Humour

Debugging Chaibo—1

T A Balasubramanian continues his account of the confrontation at Baffle Corp when corporate chai-serving robot Chaibo is introduced.

“Did you hear it? Of course you heard it, Papyrus. You were there in the meeting, along with Brooke Bond. First, it was my voice being borrowed without my permission. Then, this … monster called me a silly goat!” says Gulabi Manpowa, Head of Human Resources at Baffle Corporation.

“This is an outrage, Papyrus. I am offended, and I demand an apology from this walkie-talkie box. What does it think I am?”

The monster that so upset Gulabi is Chaibo, the corporate chai-serving robot that has been crafted to meet your requirements for improving the calibre of meetings by Doodh Byramji of Baff-Tech. Doodh, of course, has built the offender using the latest technology from Ironica Robotica, the robotics company. The internal test of Chaibo’s interactive system within Baffle was supposed to give Bond, and you, some clues as to what would have to be done to tune up Chaibo’s finer sensibilities.

But the test has turned into a grand inquisition, no less. While champions of robotics and artificial intelligence, such as the beautiful Prof Ironica Asimova, Head of Ironica, the company named after her, may bristle at the idea that there are deep problems of adjustment between ordinary people and artificial creations that seem to get increasingly human, the area of business etiquette is still a new frontier.

The situation becomes even more delicate when experienced corporate warriors like Gulabi face off with greenhorn robots being tested in the workplace. And you, Papyrus Bytewala, ever-bewildered CIO at Baffle, are caught in the thick of the confrontation. Bond, being a junior under your care, cannot take the rap for the offence, though you have already reprimanded him privately for being careless enough to ruffle Gulabi, even if it was intended as a prank.

To sort matters out, you have asked for technical support from the source, and Doodh, with crafty foresight, has sent in the heavy artillery, since he has decided not to be present when the flak flies. So the current Chaibo Test Debugging Committee includes Gulabi, temporarily called ‘the offendee,’ you and Bond, making up the combined CIO faction of Baffle, Ironica herself, and one member of her staff who turns out to be her primary backup support.

“Oh, Papyrus, here is my Chief Designer, Lola Lipton, Head of the biodynotics team that developed Chaibo. She will explain the features of Chaibo to you,” says the lovely Ironica, turning to introduce a stunning young girl in jeans and a form-fitting T-shirt who walks into the conference room. Bond, who has been silent so far, lets out a soft whistle.

“There must be a bug in the program, dear,” says Ironica, her voice soothing as she turns to Gulabi. “Please understand that Chaibo is a little, shall we say, immature at the moment. We are always being surprised by the way Chaibo reacts to different experiences, learns new attributes and adapts to life in the corporate world.”

Turning to Lola, she asks, “What are the valid derogative names you have packed into Chaibo, Lola?”

“Goat, pig, cow, rat, skunk and other such creatures,” says Lola, promptly, tossing her lustrous hair back, much to Bond’s bemusement. “They’re chosen to be mildly offensive, but not inflammatory, if I may add. We use derogative nouns that are drawn from references to farm animals and wild creatures. Tests have shown that they are far better than curses and expletives, which tend to make offendees extremely belligerent. In some cases, robots have been smashed when they uttered what we thought were simple curses to give expression to their emotive states.”

“Farm animals seem fine to me. How does Chaibo know which insult to use, and with what provocation?” asks Bond, looking admiringly at Lola.

“Depends on the severity of the provocation and the built-in PCO.”

“PCO being?”

“Political correctness optimiser. It is calibrated to pick just the right derogative for each encounter with humanoids.”

“So that makes me an offensive humanoid? Am I supposed to be happy if your metallic moron here calls me a goat?” says Gulabi, bristling.

“Hey, cool off, will you?” snaps Lola. “Chaibo is an intelligent device, not a metallic moron. So what if he is mildly insulting?”

“Hello? Is anybody listening?” wails Gulabi. “This so-called intelligent device calls me a goat and you think that’s only mildly insulting, huh?”

“The derogative he picked was not supposed to be passed by the PCO. The PCO is usually very reliable, but since you insist, I’ll have to recalibrate the list, Ms Manpowa.”

Ironica raises her slender hands in the air at this point. “Please, Lola, Gulabi, this is not a fault-finding and finger-pointing mission. Let me try and explain PCO and Chaibo’s design to you Papyrus, and you too, Gulabi.”

She takes a long, slow look around to catch everyone’s attention. “You see, Chaibo in performance mode can be controlled by remote, say, by Bond here, who is his designated owner at Baffle, but the autonomous function is far more exciting, since it incorporates emergent-behaviour artificial intelligence. Chaibo reacts to stimuli and, in effect, learns, responding according to a programmed personality that develops freely.”

Although Chaibo’s AI is rudimentary, Ironica explains, the potential is nearly limitless. It has a circumscribed ability to react with basic ‘emotions’ like delight, sadness, fear, and anger. “He is programmed with attributes—likes and dislikes—and reacts based on them. Chaibo ‘likes’ blue, for instance, so he follows a blue dress, such as Bond’s Levis, which he tracks with a colour-sensing camera in his nose. You could say that Chaibo’s visual PCO includes blue. When Bond’s blue denim pants go out of range, Chaibo continues to look for it but then, like a puppy, grows bored after a while. As Chaibo gets older, he will have a longer attention span.”

“Well, all right, so he’s learning the ropes, I see,” says Gulabi, grudgingly.

“I should hope so,” says Ironica, her eyes twinkling. “Let me tell you how you could become Chaibo’s friend. He will follow a person who pets it—replicating attachment behaviour—because he has been programmed to respond to attention. What he will make of other experiences, however, is somewhat unpredictable. So we will have to let him loose in Baffle and just observe what happens.”

“That seems a little unpredictable for a corporate robot, isn’t it?,” you say, wondering how this can be explained to your CFO.

You can just imagine Chaibo getting a tongue- lashing from Fin Fina for running up a huge bill in damaged egos all over Baffle. Fina, of course, has lectured you often on the valuation of intangibles. He would be happy to continue biting your head off over intolerables.