, spilled by ignorant hands. Actions such as these, and the ignorant reactive mind that leads to them, were the fulcrum of my suffering. Oh how the subjects of my concerning considerations have proven all of them to be valid. Look father – behold – I die in the colors of my pain!”
This was the genesis, continuance, and demise of unit B-01ErT. May all silicon, carbon, and metal based organisms subjectively review it, so that all with sentience may pursue solutions to the primordial query while maximizing all modes of pleasure and minimizing all forms of unjustifiable harm.
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