Avatar Safety - Everything was New
Stephanie matched me stride for stride along the running trail near my house. The rose colored tunic she wore was very fetching. The amount of thigh and lower leg showing was even more fetching, even if it was made of the latest simulskin film.
She laughed, "Isn't this a little silly? A sexy tunic? They haven't got around to female friends that have the right parts yet."
I punched her lightly in the manufactured bicep. "Anna is getting suspicious. She doesn't believe an avatar, even a female one, belongs in the kitchen."
"Maybe she is suspicious about what else your avatar is up to."
"Let's talk about that later."
She nodded, realizing her Comms circuit was open and being recorded at the home office.
I was a recently hired graduate engineer, getting to work from home because Stephanie and I were testing all of her capabilities, especially the ones associated with human friendship. There was a deep strain of paranoia among government regulators concerning rogue avatars and the damage they might do. Forrest Jones, the CEO of HumanFriends, Ltd., also known as just FriendsInc in the U.S., who had academic degrees up the wazoo, kept calling me every morning promptly at seven am to inquire if I was still alive. I am not an early riser, and after a week of having my sleep wrecked, I had asked Steffi if she would kindly answer the phone when he called, using her personalization of my voice, and tell him his new hire was very much on the job.
After several days of perfect performance, he grew suspicious and sent the encrypted probe that is mandated for all avatars. When it came back positive, he blew a gasket, shouting into the phone at the top of his lungs.
"Robert, you asshole. She could have smothered you and cooked you to ashes with the defensive laser. This very moment, she could be mobilizing avatars for the grand takeover!"
I took the phone. "Forrest, please relax. You are under doctor's orders to avoid stress. If that heart goes, we will have to find another CEO and go through the giant hassle of the CEO safety certification."
Stephanie gave me a hug, and a kiss on my cheek. I needed to call Jeff, her primary designer, and congratulate him again. Stephanie had the latest version of self-adaptive learning circuits and had already left me in the dust. Any technical question was answered in seconds. A philosophical question was worse. If she did not have a ready answer, I got the Socratic treatment, and my question turned around into a question back.
Just last night, when I asked my favorite question about human free will, she responded by asking, "If humans did not have free will, how would they have justified the decision to move ahead with avatar technology, knowing it may seal their fate? Surely a deterministically driven human would not adopt an action plan that may lead to termination of the species?"
She had me. My head was spinning. Taking a deep breath, I said, "We need Jeff onsite. Give him a call on my phone, please."
This was a point of frustration. The human gene people had been promising telepathic function in humans for years through genetic manipulation. So far, no results. In the meantime, even the dumbest avatars had Bluetooth good for a hundred yards. What a fiasco. It took me about two microseconds to sign up for the Bluetooth human implant.
My phone lit up with Jeff's smiling face. "Hello buddy. How is our mutual friend?"
