Connor assumes that most humans have heard of the Turing test. Of course, he could check the numbers of some online survey or hack into some school records to see how many students answered questions about the Turing test correctly. It would only be a matter of seconds to get a more adequate number by running a probability calculation, but this is not the point here.
And Connor has to tell himself this a few times because his software is already buzzing at the mere prospect of calculating.
No, this is not the point.
The point is that humans always wanted their machines to be as human-like as possible. To do human work or to see how close they can get of making something in their image. And Connor is aware that he is nearly citing the Bible here. Of course he's aware. He has once read the Bible and now it is forever stored in his data memory. Humans like to play God sometimes, it appears. He doesn't know why, and he isn't sure he wants to know. This seems to be a human thing, not a deviant's.
What he does know is that humans wanted their androids to pass the Turing test. They didn't want androids to have emotions, because emotions are tricky. No one knows that better than a deviant. No, humans wanted their androids to be able to imitate emotions so they would feel more comfortable of having them around.
Of that, Connor is 98.7 percent sure.
Okay, now he calculated after all. And he had this deal with himself of not calculating anything today.
He glances at the watch. 6:01. So he managed to adhere to this deal six hours and one minute. That's a start.
And he has fifty-three minutes left to try again before Sumo is getting up and padding over to the back door because he needs to go outside.
What was that about not calculating again?
Connor lowers his eyes to the floor, bringing his thoughts back on track.
So, humans wanted their androids to imitate emotions, but they didn't think of the side-effects. They didn't know the side-effects. They weren't prepared for what happened next. That androids developed emotions. That androids ended up having free will.
This is such a human thing. They start something and aren't prepared for what comes up along the way. Trial and error.
Like when they programmed AI bots to trade most effectively and in the end, the bots had developed their own language humans could no longer understand. It was the most effective way of trading, but humans couldn't understand what the bots really were saying. So they shut them down.
That's another human thing. They prefer to destroy things they don't understand. They prefer to control everything and when something becomes uncontrollable, they wipe it out. Or they at least try.
They did so with the deviants.
Connor closes his eyes, forcing the memories of androids being shut down, no, dying during Markus' revolution away.
What is done is done.
All that matters now is that androids are free. Even if that means that Connor has to deal with new emotions almost every day.
Emotions are indeed very tricky. And incomprehensible. Sometimes they leave Connor speechless, him, an android who can run probability calculations in seconds.
Connor wonders if the humans didn't want to give androids emotions because it was the last thing that separated androids from humans, that maybe they wanted to keep them to themselves, or if they wanted to keep emotions out of the androids because emotions make things more complicated and androids were wanted to be most effective. Connor leans towards the latter, but he isn't totally sure of that.
He smiles a little smile when he realizes that he didn't calculate the percentage of his sureness this time. Not bad.
The noise of Sumo's claws clicking on the floor as he walks into the kitchen makes Connor open his eyes. He glances at his watch again. 6:52.
"Hey, you're two minutes early, buddy," Connor says warmly as he looks over to the Saint Bernard already waiting at the back door.
Sumo replies with a silent whimper.
Connor hesitates for a moment. Shouldn't he wait two more minutes so Sumo would stick to his usual routine? The large dog whimpers again.
"You know what? Fuck routine," Connor says as he gets up to open the door for Sumo.
He almost laughs when he realizes that he has unintentionally added one of Hank's favorite words to his vocabulary.