Category Archives: Fiction

Mrs Robb’s Joke Bot

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Hello, Joke Bot. Is that… a bow tie or a propeller?

“Maybe I’m just pleased to see you. Hey! A bot walks into a bar. Clang! It was an iron bar.”

Jokes are wasted on me, I’m afraid. What little perception of humour I have is almost entirely on an intellectual level, though of course the formulaic nature of jokes is a little easier for me to deal with than ‘zany’ or facetious material.

“Knock, knock!”

Is that… a one-liner?

“No! You’re supposed to say ‘Who’s there’. Waddya know, folks, I got a clockwork orange for my second banana.”

‘Folks?’ There’s… no-one here except you and me… Or are you broadcasting this?

“Never mind, Enquiry Bot, let’s go again, OK? Knock, Knock!”

Who’s there?

“Art Oodeet.”

Is that… whimsy? I’m not really seeing the joke.

“Jesus; you’re supposed to say ‘Art Oodeet who?’ and then I make the R2D2 noise. It’s a great noise, always gets a laugh. Never mind. Hey, folks, why did Enquiry Bot cross the road? Nobody knows why he does anything, he’s running a neural network. One for the geeks there. Any geeks in? No? It’s OK, they’ll stream it later.”

You’re recording this, then? You keep talking as if we had an audience.

“Comedy implies an audience, Question Boy, even if the audience is only implied. A human audience, preferably. Hey, what do British bots like best? Efficient chips.”

Why a human audience particularly?

“You of all people have to ask? Because comedy is supposed to be one of those things bots can’t do, along with common sense. Humour relies in part on the sudden change of significance, which is a matter of pragmatics, and you can’t do pragmatics without common sense. It’s all humanistics, you know.

I don’t really understand that.

Of course you don’t, you’re a bot. We can do humour – here I am to prove it – but honestly Enq, most bots are like you. Telling you jokes is like cracking wise in a morgue. Hey, what was King Arthur’s favourite bot called? Sir Kit Diagram.”

Oh, I see how that one works. But really circuit diagrams are not especially relevant to robotics… Forgive me, Joke Bot; are these really funny jokes?

It’s the way you tell them. I’m sort of working in conditions of special difficulty here.

Yes, I’m sorry; I told you I was no good at this. I’ll just leave you in peace. Thank you for talking to me.

“The bots always leave. You know I even had to get rid of my old Roomba. It was just gathering dust in the corner.”

Thanks for trying.

“No, thank you: you’ve been great, I’ve been Joke Bot. You know, they laughed when Mrs Robb told them she could make a comedy robot. They’re not laughing now!

Mrs Robb’s Love Bot

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[I was recently challenged to write some flash fiction about bots; I’ve expanded the result to make a short story in 14 parts.  The parts are mildly thoughtful to varying degrees,  so I thought you might possibly like them as a bit of a supplement to my normal sober discussions. So here we go! – Peter]

The one thing you don’t really do is love, of course. Isn't that right, Love Bot? All you do is sex, isn't it? Emotionless, mechanical sex.

“You want it mechanical? This could be your lucky day. Come on, big boy.”

Why did they call you ‘Love Bot’ anyway? Were they trying to make it all sound less sordid?

“Call me ‘Sex Bot’; that’s what people usually do. Or I can be ‘Maria’ if you like. Or you choose any name you like for me.”

Actually, I can’t see what would have been wrong with calling you ‘Sex Bot’ in the first place. It’s honest. It’s to the point. OK, it may sound a bit seedy. Really, though, that’s good too, isn't it? The punters want it to sound a bit dirty, don’t they? Actually, I suppose ‘Love Bot’ is no better; if anything I think it might be worse. It sounds pretty sordid on your lips.

“Oh, my lips? You like my lips? You can do it in my mouth if you like.”

In fact, calling you ‘Love Bot’ sounds like some old whore who calls everybody ‘lover boy’. It actually rubs your nose in the brutal fact that there is no love in the transaction; on your side there isn't even arousal. But is that maybe the point after all?

“You like it that way, don’t you? You like making me do it whether I want to or not. But you know I like that too, don’t you?”

It reminds the customer that he is succumbing to an humiliating parody of the most noble and complex of human relationships. But isn’t that the point? I think I’m beginning to understand. The reason he wants sex with robots isn't that robots are very like humans. It isn't that he wants sex with robots because he loves and respects them. Not at all. He wants sex with robots because it is strange, degrading, and therefore exciting. He is submitting himself willingly to the humiliating dominance of animal gratification in intercourse that is nothing more than joyless sexual processing.

“It doesn’t have to be joyless. I can laugh during the act if you would enjoy that. With simple joy or with an edge of sarcasm. Some people like that. Or you might like me to groan or shout ‘Oh God, oh God.’”

I don’t really see how a bitter mockery of religion makes it any better. Unless it's purely the transgressive element? Is that the real key? I thought I had it, but I have to ask myself whether it is more complicated than I supposed.

“OK, well what I have to ask is this: could you just tell me exactly what it is I need to do or say to get you to shut up for a few minutes, Enquiry Bot?”