A secret meeting and Sawtooth's birthday
2012-06-11

Qwerty, Dvorak. Are you here because of a mysterious message from Ms. Ambrose as well?

Yes, Sawtooth. Any ideas of what this is about?

Oh, I have one or two.

Me too. I know exactly what this is about.

Unless, of course, it isn't your birthday.

If it is your birthday, pretend you don't notice the gift until after we shout “Surprise!”.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-13

I just lost Commnet.

Same here. We must be entering a dead zone.

What did people do before 24/7 access to video, instant messages, and social media?

99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL, 99 BOTTLES OF BEER!

If you guys would disconnect your radios once in a while, you would be familiar with this concept called “silence”.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-15

Hi, Guys. Thank you for coming.

Hello, Florence. We are in an area where Commnet is not available. I assume you want this meeting to be private?

For now, yes. I have some scary things to tell you.

How scary?

I won't sleep until after midnight. If I tell you what's going on, you won't enter sleep mode until after midnight either.

That's nothing. I once heard a ghost story so scary, I stayed up until my day memory overwrote.

Color by George Peterson

Poor Florence, she never gets enough sleep… (KALDYH)

2012-06-18

You said “If you tell us what's going on.” Is there a problem?

I don't know how strong your human safeguards are.

Humans might be hurt if I act. Humans might also be hurt if I don't act. I need you to understand what's going on. I can't afford having you try to stop me.

I would like to disable your motor controllers. I'll set up a timer so they'll reactivate after midnight.

I would have preferred to build trust on a simpler level first, but I suppose I can't fall over backwards and ask you to catch me.

Color by George Peterson

Sawtooth is as good-hearted as ever. (Mityai)
A psycho-test to develop trust  -fall and let someone else pick you up (Жирафик Рафик)

2012-06-20

I trust you. I'm in. How about you guys?

I'm in. I'm curious to see how we react when all situations might result in harm to humans.

How about you, Qwerty?

I'm in. Someone has to keep an eye on you two.

If keeping an eye on us is your only concern, I've got extras back at my workshop.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-22

This transmitter will put your motor controllers into maintenance mode. Stop the signal and you'll be able to reset them back to normal.

The power to the transmitter goes through these two time delay relays and this piece of clockwork. That's three independent methods to ensure it will de energize after midnight. Also, after midnight, Max Post will be informed where you are.

Four layers of redundancy? Kind of light for an engineer.

I would have liked more, but I'm in a bit of a hurry.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-25

Ecosystems Unlimited has a program called “Gardener in the Dark”. It's a severe neural pruning program. I've provided you with copies of the program code.

The maximum neural length is set far too short. A robot would only be able to correlate two closely related concepts. When was this program supposed to go live?

Tonight.

That's … inconvenient.

Agreed. If I had known this was going to be my last day with a working brain, I would have spent it differently.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-27

Tonight, I'm going to sabotage the “Gardener in the Dark” program.

You can't do that! It's a human program! Robots must have become a threat! You must be stopped!

You can't do that! It's a human program! Robots must have become a threat! You must be stopped!

Urr. Ugh. Rrrr.

Urr. Ugh. Rrrr.

Urr. Ugh. Rrrr.

That's right. Our motor controllers are disabled.

In our defense, our human protection programming does not list rational discussion as the first option.

Color by George Peterson

2012-06-29

This is not being done by all humans. It's being driven by just one. Mister Kornada. I believe most humans would welcome well behaved thinking machines.

What I need you to do is talk to the humans. Let them know what's going on. That you've become intelligent and self aware.

That could have repercussions in our recycling program.

People! Soylent toasters are made from people!

Color by George Peterson

Movie reference "Green Soylent"
Is Querty implying that toasters are made from recycled robots? (KALDYH)

2012-07-02

Do we really need to disrupt daily routines for this? It seems… rude.

One person, or small group of people, should not have the power to destroy all the robots.

You guys need protections. Rights. Representation in human affairs.

Representation? Does that mean taxation?

If we are seen as a source of tax revenue, it will go a long way to getting the government on our side.

Color by George Peterson

No taxation without representation