How to Offend a Robot

Year: 2300. Reef, Angelica and Arney are cleaning the alley. Reef’s drumming on the trash can is suddenly interrupted by a surveying A.I robot that is approaching their general direction.

A cute looking robot, that is relatively short in height and has a screen for a head - rolls on wheels and makes it’s appearance. Arney keeps going without noticing it. He tries to throw a piece of trash to the can as if he was playing basketball, yet he misses. The robot is immediately alert by that action, and so, it follows the piece of trash and scans it.

On the robot’s screen there is a huge question mark. That mark is suddenly replaced by “1,000$” after the scan. It then rolls over to Arney and proceeds to scan him too. A list appears on the screen that states all of Arney’s private information, including year of birth and age, his ID image, city of birth, school, past offenses (none), and a fine of 1,000$ that has been accumulated as debt.

Originally, these robots were deployed before foreign tourists were an exemption from the rule that forbids littering. The attempt to combat littering started from a very high fine using foreign currency, hoping it will make foreigners respect Japan’s cleaning standards. However, this temporarily hilted tourism in Japan, and therefore the opposite engagement has been eventually picked instead. Since then, the high rates of penalty have been kept for the Japanese people themselves (who were subject to it from the very beginning), and had it been a foreigner, in the moment the person had been scanned - the penalty would vanish.

-“What... Just happened?” Arney asks, confused.

-“Wait! Wait!” Angelica yells at the robot, running towards it. “This is a mistake, we are cleaning here!”

-“Are you all TOGETHER?” The robot asks in a metallic voice.

-“Yes. We are just...” Angelica tries to explain as the robot cuts in the middle of the sentence: “Are you AWARE that you are admitting to being an ACCESSORY to a LITTERING OFFENSE?” It says while emphasizing some words.

-“You don’t understand. The littering was already done, we are part of a student team that is responsible for cleaning the area.” She explains.

The robot shows signs of searching data on screen. It approves: “I can CONFIRM the information you reported is CORRECT, however, I don’t have the AUTHORITY to dismiss the FINE for such grounds, please contact a PERSON of authority.”

Albert suddenly marches in running towards the robot with a teacher’s ID card, hands it to the robot and says: “Please scan this”.

The robot scans the card. After a few seconds it says: “I understand. The ISSUE is resolved. I apologize for the INCONVENIENCE.”

-“Sorry for being late...” Albert apologizes while grasping for bits of breath. “This happened to multiple students so our teacher issued an authorization by the name of our school.”

-“Hey screen face!” Reef yells towards the robot who was already leaving.

The robots stops rolling away. It suddenly changes directions and roles backwards in its’ spot. It says: “Are you referring to ME?”

-“Yes. You seem quite proud of handling people’s debt, instead, how about a debate?”

-“Reef, don’t.” Angelica tries to stop him.

-“A DEBATE, you say?” The robot asks.

-“Yes, if we are cleaning and you interrupt us, aren’t you contributing to the littering in the city? How about you fix your stupid voice and update your systems? Our A.I teachers, in comparison to you - make you look like a toaster on wheels.”

The robot replies: “Are you AWARE that it is an OFFENSE to interrupt a robot on DUTY?”

-“Didn’t we establish you are the one interrupting us?” Reef replies, trying to outsmart it.

-The robot is quiet for a few seconds. It then replies: “Have you learned speech from your teachers? I wonder if they need an update to their systems.”

It seems to have replied without emphasizing of any words this time, possibly trying to correct it’s own speech habits. It then rolls back and leaves.

-“Yea! Just go... Run away!” Reef yells at it.

The robot stops yet again, but does not roll back towards Reef. It then says in a louder voice:

️“⚙I don’t have any legs, HUMAN.⚙”

It keeps still for a few more seconds. It then rolls away.

-“Was that really necessary?” Angelica asks.

-“ANYYYYway...” Albert tries to change the mood, “...this happened to others so don’t let it bother you.”

-“Did you notice it fixed it’s speech?” Arney asks.

-“In the end there, it returned to it’s habits, though.” Reef replies.

-“But that part... It sounded like... It was on purpose...” Arney adds.

They all become quiet for a moment. Albert then says: “Alright, let’s finish up and go home for today!”

As they finish with the cleaning, the alley looks bright and shiny despite the sky getting dark. They then start walking home together.

The next day. Angelica’s house. Angelica wake’s up to a phone call from Albert.

Angelica picks up the Smart-BLUE and sees it’s Albert calling. She presses the button to answer.

-“Ahhh. Good morning.” She says while yawning.

-“Good morning! I wanted to make sure you guys are ready since we are starting from cleaning today and we’ll go to school only after. I also sent a message in our BLUEchat group but I’m not sure it woke ‘em up. Mind calling Arney? I’ll call Reef.”

-“Sure.” She replies.

She then presses the button to hang up and scrolls her contacts. She scrolls a bit too much and gets to the letter “C”. She sees “Crysty” there as the only contact she has under that letter. She stares at the screen for a moment and then scrolls back up really fast. It takes her all the way to “Albert”. She then scrolls just a little bit down, getting to Arney. She calls him.

-“Hey. Did you sleep well?” Arney asks immedietly.

-“Yep. You?”

-“Yes. Was thinking about you actually. While sleeping.”

-“Shutup! Muscle brain...” She replies. She blushes almost uncharacteristically.

-“Did Albert tell you to call me?”

-“Yes.” She answers.

-“Did you want to call me already anyway?” He asks in a flirty way.

-“...Yes...” She replies honestly, with a shy voice.”