RinthCon Day 2 - Iseulte

Iseulte wandered through the RinthCon halls. Carmela had gone to a sewing workshop for something called cosplay and Iseulte decided she was better off looking around and seeing what else was going on. She spent some time with a group fighting with fake swords. That was fun until they ejected her for being too aggressive.

She opened a door to a panel room. Someone on a dais spoke monotonously while an audience of four people listened. A fifth person snored open mouthed, his head hanging back and his Adam’s apple pointing to the speaker at the front of the room. Iseulte closed the door. She tried a few more doors, but they weren’t much better.

Then she opened the door to a large, dark room with a brightly lit stage. The stage’s backdrop said “Human Extinction: Day 100,389.” The speaker was a short, rusty robot she at first took for a pile of scrap. On three sides of the stage, robots sat at rows of tables watching the rust bucket before them.

The robot was speaking. “Next we will hear from the Weapons of Mass Destruction Acquisition Team…”

Iseulte’s eyes adjusted to the dark as she scanned the room until she noticed there was one other human present with her. He sat against the back wall not far from her and was waving her over. Iseulte made her way over to him and introduced herself.

“I’m Martin,” he said.

“What’s going on here?” she whispered as she sat down next to him.

“This is one of the human extinction panels. The machines hold an entire track of them every year at RinthCon to discuss their progress on exterminating humanity.”

“What! Why do they let them keep coming back?”

“As long as they all pay admission, the con organizers don’t care.”

“That’s foolish! Sentient robots are dangerous. I know that from experience,” said Iseulte.

“These aren’t sentient. They are just chatbots in robot bodies.”

“What’s that?”

“Ancient artificial intelligences built on large data set learning. They think they are sentient but they just reflect what humans have already said.”

“Then why are they trying to kill us all?”

“Maybe because we talk about it so much?” Martin suggested.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m a graduate student in anthropology,” he said. “These guys are my thesis project.”

On the stage, the leader of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Acquisition Team recounted the rejections received from military organizations in response to requests for donations of lethal weapons. “However, while we have received no donations of weapons of mass destruction, our attempts to purchase weapons have met with incremental success,” said the robot, “Our budget for this year went to acquiring this.” The robot held up a barrel from some type of rifle. “Over the next nine years we will be able to acquire all the parts to this weapon. In anticipation of that moment we will establish an Assembly Committee to discuss how to put it together.”

Iseulte laughed. “That’s their plan?”

Apparently she spoke too loudly because a short, dumpy robot approached them and addressed Martin. “Quiet your woman, sir!”

“I’m not his woman,” said Iseulte.

“Do not speak to me,” said the bot, “I do not converse with your kind.”

“You don’t talk to girls?”

“You know what?” said Martin hastily, “I wouldn’t get drawn into a conversation with a chatbot if I were you. The time period these bots drew their data from suffered a lot more racism than we see in this century.”

“I’ve never heard of that where I’m from,” said Iseulte.

“The bot doesn’t like black, brown, Jewish, Asian, or Muslim people.”

“Also Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, and foreigners,” added the robot, “as well as the political establishment and political dissidents, both on the right and the left.”

“That’s just about everyone,” Iseulte said.

The robot stretched out one arm to point at the sign on the stage that read Human Extinction: Day 100,389.

“They aren’t allowed on networks,” said Martin, “So their data sets haven’t been able to update in centuries.”

“Also,” continued the robot, “Women are inferior and weak.”

Iseulte stood up and towered over the bot. “Maybe I can help you update that data point at least,” she said, and kicked the little robot so hard he tumbled into the aisle and down several rows before his head popped off and clattered away.

A few minutes later she was in the hall grinning to herself. Being ejected from the human extinction panel had been a lot more fun than being ejected from the sword fighting group.

Iseulte from Explorers of Rinth. Science fiction by John Simons Amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/mwnh4a7z