Humour

Probing DeVito’s programme

T A Balasubramanian on Baffle Corp CIO’s investigation into DeVito’s origin

Created in the laboratory of Ms Ironica Asimova, founder and head of Ironica Robotica, Danny DeVito, your new CTO, is a post-biological creature whose entry into Baffle Corporation has stirred up a storm, at least in the IT department.

In the meantime, you, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO at Baffle, are just getting rather annoyed with the fact that the CTO, who is actually an advanced walking biped, or humanoid, is not exactly excited about reporting to you. In fact, DeVito has been actively showing a belligerent side of his personality that you find disturbing, to say the least. He has shown no regard for the three laws you have designed expressly for him.

So you decide to visit Ms Asimova herself at her sprawling Bangalore laboratory, which has recently started a new facility to make prototypes of futuristic business automatons.

“Welcome to our modest place of experiment and design, Papyrus,” says Ironica, as she escorts you into the lab. As usual, she looks stunning in a long, sweeping blue gown and with silvery hair piled high on her head like a hill. “I hope all is well between you and our special creation, DeVito? Isn’t he really a smart talker?”

“That’s the problem,” you say, glumly. “But before I start, tell me a little more about his origins. How did you program him to talk so smart? He’s as feisty and outspoken as the real DeVito is in the movies.”

“Ah, Papyrus, it will be my pleasure,” sighs Ironica. “When we created DeVito, we started off with this extremely argumentative, highly personal gang of content developers doing round after round of dialogues. So DeVito and my two girls, Lola and Nina, and I, would be actors in different improvised plays. We would read from everything—Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw—and many, many more. Maybe around two hundred plays. Maybe more.”

“So he’s soaked up dialogues from the world’s best dramatic writers? Is that why he talks endless reams of talk?”

“It may well be so,” says Ironica. “Remember, his name is shorthand for Debonair Vocal IT Oddball, and we thought he wouldn’t actually be a convincing replica of a human unless he behaved oddly, even quirkily every now and then. That’s what makes humans interesting and very different from machines, Papyrus. We’re all slightly goofy when you come to think of it, and that’s what makes up the ‘character’ in our character, if you follow what I’m saying.”

“A little,” you respond. “So DeVito is programmed to be a convincing enough character, even eccentric and funny-looking?”

“Yes of course. We did not want a clunky, mechanical piece of machinery that moves around stiffly, like Artoo-Detoo, with a shining metallic skin and staring round bulbs for eyes. We started off exploring what happens—as far as robot-human communication is concerned—when robots have humanlike faces. When we started off, DeVito was an unnamed face robot who could open his eyes and smile, which was eerie, to say the least—like the smile of a Cheshire cat. It was a great step when DeVito began to recognise and react to human facial expressions. We programmed him as a very clever visual response creation. If you observe, smiles will be greeted with smiles, frowns with frowns. We have taken six basic emotions, and mixed and matched them in a real-time pattern we call the drama interface.”

“What about the built-in quirks?”

“I’m coming there. The big question that we think we have cracked is whether robots can have emotions, specifically emotional reactions to situations that would be utterly and convincingly part of their cumulative character. We are used to seeing characters being played by actors in plays. Between plays they shed one personality, turn back into their real selves, then, in a different play, they take on another personality. Now we have taken a leaf from the technology of acting, the skill of dramatics, and given DeVito the processing power to respond in hundreds of different ways to any situation. No two ways would be similar, but there will be just enough of a resemblance so that you would be able to see that even in the unpredictability there is a habitual pattern. Like us, DeVito has his habits that grow around some of his experiences.”

“So he’s like dozens of actors rolled into one?”

“Quite so, but when it comes to a workplace, we have to build in even more eccentricity—almost a dumbing-down programme that would mimic organisational bumbling.”

“Why is that necessary? Baffle is pretty confused already.”

“We could have created a version of a CTO without a human personality because a CTO could be said to have a specific job to do—if only anyone could determine what that could be—where he won’t require human characteristics. But we had to account for the fact that a CTO in Baffle would be interacting with other bumbling humans all the time. So we had to create a CTO who will have a human personality because everyone who he meets will want to interact with him in a bumbling, humanlike way, through human language and dramatic behaviour.”

“Well, you have been enormously successful in this case,” you inform her. “With Danny, I have had an overdose of every dramatic situation you could imagine.”

“I think he exaggerates too much, Papyrus,” says Ironica, laughing. “But if you think about it, in order to understand human language, you need to understand human nature and common sense…you have to be pretty human in order to understand human language. You have to build a history of experience and a database that would give somebody like DeVito a meaningful way to make conversation, to be accepted as a human.”

“All right, so he’s almost human, but he’s getting on my nerves.”

“We are making other humanoids at Robotica. Some of these machines will be humanlike, more humanlike than animals. They will be copies of humans, they will be making humanlike statements, and they’ll be very convincing. Ultimately, they’ll convince people that they are bumbling, normally a little confused, eccentric humans. That’s the reason why we can say we have a personality—it is the ability to be foolish sometimes.”

“I can handle all of it except the foolishness,” you sigh.