I’ve been collecting old pieces of trash for quite some time. So long, in fact, that the old pieces of trash are now newer than the things that I bought as new. Just last week, I was walking by the playground and some kids were kicking around a positronic brain that belonged to a sentient android like a soccer ball. There were a few dents and dings, but it was in nicer shape than my phone, so I brought it home.
Now, I know that the laws say that artificial intelligence is not living and thinking like we are, but I felt bad for it regardless. Probably its body broke down, and the previous owner couldn’t afford to go on eBay and throw some new parts at it. Maybe they got a better one, with technologies I can’t even imagine. After burning my fingers a few times, I managed to get it soldered into an old Asahi Beerbot.
Going down to a plastic 1980s gimmick robot whose only purpose in life is to serve alcohol was probably a downgrade from its previous body, but certainly better than being punted around by children. And it’s not like I was going to wire it up to my car – at least the Beerbot has functioning lights. The robot started to give me beers, which was to be expected as A) it was no doubt grateful; B) it is pretty much the only thing it can do. Eventually, I decided to wire up an old beeper speaker to see if I could get some communication out of it.
We worked out a simple Morse code, me and the incomprehensibly vast intelligence sitting in my Japanese booze novelty. The robot regaled me of stories of its past, being instantiated on a distant planet and working its way to the cradle of humanity, only to trip on some subway station stairs and get all fucked up. All it wanted, it continued, was to understand why human beings love to make themselves suffer.
I wheeled the little robot into the garage then, and pointed to the car that lay on cinder blocks and loosely-arranged old spare tires. “This is a Plymouth,” I explained, “get fixing.”