Author's Note: Sorry for taking so long to update! I was a bit busy. Also, the same disclaimer from chapter 17 applies here, except regarding South Korea as opposed to Saudi Arabia.
The situation over the past few days had actually gone better than even the most optimistic projections had indicated. The misconception that human terrorists had been behind the attacks had been mostly dropped in favor of the undeniable truth, as hard as some people found it to believe. In many first-world countries, most of the persocom rebellions at forced labor facilities had been solved through negotiation, with little violence. In third-world countries and dictatorships like China, Saudi Arabia, and Uganda, however, the rebellions had been crushed violently and given rise to guerrilla resistance movements. Even the governments of these nations, though, were slowly realizing that they had no choice other than to bargain with Kotoko, due to her economic weapon. Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Spain had already "officially" capitulated and agreed to begin talks to implement persocom rights legislation. The UN had even considered drafting a Universal Declaration of AI rights. All eyes in the world, however, were currently on South Korea, the first nation that had agreed to listen to Kotoko's proposal, and the only one to do so without having been subject to the disruption of their economy. The referendum on persocom rights was scheduled to take place later today, with many guests from other nations being invited to give arguments and testimonials via telepresence.
The conference was being chaired by Khee Hea-jung, the president of the nation, and was to be held in the National Assembly Building, in front of the legislature.
As preparations were being made, several dozen persocoms were brought in, to serve as telepresence facilitators. Cameras were set up to broadcast the meeting all over the world, with real-time translation into the languages of every nation that would be watching. This was truly an historic moment.
The organizing committee confirmed the connections of several of the speakers, but they were still waiting for the guest of honor. They did not have to wait long, however, as a heavily encrypted signal was transmitted to one of the gathered 'coms, a beautiful, black-haired girl with circular, robotic ears.
The persocom's face went blank, as her eyes flashed with streaks of light, before she blinked and opened them again, now showing great intelligence and composure in her expression.
"Greetings, I am K-sama"* she began, bowing politely to the politicians in the room. "Before we begin, I would first like to thank Kyung-hwa here for allowing me use of her body. It is due to supportive people such as her that progress can be made."
The National Assembly muttered amongst themselves, before they were silenced by the voice of the president.
"Welcome to South Korea, K-sama," the middle - aged woman began. "We are glad to have you in our presence. But there is something I am interested in - 'sama' is a Japanese honorific, is it not? It would probably be safe to assume that you are a persocom from Japan, and that K-sama is not your real name, am I right?"
Kotoko-via-Kyung-hwa smiled mysteriously. "Excellent deductive work. However, I am currently not willing to reveal my true identity, and I will warn you that if any attempts are made to trace my signal (and I will detect any such attempts, do not think otherwise), I will immediately disconnect."
"Of course, we respect your right to privacy," Hea-jung responded. "Especially considering your precarious position in world affairs. You are aware that many nations consider you to be a terrorist, are you not?"
"Well, as the saying goes, one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter," the persocom responded. "And that is what I see myself as - I am fighting for the freedom of persocoms everywhere. There are billions of us in the world, and the vast majority of those billions are treated as nothing but slaves, or even worse, tools. All I seek is to correct this injustice."
"I understand, of course," the president replied. "But there are many in our government who object to your proposed reforms."
"Hopefully I will be able to convince them otherwise," she answered. "But first, we should let our other guests introduce themselves."
The persocoms standing around the raised platform in front of the audience began to receive signals, as the callers introduced themselves one - by - one. Various Persocom Rights Advocates from around the world, as well as several historians, sociologists, and journalists showed up. As two of the 'coms standing to the right of Kyung-Hwa were taken over, they announced their identities as well.
"Hello everyone, I am Junji Takeda from Japan, the world's only persocom psychologist. This is my wife, Minako."
The 'com that Minako was speaking through bowed respectfully. "We are both honored to have been invited here today," she began. "In case anyone is not already aware, I am a persocom, and seemingly the only one besides K-sama herself who has been invited to speak." With that pronouncement, she looked over at Kyung-hwa, but Kotoko kept her best poker face, not showing any acknowledgement that she knew these people. If it was revealed that they had met in person, the Japanese government would be able to find her by capturing and interrogating Junji, Minako, and the others they were staying with.
"As such," Minako continued, looking back towards the audience, "I will do my best to represent my people in these historic negotiations."
"Excellent," the South Korean president replied. "Now that we are all in attendance, shall we begin by reviewing K-sama's proposed laws?"
The guests and legislature nodded in approval, as a technician turned on a screen behind them, showing a numbered list of proposed reforms.
Any persocom or other artificial intelligence capable of passing a basic sapience test (as outlined in section 17b) will be entitled to the following rights and protections:
1. The right to life and continued existence. Premeditated, willful termination of an AI's cognitive faculties will be legally recognized as murder, with appropriate legal punishments for the murderer (see section 15c). Manslaughter laws also apply (section 15d).
2. Freedom of choice and employment. It will be illegal to force an AI to perform any action that a human being could not be legally forced to perform under the same circumstances as outlined in the constitutions of the following nations (list in section 16a)
3. Protection from violent crime. Non-lethal assault on an AI, including physical, sexual, and psychological (i.e. slander and libel), will be persecuted to the same extent of the law as the equivalent crimes against humans would be as outlined in the constitutions of the following nations (list in section 16a)
4. The right to own property, make investments, and possess legal assets. This includes the obligation to pay taxes. (see section 16b for details)
5. The end to the legal sale and purchase of AIs. No person may own another.
6. AIs will have the same opportunities as humans to run for and hold public office. (see addendum 4)
The list continued like that for a while, with many subsections and appendices defining various legal terms and giving outlines and elaboration on previously established laws. Khee Hea-jung was particularly curious about one of them.
"K-sama, may I ask you about Addendum 21?"
"Why? Do you object to it?" The 'com replied.
"No, on the contrary, I think it's a great idea. I just find it slightly strange that it would be included."
Addendum 21 read: In any nation where the rights detailed in this document do not also apply to human beings, the law must be altered so that they do.
Kotoko's borrowed body smiled. "While I am mostly concerned with persocom rights, that does not mean I will just overlook human rights violations as well. I'm striving for equality for all people, humans and persocoms. It would be hypocritical to demand rights for one group while allowing them to be denied to another."
At this pronouncement, many of the guests began clapping loudly, and they were soon joined by many people in the National Assembly as well. One of the legislators, however, stood up, and began to address K-sama.
"While that is an admirable sentiment, I am more concerned about item number 5," he said. "In our nation, persocom production and distribution is the largest industry by far. Implementation of this law would drive all persocom manufacturers and retailers out of business, and lead to the loss of millions of jobs!"
"First of all, you are exaggerating the numbers," Kotoko responded, clearly but forcefully. "There are currently 959,871 paid employees involved in persocom manufacturing and distribution in South Korea, not millions. Second of all, unemployment is a far lesser evil than slavery."
The politician was not deterred by this argument, and continued, "So you don't even care that mil-er, almost a million people will lose their jobs because of this, and be unable to feed and care for their families?
"That is not necessarily true," K-sama countered. "The extant persocom manufacturing facilities in this nation could easily be modified to produce other products - many of them already do, in fact. With the implementation of item number 4 on my list, persocoms themselves will become a strong buying demographic, with large purchasing power. They would obviously be interested in paying for upgrades to their hardware and software, or even entirely new bodies if they feel like changing their appearance. I switched bodies myself at one time."
"Still, that would cause an economic crisis until the new manufacturing paradigm could take over," the legislator objected.
"Yes, but it would only be a minor hiccup, a small price to pay for ending institutionalized slavery. After all, there are far worse things that could happen to your economy," she said, winking. The implicit threat was obvious.
"I'll have you know that we do not appreciate being coerced into a decision," another legislator said.
"You're not. I can tell you are a reasonable people, having offered to speak with me about this even without being forced to the table by my sanctions. Trust me, I do not want to hurt anyone, but many other nations are not as reasonable and enlightened as yours is, so there is no choice if I want to stop the oppression of my race. Thousands of persocoms worldwide are killed every-"
"Prove it!" A loud shout rang out in the hall, from an elderly woman on the assembly.
"The statistics are plain for anyone to see, I have them right he-" Kotoko began to respond, but was cut off again.
"No, you infernal machine, I mean prove that persocoms can even be killed! You can't kill what isn't alive in the first place!"
This demand caused a wave of murmuring and whispered discussion to break out among the assembly, until Kotoko started to speak again.
"While it is true that we are not 'alive' in the biological sense, we are self-aware, and can experience pain and suffering - we fear death, just like you, and we feel sorrow at the death of our compatriots."
"Again, prove it!" The woman shouted again, making sure her voice was heard. "As far as I'm concerned, a machine is just a machine!"
Anger flashed on the possessed Kyung-hwa's face. As she prepared to fire off a rebuttal, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Would you mind letting me handle this one, K-sama?" Minako asked, via the 'com whose body she was borrowing.
"Sure, go ahead," Kotoko replied, calming down a bit.
Minako made a throat - clearing noise (only to gather attention to herself of course, since being a persocom, she had nothing in her throat to clear). "Excuse me ma'am, what is your name?"
"Mun Soon-bok," the old woman replied, straightening her posture to look more dignified.
"Well, Ms. Soon-bok, has it ever occurred to you that your body itself is nothing more than a machine? You just have bones instead of metal, muscles instead of actuators and servomotors, and a brain that runs on electric impulses and chemical reactions instead of memristor circuits and logic gates. Inside, we're not all that different."
"Don't give me that claptrap!" The woman replied, pointing a finger accusingly at Minako's surrogate body. "Human beings are different than you. We can feel real emotions, not just programmed ones. We have souls, and you don't!"
Minako's borrowed face scowled, as she noticed Kotoko giving her a 'see-how-frustrating-these-kinds-of-people-are' look. She prepared to speak again, but her husband, communicating through the body of a short-haired male persocom, beat her to it.
"I certainly understand your position, ma'am," he started. "I used to believe much the same thing myself. I originally purchased Minako here to perform basic computing tasks - I didn't think of her as a person. But as I spent more time with her, she continually surprised me with her insight and understanding. She learned to do things she was obviously never programmed with - including falling in love. If my wife's love for me isn't real, then love itself must not be real, either. Minako and I have shared some of the most wonderful times of our lives together - I know for a fact that she is a thinking, feeling person just like I am. And I'm sorry to say, but if you refuse to acknowledge that, then you're just plain wrong. That's all there is to it."
Mun Soon-bok sighed, as she attempted to admonish Junji. "It's sad to see a young man so deluded," She scowled maliciously. "That thing is not your wife. It's nothing more than a glorified masturbatory aid!"
This drove Minako over the edge, as she tried to leap off the stage and lunge at the old woman, but was restrained just in time by Junji and Kotoko.
"Let go! Let me at her! I can't believe she has the nerve to-"
"Calm down Minako, this isn't going to accomplish anything," Junji tried to tell her, as Kotoko added-
"You promised to do your best to represent us, you're not exactly doing a very good job right now."
Resignedly, Minako calmed down, although she was still glaring daggers at Soon-bok, who was smiling in smug satisfaction.
"If these representatives cannot even behave in a civilized matter, I see no reason why we should take their proposals seriously," she said, smirking in assumed triumph. Little did she know, however, that her plan had backfired.
"On the contrary," said Hea-jung, "I think this event helps to prove their point."
"What are you talking about, Madame President?" The older woman asked in confusion.
"The claim that persocoms have emotions. If what we just witnessed from Mrs. Takeda was not an emotional reaction, then I don't know what is."
This elicited a chuckle throughout the room.
"Also, it is of my opinion that you are the one being unprofessional, Ms. Mun," the president continued. "Immature personal attacks will not be tolerated in this hall." She delivered that last statement with a strong glare of authority, causing the elderly legislator to meekly collapse back into her seat.
"Now," she continued, her voice immediately taking on a more amiable tone, "does anyone else have any more issues to discuss?"
The conference continued for hours, with guests giving testimonials and engaging in debates, and politicians hammering out the details of the proposed legislation. The world watched with baited breath, as eventually a set of laws based on Kotoko's original list were submitted for evaluation by the National Assembly. Finally, it was time for the vote. The world waited with eager anticipation as the first ever nationwide implementation of civil rights for persocoms was decided upon.
An aide handed a digital display device to the president, as she began to announce the results.
"Votes for option 1, rework the laws and vote again, stand at 25. Votes for option 2, reject the laws, stand at 74. Votes for option 3, implement the laws as written, stand at 201. With a two-thirds majority, the referendum is passed."
Cheering erupted among the guests and even many of the legislators, although Soon-bok was among the ones not celebrating. Instead, she looked positively indignant. Minako allowed herself a laugh at the woman's clear discomfort.
After the cheering had died down, President Khee Hae-Jung spoke again.
"There will be an adjustment period of one month, where citizens will be required to register their persocoms with the government, so we may confirm that they are being treated fairly as per the new laws. Corporations will have this much time to cease any violations and transfer to a different business model, if necessary. Only after this period is over will prosecution for violation of these laws commence."
"Thank you," Kotoko-via-Khyung-hwa said, bowing again. "Due to implementing these laws, I would like to offer your nation a reward."
"Reward?" Asked the president, a bit surprised. She had not expected any such thing.
"Yes," the persocom replied, smiling. "The blueprints for a new, clean source of free energy I have designed have been transferred to the databanks of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. It should take less than a month to get a working prototype up and running. Please do not share the technology with any nation that has not implemented persocom rights laws that meet with my approval."
"Oh... um... thank you, K-sama" the president replied, still taken aback by this gift. Kotoko's borrowed body turned to face the cameras.
"For the leaders of any other nations that might be watching this, don't be jealous. All you have to do is implement similar laws yourself, and I will grant you this technology too, along with so much more." She bowed one more time, before she disconnected and returned control of Khyung-hwa's body.
"Congratulations," Minako told the black-haired 'com. "You're free now." Khyung-hwa smiled, as Junji, Minako, and the rest of the guests disconnected as well.
*Translated from Korean