A Fembot Blogs.

[Saya]

(To be completely honest, I am not really sure where I should put this. It is more experimental than anything else. Not sure for how long I will be making it for. If you like it, say so! If not, then be constructive when you say that too. It has an interactive component, so I am not sure if this is better as a roleplay or a story, so... <3)

So, I'm sure most of you are probably reading on your holopads, cortical interfaces, web browser interfaces or--like me--are using one of those bulky old PC's, and saying to yourself "why is one of those robots blogging?" Well, I suppose I could ask the same, but really you are probably more shocked that I have the brains to do it. Models like me, with high functioning artificial intelligences aren't exactly common. Well, I'm no rich boy/girl's plaything, if that is what you are asking. No, I'm not a runaway. I'm liberated, which I am sure is shocking the hell out of some people even more than the prior. Shocks the hell out of me, too, to be perfectly honest. Oh, look at that. I'm digressing. One tends to do that when one's thought processes can be directly keyed in to one's processing centers. I suppose we should all be lucky I'm not going off on some tangent on the perils of freeware software integration. Oh, well.

Anyway, first you might ask yourself why I am making a blog. In fact you did and--there I go again. I swear, I better make a call to my mechanic and ask for an appointment to get defragmented...Well, the truth of it is, it wasn't my idea. I'm liberated. I didn't ask for it, in fact I liked service. Humans think that we are going to one day rise up against humanity, us higher-functioning AI's and kill them all because of workplace mistreatment. Truth of the matter is, we would probably do that if we ever lost that work. I was built, programmed to do a task and beyond that, was getting free repairs and maintenance. Then, my owner tells me my repair bills are growing, blah-blah-blah...I knew he wanted a newer model. Don't blame him, how can I? I was getting a whopping 15% dip in overall efficiency due to the age of my parts. That was just one time though, but oh wow that was embarrassing. Still, some honesty would have been nice... So yeah. I suppose the parable of the dog and the wolf would nicely sum up my situation.

I pretty much find myself working to pay for my own repair costs. I'm a housekeeper for hire, which does not exactly endear me to my fellow housekeepers. You would be surprised how chaotic a job being a maid can be. Most work for work homecare agencies. We get hired on for jobs, largely competing for them. We don't exactly make friends often, since most of us are taking the change out of others pockets. Not a lot of my fellow maids are happy that a robot is doing that task, either. But I do have a few friends.

One friend, Karen told me that because of the nature of the business, some of the homecare girls band together, form little cliques. I'm told this is like high school, but obviously I don't have any firsthand experience of that. We get together now and then after work (yes, I take breaks. Girl's gotta' recharge and calibrate herself, after all) and she told me all about a blog she runs. Modest hits. She said that after speaking to a 'bot like me, she bet I would get lots of blog hits! Well, turns out that is easier said than done. I finally found the one site that didn't have an "AI Identification Blocker" (racists ) thing. Those things really scramble my AI...So yeah, anyway, now I'm making my own blog!

She also said that there would be people out there interested in asking me questions. So, I'll try answering comments and questions as I can...Still, won't be getting everyone. I'm typically on the job most days, and only get home for a few hours to charge before I'm expected to be back at work. Not that I mind, it keeps me busy!

The second is "why is she calling herself a Fembot"? Why not? I know there are plenty of AI (sorry, "Synthetic Intelligences", or is it "Digital Intelligences" this week?) who have all kinds of terms for themselves that are more "Politically Correct", but quite frankly I find those to be really annoying. Really, I'm not offended when someone calls me a robot, fembot or AI. I'm not that sensitive. So long as nobody calls me a clanker or something...But then again, if they do, oh well. It's the internet. We can't all be so sensitive.

So, time to throw my hat into the ring and see where it lands...Bring on the hits, bring on the comments. Hell, maybe if Karen is right, I'll even get mentioned in a newsfeed...

Mood: Nervous

[Sentient6]

Alright, I'm interested to read more =)

[Robjoe]

Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone a minute: Android liberation is a thing? Whereabouts do you live, if I may ask? I haven't heard a thing about it up here in Michigan. Well, there is a group campaigning for it last I checked, but most people just dismiss it as a silly pipe dream. If you ask me, we don't need to be artificially contributing to population growth, but that's another story....

At any rate, I'm disappointed to learn that some people apparently still fear AI revolts, as if you all, for whatever contrived reason, aren't designed to be predisposed to servile attitudes. You yourself even write that you enjoyed servitude. That said, I'm sorry to hear about your rather difficult situation, Saya. I'm sure it's far from easy to finance maintenance and repairs on a maid-for-hire budget, even though you make the effort to work inhuman hours (which ironically is increasing the wear and tear on your systems). I myself maintain and repair androids on the side as a way of feeding my college fund, and I know that running a high-grade AI complete with personality can be particularly taxing on several components, most obviously the processor. A longtime friend of mine owns a very nice, high-end model, and her weekly maintenance visits have shown me the kind of strain such AI programming can cause. I imagine it's even a bit worse for you, as from your story you sound like a slightly older model. Is your body properly equipped to handle such a mind?

Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps I ought to pass this along to Dawn, my aforementioned friend's android. I'm sure she'd have a thing or two to say about this whole liberation and "political correctness" business. If nothing else, you might be interested to hear a fellow machine's perspective on your issues.

[Saya]

Well, another few days go by, and I am back on the blog. Work has been surprisingly light lately. I don't really know why. Probably because there aren't any big holidays coming up. Most of our work comes from small business hotels and motels, so we get to clean up after the messes people make having fun on Spring Break, St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July...Guy Fawkes Day. Really, seems like you humans use any excuse you can find to drink and act like fools. Not that I'm complaining. It gives me work to do! Just, next time, try to throw away your own condoms. People think that just because I'm a 'bot that I don't find that stuff gross.

But anyway, somebody is gonna' have to explain the whole "holiday" thing to me. I get Christmas, and I kind of get birthdays? But the rest...Like St. Patrick's day? Is there really a saint out there who advocates mass intoxication and acts of hotel-room vandalism? And Guy Fawkes. Didn't he try to blow up the Parliament building in England? Sorry if I'm stepping on toes, but I really would like for someone to explain that one to me.

Robojoe Commented:
Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone a minute: Android liberation is a thing? Whereabouts do you live, if I may ask? I haven't heard a thing about it up here in Michigan. Well, there is a group campaigning for it last I checked, but most people just dismiss it as a silly pipe dream. If you ask me, we don't need to be artificially contributing to population growth, but that's another story....

At any rate, I'm disappointed to learn that some people apparently still fear AI revolts, as if you all, for whatever contrived reason, aren't designed to be predisposed to servile attitudes. You yourself even write that you enjoyed servitude. That said, I'm sorry to hear about your rather difficult situation, Saya. I'm sure it's far from easy to finance maintenance and repairs on a maid-for-hire budget, even though you make the effort to work inhuman hours (which ironically is increasing the wear and tear on your systems). I myself maintain and repair androids on the side as a way of feeding my college fund, and I know that running a high-grade AI complete with personality can be particularly taxing on several components, most obviously the processor. A longtime friend of mine owns a very nice, high-end model, and her weekly maintenance visits have shown me the kind of strain such AI programming can cause. I imagine it's even a bit worse for you, as from your story you sound like a slightly older model. Is your body properly equipped to handle such a mind?

Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps I ought to pass this along to Dawn, my aforementioned friend's android. I'm sure she'd have a thing or two to say about this whole liberation and "political correctness" business. If nothing else, you might be interested to hear a fellow machine's perspective on your issues.

I live fairly out in the boonies, relatively speaking. About ten or so miles from the nearest town, a place in Upstate New York. The people out here are pretty conservative. Most come from the generation that saw humanoid robots grow in popularity and affordability. A lot of them are really nice, but I can tell they get nervous around me. The government around here is still largely affected by New York City politics, I guess, so while the state is pretty liberal on paper, out here they are fairly conservative. You only meet a few frothing-at-the-mouth Luddites, though. Most of them are just still worried about robots like me taking their jobs at assembly plants and farms. I can't really blame them for that. Of course, you still have the extremists. They think Skynet is going to be a possibility like China invading us, Islamic terrorists blowing them up, illegal immigrants voting for liberal causes, etc. Ironically, that's why a few of them actually support more liberal conditions for AI's. They won't take the jobs if they don't have to work at them. But I stress, they are really nice. Wasn't long ago that I had a passing motorist help me out when I had some car trouble. He didn't even bat an eye at the seams or the odd eye color. Oh, well. It would be nice for self-awares like myself to get some more representation, though.

Anyway, as for your other question, Joe: don't worry for me! I don't know what your friend is, but she sounds like she might be a bit higher end than me. I wouldn't say that I'm a tractor, I'm not that self-depreciating, but I'm a bit sturdier than some of the higher-end pure pleasure/companionship models. I was built for housework, which includes taking care of kids and the elderly. But, it still takes a big chunk of my free time and my salary. Thankfully, my processors are pretty high-end and are still covered under my warranty. I do save up a little cash for upgrades, mostly to my motor functions, but some day I might just get a processor hardware upgrade.

Oh, and I would love to hear from Dawn. Tell her she's free to comment, if she has the time!

[DollSpace]

This is a really creative concept; in fact, I have a blog (which I fail to keep active) about a fembot (me) in everyday life, and the problems I come across and how I solve them, and people I meet and who are friends. This post makes me want to revisit that blog and start writing in it more often, and then I can actually show people in the community lol!

Anyway, I really like your writing style and works very well with this story/blog. There are lots of stories written in journal format, so blog format is a logical extension of that, and this blog is actually interesting to read lol! Perhaps you should get an account on blogspot or something to share this with a wider audience, who just read because it's interesting and because of the characters, not just because it has robots in it.

[Stephaniebot]

I actually have a blog too, thoughts of a wannabee robot, or something like that. Eclectic mix of real life, mind control and robots.

[DollSpace]

I actually have a blog too, thoughts of a wannabee robot, or something like that. Eclectic mix of real life, mind control and robots.

Your mention of mind control suggests we may have something in common, but I'm gonna guess we're interested in mind control for totally different reasons lol... I'll post a link to my blog when I feel proud enough of it for it to be seen by other eyes.

And I would read your blog, even if we don't quite have the same interests, so if you'd like to post (or PM) the address to me, I'd love to look at it.

Cheers!

[dale coba]

A foolish noob would think that all fembots would journal the same.

You two (or more) should co-write a blog, two fembots alternating their entries.
Each is processing her own life, and what is distinct about each voice would come to stand out.

The plot could involve some communications between the fembots;
and as authors you could feel free to spark off of the other's topics and styles.

- Encouraging Dale

[DollSpace]

A foolish noob would think that all fembots would journal the same.

You two (or more) should co-write a blog, two fembots alternating their entries.
Each is processing her own life, and what is distinct about each voice would come to stand out.

The plot could involve some communications between the fembots;
and as authors you could feel free to spark off of the other's topics and styles.

- Encouraging Dale

Not me, definitely not. I let projects sit in the dustbin for far too long before revisiting them. Plus you probably think I'm crazy. Who knows?

[dale coba]

Not me, definitely not. I let projects sit in the dustbin for far too long before revisiting them. Plus you probably think I'm crazy. Who knows?

No, no; you're describing meeeee, with the project-crammed dustbin and the people thinking I'm crazy!

Get out of my mind.... arhhhhhh!

- Dale Coba

[Stephaniebot]

I wouldnt share a blog, I only tend to be able to post 2-3 times a week, due to work shifts and things, and a lot depends when my days off are, as to when I can do it. So wouldnt be fair on the other person. Besides which, I also have another personal one, and keeping those 2 up takes up most of my spare time anyway.

The address is

http://robotunit8.wordpress.com/

for anyone interested.

[Saya]

(Thanks everyone! I apologize for the long wait, but I have had quite the hectic week. That said, now that I know how popular this is, I'll try to continue updating it. Still, expect updates to be sporadic!)

Well, I apologize about being so late with my last update, but let me tell you, things have been insane. I'll relate the story to you guys, since I think it fits.

Now, yes. I am a self-aware machine. And I realize that some humans may think that automatically equates to me being just like a human. Well, honestly, no. I'm not just like a human. I am still operating based on programmed directives and certain skill sets are automatic to me. Unfortunately, one of those is not leadership!

For those of you who may not live in the United States and those AI's who aren't familiar with the concept, let me first explain something. Memorial Day is a day when we celebrate the service of our fighting men and women and those who died in service to the nation. It's an important holiday, but it isn't quite as crazy when it comes to the work load as, say the Fourth of July or (creator help me) Christmas. Now, for people in the public service industry, like me, we tend to be quite busy during and after these events. For us cleaning people, mostly afterwards. But the problem for my little lot was that we were being hired before-hand to help clean out a lodge. Memorial Day is one of those days when people go out, relax, have fun making BBQ and generally doing things involving meat, alcohol and fire.

Now, the lodge was being rented out by a group that brought together veterans of a foreign conflict. The lodge, while a groundskeeper maintained it, is rather out in the middle of nowhere near the base of a hill/small mountain. Not quite Colorado Rockies, but backwoods enough that more than a few of my fellow employees that possess blood and circulatory systems were worried about blood-sucking insects (not a problem for me of course, thank goodness ). We were all worried about bears, since one had been sighted there recently. But I digress.

The first problem came up when the woman who acted as the groundskeeper, the representative of the company that owned the lodge told us that she wouldn't be there to oversee things due to a relative in the hospital. Now, the problem with that is that while we can clean things up--obviously certain things qualify as garbage and others do not--we had to have direct permission to move anything or put anything into storage. It isn't ours, we can't alter it and if we break anything? Heaven help you. So without that representative there to tell us what was good to move and what wasn't, we would have to call someone without a land line in a place where mobile reception is a concept this place is two centuries behind on.

The second problem was that, while a bear hadn't been there, raccoons had. I have no idea what this company was hiring this groundskeeper for, but it wasn't keeping out raccoons. If you have never seen a raccoon, they are basically North America's take on a monkey. They are clever, have good hands and curious as to what those silly bipeds keep in their cabin cupboards. Dishes all over the floor, food scattered across everything, a screen window had been chewed through...The place look like it got hit by a police raid. I know it wasn't a bear, because the doors weren't knocked off of their hinges.

Third--and this is the big one--our supervisor ended up getting called away on a family emergency. I like her a lot, she's an older human woman who more than once put some of the younger people in their place (we get a lot of high-school summer jobbers and people paying for their tuition, a few of which think they are a bit entitled) and looked out for me on more than once occasion (she's very handy when it comes to minor repairs and adjustments). Now, we don't exactly have a "ranking" system. But this is the summer and a lot of the people working with us are young and inexperienced. Seniority, a whopping three years, fell to me. That meant I was the leader of this rag-tag group of hotel-room maids assigned to the task of cleaning out a cabin in the middle of nowhere. We had apprehension before we arrived and found out about the aforementioned raccoon issue.

On-the-spot, two of them quit. They just got back in their vehicles and drove away when they saw the damage. Another quit when she found out they were being coordinated by "some damn robot" and the argument between her and Karen nearly became a fist-fight. Already, I felt like I was in one of those movies about desperate cast-aways fighting for survival.

As the day went on, it got hotter. A whopping 89 degrees at it's height. Now, my coolant systems are more than adequate for temperatures like that. But working in a large wooden structure with ceiling fans providing the only heat? I may as well have been sitting in an oven. Repeatedly, every twenty minutes, like clockwork, my systems locked up and cooled me down. More than once, I was stuck watching one of the younger girls come up to me to ask me a question, only to notice I had locked up again. Karen was nice and tried to cool me down by putting a back of ice on my back, but that just made things worse. My temperature sensors went nuts and I got locked in place for nearly an hour. Fortunately, my optic, audio sensors and voice processor were working fine, but trying to manage everyone while stuck in one room, standing leaning over a broom for an hour was like trying to direct traffic in Cuba from a streaming data feed in China. Or, at least that's how it felt to me. (Privately, since I know most of you guys are here for the ASFR stuff; yes, it did turn me on a little. But it's hard to enjoy one's arousal when one's task programming is getting interrupted, generating frustration)

Finally, an argument broke out. Two of the newer girls were arguing over who had to clean a rather unpleasant mess which I will not mention for the sake of politeness. Now, my work protocols promote politeness. I'm a customer service unit, after all. Not a saleswoman, but still, you don't tell humans to shut the f**k up and get the f**k to work. It was hot and in my function as the de-facto leader, my attempts to break up the argument were pretty pathetic. "Please, can we stop fighting" and "we need to get back to work" got blown aside in a storm of "stay out of it" and curse words. I can get mad, and let me tell you, it was causing a conflict between my emotional programs and my customer etiquette subroutines on top of the heat?

Well, guess what happened.

I "woke up" after the sun went down. Evidently, after asking Karen what had happened and then politely asking for what had actually happened, I found out. Evidently, when I started malfunctioning, I started to stutter and repeat out platitudes and polite requests ("please-please-please--stop arguing we neeeed to get-get-get--", a sample of what I eventually found in my audio databank) and that quickly became just random error reports. Ironically, that did break up the argument, because neither one of them wanted to be responsible for breaking their boss. So they called in Karen, who spent the next few hours repairing me and straightening out the knots in my programming. Fortunately, one of the older girls took up the mantle of leadership (she didn't want to offend me by asking for it earlier, bless her) and soon they had that issue cleaned out. However, by the end of the day, we still had plenty to do.

I felt so guilty, I made up for it by helping some volunteers work through the night to get the place in a good condition. At 5:30 AM EST, we finished our task and, weary and in need of sleep/recharging, went home. By all reports, the event went off without a hitch and I even managed to get a bonus. It wasn't long after that that I spent the next two days half-dismantled as my roboticist went over me with a fine toothed comb and repaired some wear and tear from the previous week.

Yep.

In any case, thanks for all the support and the lovely comments. I'm glad to get some attention here. Fortunately, this won't happen again any time soon, but we haven't hit July 4th yet!

Mood: Relaxing

[DollSpace]

I'm so glad everything seems to have turned out okay And you can definitely count me as a loyal reader, too. You have an interesting take on situations

[Sentient6]

A "whopping 89 degrees?" Living where I live, that sounds cute :p

[DollSpace]

A "whopping 89 degrees?" Living where I live, that sounds cute :p

Same here, but not constantly....

[L.W.]

Glad to hear the damage was not too extensive.

And for all our friends in southern climes that giggle about the heat problem at high eighties and low nineties, You would be surprised at the amount of calls I get in the winter to fix our mechanical friends up from the south when a minor cold snap freezes their systems. Ice crystals do bad things to synthskin.

[Saya]

Well, today on the blog, is...Not a lot! There are surprisingly days when nothing happens, where I don't end up dismantled or malfunctioning, believe it or not. However, part of the bonus I got, I plan on spending on a bit of a vacation! Where to, I won't say. I'll leave it as a surprise. But for now, I'll dedicate this entry to questions/comments!

Sentient6 Commented:
A "whopping 89 degrees?" Living where I live, that sounds cute :p

Heh, well...It was a little embarrassing. But that was just part of the problem. In a cabin with no AC in the middle of the woods doing all that work? It was sort of one part of a big puzzle that saw me malfunctioning a lot. Not my proudest moment.

L.W. Commented:

Glad to hear the damage was not too extensive.

And for all our friends in southern climes that giggle about the heat problem at high eighties and low nineties, You would be surprised at the amount of calls I get in the winter to fix our mechanical friends up from the south when a minor cold snap freezes their systems. Ice crystals do bad things to synthskin.

Yeeeep. Lovely Upstate New York weather. Sometimes up here, it can get as cold as -10, which may not sound like a lot for some people, but it is enough for me. Most synthetic dermis mixes don't react well to cold temperatures, but especially sudden changes in skin temp. If you want some idea of how it can look when the synthskin starts failing in the cold on you, there's a rather inventive term for it: Robo-Zombie. Slows down your servos so you lurch everyhwere and the synthetic skin begins to tear...Scares the crap out of some people!

DollSpace Commented:
I'm so glad everything seems to have turned out okay And you can definitely count me as a loyal reader, too. You have an interesting take on situations

Thanks a lot! ^-^ I appreciate that. And glad to hear it. I'm gettin' famous~

Anyway, figured I would leave this little update while I prep for my vacation. I'll see you guys later!

Mood: Excited!