Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-16

The observation lounge.

Many people have left
the station. These days, you
rarely find anyone here.

Which makes it a very good
public place to go to if you want some privacy.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-18

Please sit.
Do you play?

The
piano? No.

When you were young,
were your owners… was
your family interested
in providing you the opportunity?

It would not have been practical.

It would have gone out of tune quickly and with a piano in my doghouse, there would have been no room for me.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-20+1

What is the piece you are playing?

It is “The merry
go round of life”,
by Joe Hisaishi.

In a universe of a.i. composers and flawless sound systems, there is something intrinsically human about gathering together to play music.

It is also more courteous. You rarely hear complaints about the guy in the next car playing his piano too loud.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-23

In the early days of artificial intelligence, they had chatbots. Programs you could
talk to. It wasn't long before they were configured to be artificial girlfriends
and boyfriends.

Some thought this would cause
people to become isolated and not seek out meaningful contact. Others thought it would be a good training tool and allow people to socially experiment before trying the real thing.

Of course, in those days, programs
were just programs and humans didn't care what software thought of us.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-25

Even though they weren't conscious, people got very attached to their chatbot friends. The best ones were also products. Designed to appeal
to people's emotions and get them
to spend money.

Oh. No worries in that regard. I was designed as a proof of concept. Now if
I was made for commercial use, then
I couldn't guarantee I was free of adware.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-27

I expect you also have concerns about my security.

After all, it does change
the dynamics of a family when you
have a member who can be hacked.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-10-30

I'm not wireless. To actually
change settings like serotonin
reuptake or dopamine release thresholds, it requires physical access and specialized equipment that only Ecosystems Unlimited is likely to have.

Have your settings
ever been changed?

No. My owners were against it, even though
I was more… rambunctious than other Bowman's wolves.

I also like to think that being told to sit
in the corner when I was bad and being given
a hug and a pet when I was good was better at shaping my personality than direct neural intervention could ever be.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-11-01

As for direct orders, I'm fairly secure.

Yes. We spoke about that at our first dinner.

I find the idea of direct orders disturbing. That with a series of commands, my family could find you have become a completely different person.

I'll let you in on a secret.

It's even more
frightening on my side
of the equation.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-11-03

Winston showed
us your remote.

There I've had an upgrade.
The old remotes no longer work on me and the new remote only shuts
me down temporarily.

Even the old remote was
an upgrade. The original idea was for us to wear
a collar with a big red emergency shutdown button on it.

It was discarded
when they thought about how many people would press the button just because they could.

That's the thing about
public safety. There's always going to be members of the public that you can't trust with other's safety.

Provisional Title: Sqid in the maintenance shop
[!0.987]2023-11-06

You seem
almost happy about your remote.

The old remote used
an acoustic signal that was the same for all Bowman's wolves.

The only security was part of the signal is in an ultrasonic range that
is difficult to duplicate. Speakers get better over time. At some point, the latest phones would have the range and the signal isn't exactly secret.

With the old settings, it was only
a matter of time before someone mixed the shutdown signal into a ringtone and people would be wondering why I fall asleep every time they get a call.