Humour

Debugging Chaibo—4

T A Balasubramanian continues his account of Doodh Byramji’s investigation at Ironica Robotica.

Doodh Byramji continues on his mission to find out what new wonders are being cooked up inside Ironica Robotica’s glass-and-steel walls.

Presently, he is in conversation with the beautiful Prof Ironica Asimova, an acknowledged expert on robotics, and head of Ironica Robotica. Byramji, better known as Doodh, or Doodhi, is employed as a dauntless design engineer at Baffle Technologies, a name transmogrified by popular use into Baff-Tech.

11.00 am: Ironica is telling me about her session at Baffle Corporation with Papyrus Bytewala, their CIO, and the offendee, Gulabi Manpowa, who had taken umbrage at being called a “silly goat” by Chaibo during an initial test run. It appears that Gulabi has been, at least temporarily, mollified, and has even become friendly with the designated offender.

“So it’s possible that robots will be afflicted by software bugs too, just like their desk-bound relatives, the PCs?” I ask.

“That’s right. It’s just software, after all, even if it seems like an almost-living person. It’s a bug we will fix, Doodh,” Ironica says firmly. “But first let me introduce you to our Senior Researcher from Bangalore, Nina Nilgiri.”

I turn to find myself in the presence of a beautiful vision that sparks my memory. “Ah, yes, I think I recognise you from the magazine picture,” I say with a start. “Ironica Style, you know. I was reading about your eclectic Bangalore office when I came in here.”

“Oh, that,” says Nina, laughing. “They made us all look like models for the pictures. We’re not all completely wacky and bohemian yet, though some may consider these puppies that we create to be a sign that we are.”

Ironica says, “Nina will explain how an evolving programmable semi-autonomous biodynotic corporate chai-serving robot like Chaibo is being taught the intricacies of mixing around with corporate life forms. Which, if you notice Doodh, is a complete world in itself.”

Promising to return in a short while, Ironica excuses herself, leaving me, quite happy in Nina’s care.

“So we are all corporate life forms, eh?” I say, scratching my chin. “A little other-worldly, but yes, I get your drift.”

Standing next to Nina, I inhale a delightful and exotic organic perfume, part sandalwood and part lemon. A trip to Bangalore is definitely evolving in my mind.

“Well, let me begin with my current speciality, which is enterprise physical agglomeration culture, or EPA culture, for short,” says Nina with a radiant smile that I find distracting. “As you might have heard, EPA is the art of physical interaction between corporate life forms to expand time in business interactivity by agglomerating useless information.”

“Oh, it must be a new trend,” I say, shaking my word.

“Not really,” says Nina with a laugh. “The commonest example of EPA is the typical corporate meeting. A growing number of studies suggest that the presence or absence of rudeness at an EPA is a key indicator of an enterprise’s potential to shift towards the high or low end of the effectiveness bar. People these days are victims of EPA claustrophobia. They feel overworked, stressed out, and pushed to the limit. The result is that unpleasant occurrences that leave us angry and willing to vent that anger on each other are going on in meetings every day.”

“I see what you mean,” I nod, admiring her diamond earrings and the delicate shape of her ears.

“Ego-crushing e-mail messages are sent, catcalls occur at the conference table, and disparaging remarks are whispered in the hallway. Rudeness in meetings shows that enterprise agglomeration is kicking in at the low end of the continuum of corporate casualness,” Nina lectures me solemnly. “The high end of EPA culture, of course, is evident where meetings actually end in pitched battles, with attendees going at each other like prize fighters in a ring, trying to knock each other out,” she says, making fists with her hands.

“We have had meetings end almost like that,” I say, nodding my head appreciatively.

“The question is, what do we do about this kind of behaviour in the programming we do for Chaibo and other corporate robots since they are to function in the EPA culture?” Nina asks rhetorically. “Do we set Chaibo up as a dumb waiter offering little more than beverages and as uninvolved with people as the furniture? Do we program him as a dreamy idealist who wants to bring restraint, civility, order and decorum back into meetings, in which case he may still become an object of ridicule? If he’s going to react with emotions like most of us, can Chaibo be given a balancing routine that will prevent him from becoming as obnoxious as the rest of us? Or should he be programmed to reflect the general rudeness around faithfully, being rude just like some of us are, as a matter of right?”

“It depends on how flexibly you design Chaibo’s personality, that is, if robots can have one,” I say diplomatically.

“That’s partly right, Doodh,” says Nina, “You can’t build in too much flexibility either. Take our robot puppies here, like Ironica’s pet Oolong. Brand-new Kibos all behave alike. Over time they develop their own consistent personality as they interact with people. Just how they develop depends on the interaction between their environment and their innate abilities. Commercial models of Kibo are programmed with hundreds of different behaviours such as sitting and lifting a paw.”

“That’s a dog personality, right? Humans are more complex, aren’t they?”

“Dogs are quite like us, Doodh. But of course, this is only the first generation of Kibos. We are working on advanced fully-autonomous robots that will refer to exhaustive databases of politically-correct optimised expressions and even cultures,” says Nina. We will be laying down multinational rule formats that will anticipate and adapt to any given situation that Chaibo might encounter. The present version of Chaibo is only an emulation of the surrounding culture. If Chaibo finds persistent rudeness in the presence of its current…”

“Corporate life forms?” I suggest brightly.

“Uh, yes, corporate life forms,” says Nina, blushing. “He will become persistently rude. Now the fact that a machine is being persistently impolite does not, per se, make the machine guilty. The offensiveness comes from the environment.”

4.30 pm: Ironica returns, and Nina wraps up her session with a quick smile and a pat on my hand. I would have preferred a continuation of the lecture. With a sigh, I watch Nina leave, and Ironica looks at me mockingly.

“So did you find the lecture useful, Doodh? Nina, like Lola, seems to have made an impact on you, eh?”

“Ah, we corporate life forms survive these close encounters,” I mumble, wondering if I can find an excuse to visit Bangalore.

“Of course you survive, Doodh,” says Ironica sympathetically. “Otherwise I won’t keep seeing you here this often.”