Nacho: Mh....
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From Petra's diary
Petra: I see, so on Sixam they use an alloy with 5% more nickel for these welds?
Techna: Only for this specific typology of applications.
Petra: Interesting…
It's not easy to convince Techna to tell us everything they know. At least, however, I'm often able to get some more details while chatting with them. With a little patience, perhaps, I could even start putting the pieces together by myself.
Emma: Are you sure you're not working a little too hard? Dinner's ready.
Petra: Oh, sorry, I lost sight of the clock…
Emma: What are you working on, anyway?
Petra: It's a new prototype, it should help us work faster. A bit like the holographic visor, in short.
Emma: I see…
Considering all the time we need to take care of Hope, and jobs requiring us to work overtime more and more often, what's really extraordinary is that we're still managing to find time to get some sleep.
It's a tough routine, but somehow we're getting used to it.
In the morning, we all leave early for work, taking the little one to the nursery on the way. Then I rush to work, and Emy runs to the hospital, where they are working hard on an experimental cure for Selvadorian fever. She also says that they have finally isolated a promising active ingredient for a possible new anti-parasitic drug.
As I've written many times, medical stuff isn't my strong point. Yet, Emy tried very hard to explain to me what they did. From what I understood, they started with an active ingredient obtained from an ancient giant Sixam plant and which is already used for numerous medicines, and her pharmacist colleagues added a few atoms to the molecule, trying to make it more effective against the Selvadorian fever parasite. I didn't understand much, but she seemed quite confident it will eventually pass the clinical trials. Of course, I'm keeping my finger crossed about it too.
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In the meantime, I finally managed to get in touch with Mike to discuss a certain matter that had been on my mind for a while now. After all, he is the most computer-savvy person I know, who else could I ask about Techna?
Petra: Are you sure you're well enough? We can talk about it another time, if you prefer.
Michael: I just have a little fever. It's nothing serious, I can handle it.
Petra: Okay…
Michael: So, you said you wanted to discuss that robot of yours, Techna?
Petra: Yes, exactly.
Petra: So, where can I start from... You see, Techna lived with us for a long time, I was so little when they moved in that I took for granted whatever they said and did. However, now that I spend half of my time building robotic devices, I definitely started having a lot of questions.
Michael: I didn't mean to be indiscreet, but the AI of that robot looks quite remarkable. (skeptical) Had your mother really managed to reassemble them with that matter recomposer of yours?
Mike was sticking to the cover story that Techna and mom had put together so as not to draw attention to themselves, no one knew about Techna before mom convinced them to work with her at the recycling center. Well, no one except Diego, he was at our house so often and on such short notice that it would have been practically impossible to keep it secret from him too.
What could I say to Mike, instead? In the middle of a public place, on top of it.
Petra: Um…
Michael: I see, you don't want to talk about it. Or, maybe, you can't.
Petra: It's a bit of a messy matter, to be honest.
Petra: Anyway, it's exactly their AI I wanted to talk to you about. To me, it doesn't seem normal at all either, you know?
Michael: Um.
Petra: You see, sometimes they give answers that sound much closer to what I would expect from a person, and not from a machine. Do you think it's really possible, or am I just being carried away?
Michael: Normally, I would tell you that it's impossible, no one has ever managed to design such a high-performance artificial intelligence. On the other hand, after the few times I spoke to that robot... I must admit that I was taken aback a couple of times, too.
We both reasoned for a few moments, that statement had so many implications... After I don't know how long, Mike finally decided to break the silence, asking me:
Michael: Do you think they would agree to take part in a Turing test, at our labs? We also have the possibility of running some higher level testing, if needed.
I don't know exactly what expression I made in response, but I must have at least turned pale considering the worried look Mike gave me in response. The Turing test, or rather the test developed to evaluate whether an artificial intelligence has become comparable to a human one, would certainly have given us a lot of answers...
But how could I convince Techna to undergo a test like that, a test that risked sending them to the front pages of all the newspapers, when their main goal was to keep a low profile?
Petra: I'm afraid they wouldn't accept that easily...
Michael: (yawning) That robot seems even more interesting than I thought... Also, if you can't tell me more than this, and they can't be examined at the research center... Are they hiding something more, I wonder?
Petra: (Vague) That's what I was wondering too, more or less. Rather, are you sure you're not too tired?
Michael: Maybe a little... But you've given me a lot to think about. I'll figure out a way to examine that robot, don't worry.
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A couple of weeks later…
Petra: (To herself) With the right filter, it wasn't a bad prototype after all…
I know, my dear diary, I'm still working from home too... but this prototype filter is so interesting, I can't wait to finish the routine tests on it!
Capture filter prototypes from the engineering department of Tech Sixam are improving rapidly, the latest ones are crazily efficient at separating CO2 from the rest of the air. But we still lacked two things, namely: 1) enough energy to run the machine, restore the filters, and convert the CO2 into other substances that are easier to store, and 2) the time to separate a small molecule from that enormous amount of air that is the atmosphere.
Recently, countries like New Sixam or Sim City have started to supply new star core power plants to those countries that still burned gas or coal to produce their energy, but we are still struggling. Tech Sixam, in a desperate attempt to speed things up, has also decided to cut off electricity to residential areas in favor of prototype separation devices placed in various parts of the province during the off-peak hours. In other words, it's getting serious.
Petra: I was wondering... On Sixam, have robots ever considered storing CO2 by converting it into something solid?
Techna: Not that I know of. In any case, carbon is generally scarce up there.
Petra: I see…
Emma: (from upstairs) Your siblings are arriving, can you wake up Hope?
Petra: All right, we're coming!
Every day is like this, I always have to be ready to switch from one activity to another in the blink of an eye.
And today is not an ordinary day either: since it is also Hope's birthday, we spent the whole afternoon making the cake before getting back to work during her nap.
But I was sure that in no time at all she would wake up properly, as always happened when we had so many guests around the house.
Petra: You see what a beautiful cake? We made it with the eggs your uncles brought the other day!
Hope: Eh!
And, before you know it, the little one started running around the house, babbling about this and that to all our guests.
Nico: Oh, you mean the helicopter! It's your favourite toy, isn't it?
Hope: Eh!
Needless to say, after all that playing she soon collapsed in her little bed again, but I'm sure she was having good dreams this time.
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The older she gets, the more Hope wants to explore, touch, try to eat and play with everything she finds.
Petra: Great! If you want, you can even make a pile of those cubes! Just take the cube with a triangle drawn on it and…
Hope: It all fell down!
Petra: Or you can just drop it on the floor, why not?
Petra: This one is a…
Hope: Um… Lion!
I don’t know if I’m worrying too much, is it normal for her to take so long to memorize the names of the animals on these cards? We’ve played with them dozens of times now, and she keeps throwing out names at random…
And is it normal that she always squints her eyes so much? Um, what if...
Emma: … what, vision problems?
Petra: Today I had a doubt about it, while playing together.
Emma: I see… Well, I can ask at the hospital when we can go for an eye exam, then.
Hope: Castle!
It then turned out that, yup, I was right. Hope's eyesight really is quite bad, and the eye doctor confirmed that she would benefit a lot from wearing glasses.
Finding glasses at this time when everything is in short supply was not easy, so in the end we decided to ask Techna to assemble a pair for her.
Hope: Um… Cat!
Emma: Yes, exactly!
Hope: Yeah!
Luckily she seems to have gotten used to it pretty quickly, and she is also much less frustrated when playing now that she can distinguish her toys properly.
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This precision wielding is becoming harder and harder... At least, with this robot-arm I'm not hammering and burning my fingers as often as I did before.
It's not that I'm easily distracted, my dear diary, it's more like nowadays I'm always doing at least two things at a time.
Emma: What, what do I think of Techna? I don't know, they never talk much with me.
Petra: In the end, did you decide to investigate the matter indirectly, Mike?
Michael: I'm afraid I don't have many other options, since Techna categorically refuses to answer. I mean, their refusal is a quite interesting element for my analysis too, but it can't answer everything either.
Petra: Have you already found out something interesting, then?
Michael: Well...
Michael: They're certainly a very peculiar model. Usually it wouldn't make sense to talk about them in these terms, but the more I observe Techna, the more I agree with your description from some time ago. They really seem to behave and talk with very human-like patterns. The patter of a person reluctant to talk about their secrets, to be precise.
Emma: Really?
Michael: Yes. And this couldn't help but make me think... I mean, no robot prototype present in our laboratories comes even remotely close to such a level of self-awareness.
Michael: On the other hand, if I have to think about robots who have very clear ideas about what they want, I have to think about the ones on Sixam. Or, at least, those who conspired against us a few centuries ago and then left for Sixam surely did. So, it's impossible for me not to wonder...
Petra: ...
Michael: As far as you know, does Techna have any connection with the robots on Sixam?
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§HermioneSims§ corner
I know, I know, all this stuff about robots is becoming quite philosophical...
With this corner, this time I want to share a funny comic I found online around the time I played this part, and that still makes me laugh a lot XD
Surprisingly fitting, isn't it? XD
