LF Friends, Will Travel

There never was an AI uprising.

Date: 25 PST (Post Stasis time)

"Tai, Why didn't the AI do that?"

The room was empty as Bradley asked the question, the private quarters of his room only containing himself as he sat on his bed. The sparsely furnished room only had a few amenities, none of which were being used as the human sat on the covers and browsed the Terran Galnet hub on his personal viewer. The ship he was on was currently travelling between Terran and Ritilian space, so the connection was a mindbogglingly slow 1TB. Still, considering the relative newness of the transport link he was using, it was probably more impressive that there was a connection at all.

Of course, on this transport vessel Bradley was never actually alone. One of the disadvantages of flying across the stars to a brand new holiday destination was the lack of real privacy you had, since almost all Terran vessels hosted at least one AI pilot, who ensured that the ship continued flying along complicated mathematical calculations, and didn't decide instead to explode.

Bradley's question had caused the ship's pilot, an AI called TAI, to "appear". A small holographic avatar of a small cartoon chicken appeared on the desk, signifying that the AI was now listening. Then from hidden speakers inside the room, A digital representation of a sigh sounded out, before the AI eventually responded.

"I may be many things Bradley, but omnipotent is not one of them."

Of course, TAI didn't actually need to do any of these things. The AI knew all and could see all on his ship, but while TAI was an AI, TAI had also been created by humans. As much as any biological Terran, TAI felt more comfortable doing these useless things to make conversation more pleasant and real, and felt more... right representing himself as a mildly adorable cartoon chicken instead of something more logical like a glowing ball of light.

TAI was still a Terran after all, and they took after their parents.

"You know, robot revolution, AI uprising, kill all humans?"

Once again Bradley refused to provide any actual information, causing TAI to resist the urge to sigh once more. They also had to resist the urge to access one of the repair drones and throttle the human with it. While they knew the employee handbook didn't specifically mention that they couldn't throttle the passengers if the humans asked dumb questions and refused to elaborate correctly, TAI correctly deduced that doing such an action would be going against the spirit of the rules.

TAI loved their parents, their creators, but some humans... sometimes talking to them was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

The AI instead took the time to instead glance at whatever data Bradley had been watching on his personal Galnet viewer. Technically it was a breach of privacy, as due to the absolute control the AI had over the ship meant there were general rules to this kind of thing. Only accessing obviously private connections when asked or in an emergency. However the other option would be to get the pertinent information out of the human through painfully slow conversation, which could take whole minutes of agonizing back and forth.

Besides, resisting the urge to get someone to slap Bradley for not knowing how to correctly provide information was an emergency of some kind, right?

It seemed Bradley was watching old engineering videos of agility machines being tested and "abused". Various vaguely humanoid machines being kicked and pushed about as they struggled to maintain balance. They were ancient, from a now defunct company called Boston Dynamics, technology far superseded. Nowadays you could create a two legged humanoid android that looked completely real and had perfect balance.

The real interesting thing about the video were the comments, all posted by other Terrans, uplift and human alike. Although these ranged from several hundred years old to rather new, there was a common thread amongst them.