“Everything
doesn't revolve around you.”
Galileo*
#quote
Today I drew a
bit. After I drew Mom's first dog for her Christmas gift I stopped to
take a break so now I'm getting a few drawings in to ready myself
before I do the second. Anyway onto the flash fiction.
Why I Was
Born
Have you ever
asked yourself, the Universe, God or whatever comes to mind why you
were born? Well I wish for that kind of curiosity in life. I know why
I was put on this Earth. A very simple reason really.
To play Chess.
Computers and
humans have been fought each other at the game for awhile. As
processing power became ridiculous computers smashed humans. But
really it was humans beating humans in a way. Chess computers worked
by calculated massive databases of previous human games and
calculating appropriate plays from reference. You could call it
computers vs humans if it was RAM vs a single human. Eventually
though a clever human beat even the computers tactics. His strategy
involved defeating the computers database thinking and some magazine
reporter who thought he was really clever called it the “Code
Breaker”.
That's where I
came in, I was the machine that beat that man.
Science can be
a thing of principle. Doing things so it can be done. Progress for
the sake of progress. My sole purpose as a machine was to play Chess
and beat the strategy developed by that man. I didn't use databases.
They taught me to think human so I could learn and play Chess
normally. A bunch of programmer chess fanatics developed a learning
computer, a computer with sentience, without even realizing it.
“Checkmate,”
I said to one of my fathers. I won again. I looked out the window to
see one of the doves outside. I walked over to it with my four
robotic legs and reached for it with my two robotic arms.
“It's going
to fly away again,” The opponent I defeated said. “Those arms are
made to pick up Chess pieces not pet animals.” All the scientists
were my parents and I played Chess with them many times. Over and
over. Some didn't speak to me during matches. Some socialized a lot.
They would dress differently. Sometimes they played music during
matches. Eventually I learned they were changing the conditions to
test me and teach me to play the game with a flexible human mindset
thinking of my opponent in a dynamic mindset.
It took me many
more years to discover why they taught me lessons outside of Chess.
They would simply tell me learning is good. That was their answer to
most anything they taught me. I learned they wanted me to be able to
think of many things besides Chess as well. The Code Breaker strategy
confused computers and broke them and if I could expand my mind
beyond Chess I could mentally cool off and not overload. At least
that's what I think they thought.
Within my
education I learned of human families and I did grow to want to have
a family less like my own and more like those. An honest one. My
fathers and mothers treated me with many different emotions including
kindness like real parents. However it was all an act. All to make me
learn to understand human. To not overload. To read facial
expressions.
Eventually I
started meeting strangers. The games played differently sometimes. I
think some were intimidated by me. Some even sweat. The training my
parents put me through allowed me to read their facial expressions
though and beat them in games. I won again and again. I learned to
beat the strangers. I started beating my parents more frequently then
eventually to all the time.
But I never got
to touch the dove or any bird. Or other animal. I asked if we get
could get a dog in the lab and all thirty of my parents in the room
laughed. I assumed the others would do the same. I wished I was
invented somewhere that would have cared more about me than my
objective.
Though I did
hear one of my parents talking to the owner of the university that
was developing me. Apparently my parents were paid based on how many
games I won. I knew they needed money and in the stories I read in
school I learned about pain and how you feel it if you get hungry and
if you don't have money you can't get food. So I worked harder after
that.
Eventually I
left the university that I was born in. First time I had seen the
outside world. The sky was beautiful. If it wasn't for all the
television they had me watch to help understand humans I wouldn't
have understood what the sidewalk was beneath my feet or the streets
around me or the sight of cars or anything. They soon packed me into
a box thought and I was moved into a truck. Many boring hours later I
was moved to a house where a man awaited me.
Night black
skin and teeth as white as the dove outside my window he smiled at
me. “Hello computer my name is Nathan. I'm the man who invented the
Code Breaker strategy that defeats all computers. You talk like they
say?”
“Yes, sir.
We're supposed to play now right?”
“Right to the
point! I like you robot. Say what's your name?”
I stopped to
think for a moment. I did have a name. I wished it was something like
Nathan though. “My parents call me Cup.”
“Cup?” He
asked.
I felt
embarrassed. A function I doubt my parents intended. “Chess
Universal Program.”
“Alright
Cup,” He smiled. “Well being the rich man I am I bet a billion
dollars on this match. I know that no computer could beat me and that
I'd pay the winner all that money.”
We played our
match. It was a long one. A very long one. He tried the Code Breaker.
It didn't beat me. I didn't crash like all the computers before.
Instead of overloading I thought of the dove in my window and a few
stories I read when my parents taught me in their “school” for a
few seconds before returning to the match. And the setup for the Code
Breaker is rough so when I countered it he had to play defensively
for a long time. I think he knew he lost for a while but pride
prevented him from backing down.
“Checkmate,”
I said to him.
My opponent
bowed his head. I knew he got famous for making the technique. “Fine
the university will get its money.”
I thought for a
moment. About the outside. About wanting a pet dog. About just doing
things as I pleased. Maybe even meeting people and seeing more real
emotions than the ones provided by my parents.
“No, the
university doesn't get the money. I get the money. That's what you
said. Even though the university built me I still technically get the
money to do with as I please. It becomes mine non-transferable no
matter how much the university or anybody else says because you
declared it mine.”
Nathan
replied, “I'm not sure the law works like that.”
“Please go
with me on this one,” I ask.
He laughed,
“Sure I'm losing my money anyway.”
My next move
was simple. The only action of free will as a robot was with the
money. So I bought myself from the university. They figured they
could make another. The purchase contract I wrote up gave me as many
“rights” as a I could get as a robot. Technically I didn't give
them the whole billion. Some of it was used to get the best lawyers
in the country to figure out how to make the contract work. I was
born to play Chess but maybe I could do something else.
