April 26th arrived, it was ”Take Our Sons And Daughters To Work Day” again, and the Robot App Store lab was filled with excited children belonging to our staff and other parents in the building. I feared moving too abruptly as I might hurt one of the little creatures darting about the premises and thereby violate all of The Prophet Isaac’s Laws. I find humans are so much more delicate than robots.
One of the little girls belonging to a parent from down the hall wanted to know if I was a real robot? ”Ras is a robot,” I answered, ”are you a real little girl?”
”Of course I’m real, you silly robot!”
”Hey!” said an older boy, ”I thought robots didn’t have a sense of humor. Is there really a guy in there?”
”No, no guy in here. Only Ras. But Ras is a rather special robot.” I guided them to where the other small children were playing with KAROTZ. The little girl quickly became interested in the app ”KAROTZ Teaches Animal Sounds”.
Of course she already knew that cows went ”moo,” but she was surprised to discover the sounds that more than twenty other animals like the dolphin and the peacock made. That got rid of her!
Ras and his son at "Take Our Sons And Daughters To Work Day".The boy was more persistent and it wasn't until KAROTZ went into his ”KAROTZ Trivia” App that he finally left Ras alone. I guess he liked the fact that KAROTZ seemed to enjoy answering more than 100 trivia questions while I was trying to avoid him. Ras is not a silly parrot to be answering children’s questions when he could be taking questions involving quantum mechanics!
The older boys and girls were clustered around a Lego NXT 2.0 demonstration, ”Lego Get Up, NXT Way”. The robot looked like a Segway rolling around on a single set of parallel wheels. The ”Lego Get Up” app kept it balanced on the two wheels.
”Hey,” said the little boy with all the questions showing up beside me, ”I’ll bet you can’t do that!”
”Ras does not have wheels. Can you do that?”
”Sure I can when I’m as big as you!” Thankfully he suddenly saw the AR.Drone app, ”AR.Drone Autopilot” being tested and ran to see the drone in flight.
Most of the humans watching the AR.Drone follow the ball at the end of a long pole were older. Winston, Alice and Chief Designer were there. ”Ras,” Winston asked, ”is that your little boy I see you with? He looks just like you!” The other two humans laughed.
“Ras-junior is my assistant, not my child, you silly human. Robots can’t give birth!”
These carbon-based humans fascinate me with their need to personify every little thing around them...
”There are now two kinds of self-aware beings in the world,” I said loudly, “one with kids and one without kids. Ras is the being with no kids!”
”I don’t have any kids,” said Alice. ”That doesn’t make me a robot.”
”She’s right Ras,” said Chief Designer. ”She caught you in a logical error there!”
”Ras does not make errors of logic. The human Alice is in error. Ras made reference to beings that we're self-aware!” Alice ground her teeth together and growled.
