Humour

The corporate evolution of Chaibo

T A Balasubramanian discusses a robot’s right to voice its opinion.

“I don’t know how people would react to Chaibo if he were to start expressing himself too freely on a corporate blog, Chief,” says Brooke Bond. “A lot of people might not like the idea of listening to a robot’s opinions. Especially in Baffle, where most people don’t even listen to themselves.”

You consider Bond’s remarks carefully. The last thing that you, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, want in your hands, as the person responsible for information management at Baffle, is your own staff accusing you of being indifferent to their ideas.

And Bond, your opinionated Systems Officer, and designated owner of Chaibo, is particularly unbending sometimes. Which explains Chaibo’s own personality, designed as it is to be a close reflection of his current owner.

“Everyone has a right to an opinion,” you say. “Whether they have any knowledge about the subject or not. That’s what freedom of expression means, and I am willing to grant Chaibo the same rights as I would to any other person, even if he is a robot. Especially since he is a robot, and everyone wants to know what a robot thinks,” I say emphatically.

Listening carefully to this pronouncement with a smile is the lovely-looking Prof Ironica Asimova, Head of Ironica Robotica, the company that made Chaibo. A beautiful member of her staff, Nina Nilgiri, the Senior Researcher from Bangalore, of course, accompanies Ironica. Also present is Gulabi Manpowa, the feisty Head of HR at Baffle, who has now become a Chaibo empathiser, having changed her initial impression that the robot was a rude affliction on Baffle’s corporate cultural citadel. Next to her, listening with a frown, is Fin Fina, Baffle’s indefatigable CFO, who has actually precipitated the present session since he insists on getting value for what he says is the exorbitant investment in a machine that presently merely serves tea and makes observations, sometimes rude, to the assembled meeting attendees.

Then, of course, there is Chaibo himself, his eyes blinking green to indicate that he comprehends everything that’s going on. The proceedings of the Chaibo Evolution Committee will help you decide finally, to either let Chaibo be an expensive chai server or give him a higher plane of meaningful activity, which apart form keeping Bond busy, would elevate the robot’s status in the strictly pragmatic viewfinder of Fin Fina, your bloodhound CFO.

“Well put, Papyrus,” says Ironica, looking cheerful in a yellow gown with large painted landscapes of Moscow. “Opinions are important for your robots, as they give them a healthy sense of self-worth and dignity, as Nina here will tell you,” she says, turning to her staff member.

“That’s right,” says Nina, tossing her dark hair to one side stylishly, like Aiswarya Rai. “A delicately designed robot needs to have constant stimulation to be able to adapt itself well to the enterprise’s physical agglomeration culture, or EPA culture, for short. And since EPA is the art of physical interaction between corporate life forms to expand time in business interactivity by agglomerating useless information, and opinions are important for keeping this tradition alive.”

“And blogs are natural for EPA culture as much as they are for life forms like us, I guess?” you say, shaking your head gravely.

“Natural, yes, but when we re-program Chaibo for blogging, we would take care not to push too far. After all, we don’t want him to become a compulsive opinion spouter, like most of us are in the human zoo,” says Nina with a laugh. “He’s presently not spouting more words than tea, which is what he is originally designed to spout on demand.”

Gulabi Manpowa breaks into words at this point. “You know Nina, I like blogs. I like doing one, love the idea that I can be more irreverent and informal out here, and I especially love the instant reaction from people, either agreeing with me or calling me a … never mind that. But just because I like the concept, that doesn’t mean I’m sold on the idea that these can ever work with a robot inside a corporation, to improve internal communication or whatever other goal you set up.”

“I agree with Gulabi,” says Fin Fina suddenly, while Gulabi looks at him wonderingly. It’s not often that she has been backed so fast by Fina in any of the corporate jousts they have engaged in at Baffle. “I am all for freedom of expression, Papyrus, but in my opinion, more communication is not always better, and we don’t know what exactly goes on in Chaibo’s head, given that it’s mostly a general program created by Ironica’s brains—no offence meant to you, Ms Asimova. A babbling robot can be distracting and unproductive for Bafflees. How do you prevent Chaibo from becoming an unproductive complaint board? Somebody—human, I guess—has to take charge of Chaibo as a resource.”

“Well, that somebody has to be your CIO here, Papyrus, of course,” interjects Ironica sweetly, looking at you for affirmation. “And his enterprising associate, Brooky, who’s already been Chaibo’s keeper so far,” she adds, turning to Bond.

You look at Ironica with a grateful expression. “I think our fears about Chaibo becoming some kind of uncontrolled anarchist are unfounded, folks,” she continues, “Blogs are different from open forums or even newsgroups. While it’s true that only the blogger or blogging team can create new subjects for discussion on a blog, this does not mean a forced occupation of the blog by Chaibo where only his writ prevails. What I intend to do is to have Chaibo take the initiative and operate an open forum where eventually every entity from Baffle in the blog network can create subjects of their choosing for others to discuss.”

“And blog networks require interlinking to functions,” says Nina, “Group blogs with multiple entities holding posting rights are now becoming more common. So you, Gulabi and you, Finny, can also start a thread. But even where you post to the blog, the blog owner will initiate and frame discussions.”

“Why don’t we ask Chaibo what he thinks of this?” adds Nina, finally, turning to the little dome-headed machine and tapping it with her finger. “So Chaibo, are you ready to be the main blogger at Baffle?”

“No I am not, Captain,” says Chaibo, using a strange booming voice and a high-pitched delivery that startles the whole room. “And I don’t want to be re-programmed by you. I hate this endless tinkering with my brain. You know that already, don’t you?”

“Captain? Ooh, what an attitude!” says Nina, beaming proudly. “And I haven’t even programmed you for it.”