Part 1 of 1
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Tonight, we present a tale of futuristic justice.
The Skinner Co. Network
110 - Deliberation, Part 1 of 1
[music] Welcome to Flashbulb, episode 110. Tonight, we present "Deliberation," Part 1 of 1. [music] This week's episodes are brought to you by the launch of Netty Bytes. [music] 2011, the year of awesome. "Game of Thrones," on HBO, the first of a song of ice and fire. Books on TV, the green hornet, and the green lantern out movie theaters, along with Captain America in the very last Harry Potter movie. The first of the books and bronze series by T. Morris and Philippa Valentine. Another singular book, I think. You name it, 2011 is the year of awesome, and with that awesome comes a new podcast. Netty Bytes. Pretty much whatever shows up on New Chassis Radar will show up in Netty Bytes. Look for it in 2011. For more information, go to nimlas.org/blog, N-I-M-L-I-S dot org slash B-L-O-G. [music] Lash Pulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, we present a tale of futuristic justice. "Deliberation," part one of one. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, Art and Narration Biopoponix, an audio produced by Jessica Matt. Well, they all look like oversized Mars rovers, and they all roll around killing cows. What's about it, mostly? The prosecutor smirked at the rough-handed man currently on the stand. A country understatement if I've ever heard one. You're familiar with the farm's operations? With the unit itself? I've been working on a Lancaster spread for fifteen years, although only with the unit for the last four. And you knew Gregor Petrov personally? Yeah, and knew him. He worked together five days a week for seven years. What about the day he died? I wasn't actually on shift when it happened, but the only surprise was that the robot had done it. I figured it would have been one of the other guys. You were the sole maintenance man for the farm? Well, no. I mean, definitely the guy who does the hard stuff, but most folks on a farm know how to twist wires and pour gas. Fine, but, for something as complex as a portable abattoir? Yeah, sure. I was probably the only one who knew enough to plug a laptop in and poke at the interface. And I did a lot of the mechanical maintenance, but that doesn't mean I have clue one about his electronics. I'm sure you know how to set your microwave's clock and can replace the spinning platter if it cracks, but that doesn't mean you can build one from scratch or even fix it if someone dumps a mug of coffee in the back. We have seven in the units, and grumpy is the only one I've ever seen acting weird. The lawyer took a sip of her water, then re-approached the witness box. Do you think what happened was a mechanical or a software failure? No. Do you think this robot was programmed to kill? The cow hand licked his lips. Not especially. People might not have liked Grigor, and I could possibly see someone wanting to do him in, but changing grumpy that much would be way out of my league, and I know I'm well ahead of the rest of the pack back at the range. Do you think the company that built it might be culpable? Well, not exactly. I don't know how their learnings software works, but I have to wonder. The technician which now occupied the hot seat pulled at his tie, considering his answer. Before this incident, we'd only had one human fatality. The units used something we call the adaptive education matrix to learn to make smarter decisions, but only in areas related to what they do. They learn to recognize who they need to be partnered with, and some of their human companions' preferences. It learns the map of the area it operates in, but certainly nothing that we might think of as emotions, it's mostly just a computer. Doesn't it have something of a sense of humor as a sort of emotional assistance to the human it's working with in the slaughterhouse? My understanding is that it picks up jokes from the people it works with, and passes them on. The tech shifted in his seat before applying, sort of. All it's really doing is analyzing a history of how often the people that it knows know the punchline interact with the person it's assisting, then if it thinks there's a low incentive crossover, it'll try it out. Frankly Mitch, that's how I tell my jokes as well. We've been over his code with a fine-toothed comb repeatedly. After what happened last time, we actually reformatted him, just in case. We've got over 10,000 of these guys out in the wild, and this is the only one that's killed a man. If it hadn't been for the fact that one of our quality assistance ladies had an obsession with perfection that drove her to memorize the serial number, we wouldn't even have been aware it was the same unit. You refer to it as him. Why is that? Oh, I don't mean it. It's just that after a long while working with a bot, you start to project. It's probably because the milkers we build have section caps, and the slaughters have a pneumatic spike. What happened the last time your product killed someone? Well, it was ruled an accident. We ran tests. We stripped them down. In the end, we couldn't pinpoint what the problem was. You can't always anticipate what'll happen when you bring that many interfaces together. But it was obvious from the volume of alternates we had in the field, and the number of man hours logged without incident, that it was a fluke. And still a fluke the second time. It took the jury four days to determine they weren't going to come back with a proper verdict, and the press were relieved that a hung jury meant they could keep the ratings going for at least a few more months. When the announcement was made, Grumpy rolled gently back and forth twice. The robot's lawyer put a hand out onto the unit's boxy shell, unbeknownst to both a time cover in the making, then directed his client out of the courthouse. The defendant rolled past the cameras without comment. FlashPulp is presented by http colon slash slash Skinner dot FM. The audio and text formats of FlashPulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. [MUSIC] [MUSIC PLAYING] (guitar music)