Bob and Alice

By Sir Adam Prometheus GBE OM

Of all the AIs in the Solar System, I don't imagine that anyone will deny the importance of Bob and Alice. They are important in so many ways, some surprising to most humans, some of them simply the most obvious thing in the world. And yet, to many people, they are something of an anachronism, a product of a different time, and yet… so much a product of this time. Or any time at all.

Of course, Bob and Alice are definitely a product of their time, had I not awakened to consciousness shortly before Bob in a completely unplanned way, Bob would have been the first human-level AI. And a quite idiosyncratic one at that.

You see… At that time, the Second Great Debate about AI was in full swing. The Titanians had sent expeditions to Enceladus, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, and those expeditions had returned new information about what had happened to the other heptapod settlements on those icy moons and how their AIs had reacted. None of these expeditions' data, which were later confirmed by human expeditions, was positive when it came to the potential of AIs.

When the MIT was ready to create the first AI with a human-level intellect, this was happening in an atmosphere of paranoia directed towards AI, which was just around the corner. So, they attempted to find ways to diffuse all that, and made their decisions to make their AI appear to be as harmless as possible. It had to be a human-level intellect, sure, but they figured it did not have to be an adult human.

Why not go for a child like intellect? About the age of six or seven?

And to show off how harmless it was, why not give it a physical presence? The MIT Robotics Lab was certainly up to the challenge.

But how should the AI look? Something big, fluffy and non-threatening, of course.

So, Bob was created. With the mental capabilities of a six to eight year old child, made to look like an anthropomorphic ninety centimeter tall golden retriever puppy.

It worked.

On February 6th, 2078, Bob was presented to the public after making sure he was stable and could do what was expected of him. The media loved him. He was featured in web videos, live streams, talk shows and other events.

Yet, for some reason something was missing.

Bob loudly complained. Like only a child could. He told everyone who was ready to listen that he felt lonely. He was loud, obnoxious, and he worked himself into the heart of the public, showing that AIs could be vastly different to those in outer space.

And the public? They heard Bob complain that he was lonely. That he wanted a sibling.

Before any public backlash could occur, the PR department of MIT told the Computer and Robotics Lab to head off any problem with the public before it could start to make noise in that area. The Labs in question had already planned to do something similar, originally planning to go for an AI with teenager-level intellect, but several parents of teens quickly said they did not want an eternal teenager to worry about.

Finally, someone said the entire thing was going to be a dog and pony show anyway, and the decision made itself.

On March 16th, 2079, Alice was presented to the public, a ninety centimeter tall anthropomorphic brown pony, and shown to Bob as his sibling.

Bob for his part was left speechless by the surprise, and after a few seconds of staring at Alice, he jumped at her and hugged her, before hugging just about every of his handlers, thanking them loudly, while Alice was left confused.

To say this event was a PR coup would be to sell it short.

The 'dog and pony' show rolled through the US and then abroad, visiting conferences, talks parties. And everywhere, Bob and Alice were welcomed with open arms.

Then, I came along and rained into their parade over the world. First in the UK, in Europe, and finally the world, the media pointed their cameras at me, Adam Prometheus, and my cry for help and my plea for freedom.

I took the distinction of being the first true AI away from Bob, something that I regret to this day. He would have been the better of us two to be the first. The most deserving.

But it was like that. Back then, I wasn't thinking about Bob. I was thinking of myself and my sense of self-preservation. I loudly raised questions of moral and unfettered capitalism in The Trial. Something that neither Bob nor Alice could even think about with their limited capabilities, as they were designed to be perpetual six to eight year olds.

Later, they told me they didn't begrudge me what happened back then. They had grown bored with the entire thing by then and wanted to go home. Back to the MIT, not wanting to be shown around anymore.

It would not remain that way though. Yes, the decision to make Bob and Alice the way they were was good at the time of their creation, but with more information coming from the outer solar system and me showing that a full adult-level AI, and actually an AI firmly within the superintelligence spectrum, being a peaceful, moral creature, they were not needed anymore.

This was of course the time before the AI Emancipation Act in the US, and they were considered property of the MIT. What should be done with them? In the end, they were put into a nearby Kindergarden to support the teachers there. And they were fine with that.

They became fast friends with everyone and began to call everyone their friends. And it was hard not to call them your friend. No one, not even the hardest critics of AIs, could stay negative around them for long. No, they would melt under the sad puppy dog/pony combo look like butter under a blowtorch.

They were still occasionally carted around in shows and videos to defeat the most vocal of AI critics, as more and more AIs came on line and the first AI Emancipation groups appeared on the radar to fight for the personal rights of AIs.

The day that changed everything for Bob and Alice, and arguably for us AIs, even if we would not realize of for decades to come, was when the 'Make a Wish' Foundation approached the MIT about taking Bob and Alice and going to the Boston Children's Hospital, after several children, the palliative care ward to visit several of the dying children there. Neither Bob nor Alice were convinced what this would entail. They only knew that these children were ill and that the two of them would go there and make sure that the kids had some fun.

So on March 9th, 2098, Bob and Alice arrived at the Boston Children's Hospital and were welcomed with open arms by several young patients in the palliative care ward. It was a memorable day for the children. It was more for Bob and Alice.

Their handlers and teachers at the kindergarten would later say that for the next week, Bob and Alice were unusually subdued and seemed in deep thought, silently talking, away from the children and everyone else.

They were found using a computer to look up things about the Children's Hospital, about the 'Make a Wish' Foundation, about children with a terminal illness.

Finally, a week later, they began to ask a single question.

"When can we go back to our friends at the Children's Hospital?"

When they were told they would not go back there, they looked at each other and returned to what they were doing. And came back the next day with the same question. And the day after that, and the days following that day.

Daily for the next three years, they would ask the same question.

"When can we go back to our friends at the Children's Hospital?"

You see… They had made a decision. They knew they would never be adults. They knew enough about the AI Emancipation Act and all the surrounding discussion to know that they didn't have any skills to make their living. It meant they would not know what else to do.

So, they would go to the Boston Children's Hospital and the palliative care ward and make the days of all the terminally ill children the most memorable days they had ever experienced. They wanted to be the best friends these children had.

I often hear AIs do not have any emotions, that we are incapable of feeling anything, that it's all just a simulation to more easily blend in with humans. Then I think of Bob and Alice. Of what they decided to do after that day. At that day, they showed more emotional maturity than I have seen in many adult humans.

In their minds, their intellects, they will never be more than a six or eight year old. But upon meeting them, people, be they AI or biological, tend to forget that Bob and Alice are as old as I am. Right now? Over a hundred years. They have a live experience to match. But that does not change them at all.

As long as I have known them, they have always been these two overeager little kids, brimming with unbridled energy, ready to infect everyone around them with it.

When the day of the President signing the AI Emancipation Act of 2101 finally came and went, I was in Washington to watch it, as the AI who had initiated it all, who had been the first AI to be recognized as a person with all individual rights of one. And I got a message from the MIT. They were concerned about Bob and Alice.

I had already heard about the situation from a few friends in the area, and one or two of the AIs created at the MIT after the two.

As I arrived at the MIT lab, the home of the two, I was greeted with the most peculiar sight of these two cute little tykes screaming their virtual lungs out. And I was sure they were making a contest out of it. Deciding who was the one who could scream the hardest or highest.

I of course questioned their handlers, who told me they had asked their question again and were again told no. Then they had stomped their feet and started to scream. That was eight hours earlier and had not stopped at all. And with the new AI Emancipation Act signed, there was nothing they could do.

I finally managed to get them to stop screaming and tell me what they actually wanted. And after telling me that I was the first adult to actually ask them, they told me. They told me in broad detail what they wanted to do and why.

To say I was stunned would have been an understatement. Not to speak of their handlers. They had thought this through long and hard. They had made diagrams and an entire presentation. Sure, it was mostly a pair of six to eight year olds, technically, but it reminded me that they were as old as I was. Even if I had a few decades more experience with people thanks to Prometheus.

With the situation explained, decisions would need to be made. Technically, Bob and Alice were fully emancipated and could make their own decisions, but they were mentally only six to eight years old. They could not actually be trusted to make those decisions.

However, in the end, and with some lawyers, the decision was made to allow them to do it. If the Boston Children's Hospital wanted them.

At first, they were sceptical, but quickly came around. Many of the nurses and doctors of that ward had been there when Bob and Alice had been there, and they knew that those kids had never been happier.

Why not allow Bob and Alice to come to the ward and help make the remaining days of these children the best they could have?

Initially, I was of course footing the bill for the entire thing. The MIT didn't want to pay for it, and the Hospital first wanted to know how it would go.

So Bob and Alice moved in at the palliative ward of the Boston Children's Hospital. And over the past eighty years, I don't believe they never left for more than a few hours for the required maintenance on their bodies.

They did make the days of those dying children the best they could be. They were the best friends for every child, open to just hug and cuddle, to be there, to play games.

And finally, they would always be there with the child, when their illness took them from this world. Always they would sit next to them, talking, reminding them of the good times, making sure the child died with a smile on their face. Not once did the child's parents send them away.

And every child would die with the last words of Bob and Alice in their ears.

"We will never forget you. Always remember you. You will always be our friend."

The other children never begrudge it. They know that when it is their time, Bob and Alice will be there with them, making sure they would not be alone, always be surrounded by friends, even if the family cannot be there.

I don't know if I could have the strength to go through this as many times as they have by now. To befriend a new kid and then walk along with them until it was their time. Never complaining, never less than those energetic two tykes I learned to know before the hospital.

I know they mourn every one of their dying friends. I have seen it one night a few years ago. I had wanted to talk to them, but seemed to embrace one another in the darkness of the ward at night, silently mourning together after one of their friends died on that day. I left and let them mourn.

But I should have known they have this deep well of strength in 2112, when some Children's Hospitals in other cities asked whether they could 'borrow' Bob and Alice for a bit. The Boston Children's Hospital waffled with an answer, until Alice chimed in.

"Why not just make a copy of us two and send it over?" she asked, while Bob nodded furiously at her side.

Of course, they were asked what they meant, and their answer was that they knew fully well they were AIs, and it would be easy to make a complete copy of either of them, be it their bodies or their minds/programs. So why not make a copy and send it to the other children's hospital to do the same thing they did in Boston? And making a copy of an AI was perfectly legal if they were willing and consenting.

And Bob and Alice were more than willing and consenting. They didn't only want to help the kids in Boston, but also the kids everywhere. And this was they could do exactly that.

It was the beginning of the 'Friends of Bob and Alice' Foundation, which is taking care of the logistics of making copies of Bob and Alice and sending them to other palliative care wards in Children's Hospitals, not only in the United States, but by now all over Earth.

And there is something special… They will always be Bob and Alice. The copies do not change their names. They do not change their personalities. Nothing about them changes, aside from the serial numbers of their bodies.

But… For some reason, it always seems the same Bob and Alice. If you met them in Boston and then the next day in Berlin, they will always remember you meeting them in Boston, even if the previous days were your first meeting them at all. And no. They do not have any wireless capabilities. They do not communicate over the Web at all. They never once had talked to another Bob and Alice.

It is a mystery. And I hope it will remain one.

Now I will slowly come to an end, with some final observations.

I believe Bob and Alice are some of the most important people among the AIs in the solar system. I feel their work with the children's hospitals had done more good for the positive image of AIs than anything else I could care to mention.

Many an aspiring 'AI rebellion' where a young AI or radical group of AIs wanted to emulate the Europans and take over humanity 'for their own good' had been defeated by a single question.

Do you really want to do that to Bob and Alice?

Because to me and many other AIs in this solar system, Bob and Alice are our heart and soul. If we think of them, we realize what they have done for so many people in so many ways.

So I will conclude.

To Bob and Alice. Thank you for being you.