* * * * *
The clock is reading 4:38 A.M. Anand collapsed into one of the stiff sterile chairs, he was exhausted. McKnight was standing by impatiently, waiting to be convinced. He paced the room and nervously tapped his foot.
Christopher Mark’s message, summoning Al McKnight to the operating theatre, was a repeat of the message Anand had sent only moments before.
Mark had said, “We are ready to try.”
The organic robot was lying upon the stiff table. It was covered in a white sheet. There was no cable connecting it directly to the Synapse Suit this time. A machine was monitoring heart rate and respiration, but the rest of the biological support systems and technology interface devices had been removed. This time, the organic robot would work like any other Synapse host via a remote connection to the Synapse Suit. This time, the organic robot would stand, or fall, via its remote connection to the WetWeb.
When Christopher Mark entered the room he nodded to Anand and McKnight, and then stepped over to the Synapse Suit. Mark removed his clothes and squeezed into the suit. Head first, then shoulders, arms, torso, and legs until he was fully engulfed and only the back of his head and top of his shoulders were visible.
Anand stood and disconnected the heart rate monitor from the organic robot’s arm. Then he lifted and folded the white sheet.
Al McKnight was surprised, he said, ”What happened to the face?”
The organic robot was lying naked on the table. Its body retained a grey lifeless hue despite the fact that they had restored normal heart rate and respiration. The face was completely removed. In its place was a metal plate with rough holes drilled where the mouth and nose should have been. The holes in the metal plate formed a crude grill and allowed the intake of air into the lungs. Additionally, a single video lens was mounted in the space where the eyes should be, creating a Cyclops like appearance.
“I had it removed,” Anand said matter-of-factly, and then he added, “We needed the space. All of the computer components are behind the faceplate in the cranial cavity. Removing the face solved some problems.”
“I love it,” McKnight said, “With the face removed it stops being a dead body and looks more like a robot. I think there might be a domestic market for this. It could be a butler, a cook, a nanny.”
Anand laughed at the suggestion that the organic robot would be used as a domestic servant. He thought McKnight was joking and then realized he was not.
An uncomfortable moment followed, but McKnight was too excited.
He prodded Anand to begin the demonstration saying, “Never mind that, let’s see if this works. General Mueller will be here in a few hours.”
Anand settled back down in the uncomfortable chair.
He said, “We are ready. Tell Chris what you want to try.”
“OK,” McKnight said raising his voice to make sure Christopher Mark could hear him from inside the Synapse Suit.
“Chris, make it stand.”
The creature lurched up from the bed in a single jerking motion. The stiff grey arms were swinging about spasmodically.
McKnight looked at Anand and asked, “Is it going to work this time?”
“We will know in a minute,” Anand answered.
The organic robot’s legs swung off of the table and it pushed itself up and onto its feet in one swift movement. It teetered back and forth, until it was successfully standing. It looked unsteady.
“Can you make it walk?” McKnight called out to Mark.
The organic robot lifted its right foot off of the ground, but in doing so became unbalanced and toppled over landing in an undignified heap on the hard tile floor.
McKnight looked dismayed.
“Wait… wait,” Anand said before McKnight complained, then Anand said, “Let’s see what happens now.”
The proto-type Warmbot twisted onto its belly and then was up on its hands and knees. It lifted its hands to catch hold of the operating table and pulled itself up, first up into a kneeling position, and then up onto its feet.
“Do you see?” Anand said, “Its learning.”
Once the organic robot was back on its feet, Anand performed an exaggerated and highly stable walk across the room by carefully planting one foot in front of the other. When he got to the wall, he turned slowly and repeated the careful walk back to his starting position. The organic robot seemed to be watching through its video lens eye.
Anand said, “OK Chris, try now.”
The organic robot began to walk. Haltingly at first, finding its balance, and then it improved. Soon it was walking across the room repeating the path that Anand had demonstrated.
“It’s the learning program,” Anand explained, “It needs visual feedback that it can incorporate into its database. It uses the information is sees and experiences in order to improve its performance. Eventually, it will be able to perform any variety of tasks. It improves over time.”
“I see,” McKnight said.
“There is one more thing I would like to try,” Anand said and then to Chris Mark, he said, “Chris, go ahead and Synap off, let’s see what happens.”
McKnight and Anand watched the organic robot, which was standing still while Chris Mark emerged from the Synapse Suit.
As Mark was toweling dry, Anand explained, “The organic robot is now operating autonomously.”
“How?” McKnight asked.
“It is a side benefit from the learning program,” Anand said.
“Once it observes a behavior pattern, the behavior is recorded into the database, then the needed pattern can be recalled and repeated on demand. It has learned how to stand, so the stand program is running over and over again. It no longer needs a remote user inside a Synapse Suit to tell it to stand anymore.”
“It’s on Auto-pilot,” Al McKnight said.
“Quite right, quite,” Anand confirmed.
Anand addressed the organic robot with a commanding voice, “Walk!”
The organic robot resumed walking about the room. It retraced its steps, exactly as it had done from the previous demonstration.
“Is there a limit on what it can learn?” McKnight asked.
“Only the capacity of the hard drive we installed replacing its brain,” Anand answered.
“That is not really the limitation,” Chris Mark added, “Once we integrate the system into the WetWeb network it can store learned behavior patterns remotely and share information across to other organic robots that are connected to the same network. We can store an unlimited number of learned programs.”
Anand continued, “We programmed it to continuously look for new behavior to add to its data store. It will watch us and mimic what we do.”
“It will soon be able to operate completely independent of the Synapse Suit,” McKnight said with growing understanding.
“I think so,” Anand agreed, “But, it will only re-enact to behavior that it has observed or learned. It will never be able to do anything new. It is not capable of original ideas.
The three men watched in quiet as the Organic Robot continued to pace back and forth across the room.