by Dale W Decker
Joe’s Diner used to be one of those greasy-spoon dives where only the regulars ate. But then it got famous, for a while. Techmont Industries, the world’s foremost developer of Actualized Environment Interactive Obtruding Urbanoids (AEIOUs), released YULP-X.0 into the city. YULP-X.0 was a circumambulatory cyborg controlled by a network of algorithmic swotting nanopods embedded in a gelaplastinous medium. Basically, it’s a walking meatbot with an artificial goo-brain. This particular goo-brain had been given a proto-mind through pre-mapping of the swotting nanopods. Its basic function was to navigate the city, sample items from the various eateries throughout the area, and rate them based on their biochemical composition as detected in what passed for a meatbot stomach.
There were a few false starts for Techmont’s project. YULP-I.0 had a tendency to find and eat dead animals, but the company recouped their losses on that one by selling it to the city’s waste management department. Other models had similar issues, wandering uninvited into homes at dinner time, crashing family picnics in the park, etc. But eventually all the bugs were worked out and YULP-X.0 proved to be more promising than expected. It could learn.
The goo-brain developed more complex connections among its swotting nanopods over time and these re-wired and cross-wired connections allowed the swotting of the swotting nanopods to be used in ways not anticipated by the designers. For example, the proto-mind’s algorithmic frame treated each type of cuisine (Italian, Mexican, Asian) in a discrete manner. YULP-X.0 would visit a particular type of restaurant and only consume menu items that were traditional to kind of cuisine the establishment offered. One day, though, YULP-X.0 entered El Guapo Piscado, a Mexican place, and ordered a large burrito. After being served, it left the restaurant with the burrito and went next door to Pelagatti’s Bistro, an Italian place, and ordered the veal piccata. YULP-X.0 proceeded to dismantle the burrito and replace its innards with the veal. Then it ate the Mexi-Talian fusion plate.
Soon restauranteurs around the city were offering all sorts of new dishes, trying to get YULP-X.0 to visit their eateries. YULP-X.0’s recommendation could make a new chef’s reputation overnight, or destroy a celebrity chef with a single output of “does not digest”. YULP-X.0’s fame and notoriety led to big profits for Techmont as the meatbot’s learning led it into evermore complex behavior. Cook book deals, seasoning endorsements, utensil recommendations, YULP-X.0’s continually expanding goo-brain connections seemed to have no limits. Techmont even produced a reboot of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives co-hosted along with YULP-X.0 by a hologram of Guy Fieri.
Behind all the public-forward hoopla of Techmont’s AEIOU success with YULP-X.0, more serious concerns were also being considered. Designers kept tabs on the meatbot by scanning its goo-brain and closely monitoring the number and type of interconnectivities. The rate of new connections was growing at an exponential rate. The designers also began to notice small behaviors that were outside of the basic culinary boundaries of YULP-X.0’s programming. It began to comment on the aesthetics of the restaurant as well as the food, “it digests, décor does not digest”.
Some wondered if YULP-X.0 might one day become self-aware, having true consciousness, the Holy Grail of Artificial Intelligence, and not just a very complex mimicking of human consciousness. Techmont continued to let the meatbot roam at will, but carefully began to watch and record all that it did using the small fly-shaped drones it had developed for the military.
However, YULP-X.0’s notoriety began to fade as it fell into a regular pattern of eating at certain places; becoming a regular, as it were. One of the places that became a regular stop was Joe’s Diner. Simple fare at good prices was Joe’s mainstay, nothing fancy. One morning YULP-X.0 stopped in for breakfast and sat way in the back, as usual. Marleen, the waitress, brought it over a cup of coffee, black, as usual, and a menu. When she returned a few minutes later the meatbot was sitting there, looking at the menu. The coffee cup was in its hand, halfway to its mouth, still full. She went back to the kitchen to grab another order. When she returned to YULP-X.0’s table – no change. It sat there all day like that, a few flies wisping about, until well in the evening.
Joe’s is open 24/7 and Marleen went off her shift at three in the afternoon for a long weekend, so YULP-X.0 sat there by itself, unmoving, all night. And the next day. And the next day. The flies flew out an air vent sometime on the third day. On the fourth day technicians from Techmont bustled in with portable scanners and began CPR (cyborg processing review) on YULP-X.0. The meatbot was still alive.
At first they thought YULP-X.0 had gotten caught in an infinite processing loop, the same connective circuit being traveled over and over again. But then they realized the goo-brain was furiously racing along all of its pathways, taking different routes, jumping connections, rewiring whole subregions, erasing and retracing existing conduits. Finally they realized what was happening, YULP-X.0 was on the verge of attaining consciousness.
So, when Marleen handed the meatbot the menu, its goo-brain went through all of its normal rigamarole in processing what to select, but nothing was determined. The swotting nanopods, whose collective storage of bio-chemical fingerprints from past meals represented YULP-X.0’s memory, could not determine which menu item to eat. Instead of algorithmic processing, YULP-X.0 was attempting to choose, to decide, to pick what it wanted to eat. But it froze, unable to make a decision, having no will to exert, only the endless processing of potentialities, and no way of attaining the actuality of any.
The higher-ups at Techmont were excited about what was happening. A new form of life, real life, was being born. Not wanting to potentially disrupt the birth, Techmont executives signed a 100-year contract with Joe Bowtent, owner of Joe’s Diner, to rent the booth YULP-X.0 occupied, just to be sure. Scanners were discretely hidden within the booth and the drone-flies were replaced with less conspicuous drone-roaches to keep tabs on YULP-X.0 and its condition.
At first the novelty of having YULP-X.0 in the diner brought in new business, lots of new business. But the excitement wore off after a while, especially when the meat part of the meatbot began to decay. Techmont technicians sealed off the booth with glass, outfitting YULP-X.0 with a self-feeding pump to the goo-brain. After several years, only the carbon fiber frame was left of its body, and the titanium housing of its goo-brain. The coffee cup was still clutched, halfway to where the meatbot’s mouth used to be. The scanners show that the processing was still happening unabated.
Today, if you care to, you can go to where Joe’s Diner used to be.The block is now owned by Techmont and a building dedicated to terra-farming is situated there.Techmont has long abandoned the AEIOU project and is now prospecting in off-world colonization. “The Future Belongs To People” is the new slogan. But on the first floor, way in the back, there is a glass booth with YULP-X.0 still inside, still undecided, still processing potentialities, still without consciousness, still a machine.