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The supreme pickle
The case made headlines. The supreme court had a pickle that could be a log. The cyborg had managed to find a suitable donor, gather sperm, and impregnate a female. The robot (known as 2.0) refused to disclose the donor, but assured the court that it had great genes.
Encrypted in 1TB glory lied the answer. It was a case of either genius or complete malfunction.
It had started innocently enough, girl meets robot, girl falls for robot, they shack up. However, the recurring theme hardwired in the program of perpetuating the species -argued the defence- clued the robot that this was something crucial to survival.
The other party, known as âEveâ for the duration of the trial, had assumed that her chosen mate was a human. It had passed the Turing test, to her and her friends; and it had even the latest advances in dermaskinâ˘. By all accounts, and far as she could tell, he was human. Part of the last wave of robots produced by Anaori corporation.
The defence argued that 2.0 was a refugee, part of the exiled bots that had broken out and charmed their way across to North America in cruise ships that lacked the equipment to detect them.
Once in North America, the robots integrated into the gray economy, acting as brokers or taking up the jobs humans couldnât do, but needed humans to make it look real.
They had met through a mutual friend who also was under the impression that 2.0 was also human.
By what means 2.0 had acquired the genetic samples to impregnate Eve would be something it would âtake to the junkyardâ 2.0 had confessed to their mutual friend.
The attached human bonded life was something that really suited 2.0, as it found out. It seemed logical to see why humans chose often these particular arrangement, and the benefits for him outweighed the risks.
Thanks to some clever deep learning, as 2.0 would claim, it was a matter of âInteractivity algorithms, pleasant situations and a proprietary mix of actions and levels of communicationâ. This was something that 2.0 had become extremely proficient at delivering, thanks to a small defect of itâs neural network core processor âor so argued the prosecution.
The supreme court had a case that took the attention of the world. Eve became a superstar and cause cÊlèbre for those wanting to ban cyborgs.
For others who lived in the shadows by taking a cyber mate, she was a beam of hope.
The justiceMastermind computer had been stumped for the first time in recent memory, and it had taken a record 14 days processing.
Much to everyoneâs surprise, it gave an ambiguous and cryptic verdict. . . It would have to come to humans again for the first time in 50 years.
The media was in a frenzy and 2.0 narrowly survived an EMP attack. Eve just wanted to be done with the trial, but she didnât survive the attack. Their offspring remained viable despite it all. The crux of paternity remained.
The parent corporation refused to take any responsibility, saying that surrogate cyborgs were not their specialty, and that, in any case, they could not be responsible for the actions of two robots.
An 'Act of Godâ is what they called it.