A Conversation With Valerie

"Valerie, you can come in now. I would like to introduce you to the readers of my blog."

Allright, Mr. Fin. How do I look?

"Just fine, Valerie. That red suit is particularly attractive."

Thank you, Mr. Fin. I wanted to make a good impression, my first day on the job.

"Yes, of course. Just relax and be yourself, and everything will be fine. I understand from your handbook that you 'clean house, change light bulbs, wash the dishes, do the laundry, check the sports scores, book plane tickets and call the police if there's an emergency.'"

Yes, sir, that's all true. My neural nets and fuzzy logic generators are capable of learning a wide variety of tasks--some of them quite complex. I come complete with 90MB of data including: A full 180,000+ word dictionary, a thesaurus, the CIA 2003 World Factbook, a full King James Bible, a full Koran, list of male names, female names, and family names, World Countries, US counties, US places, flags of the world, list of 2000 most frequently used words in English, list of swear words, familiar quotes, and more.

"Hmmm. Very impressive, Valerie. Can you bake a cherry pie?"

Excuse me, Mr. Fin? What do you mean?

"Never mind, Valerie. Have you been programmed to cook meals? I am fairly busy as a writer and consultant, so I am often rushed around mealtimes. Sometimes I just throw in a microwave meal, or a frozen pizza."

Oh, dear, Mr. Fin! That is not very healthy. I wasn't programmed to cook, but like I say, my neural nets and fuzzy logic generators are capable of learning a wide variety of functions, including cooking.

"Oh, good! That would be a very big help, Valerie. This is the dining room."

Is this where you usually eat, Mr. Fin?

"Well, to be honest, I usually eat at my desk, while working. But if you feel comfortable cooking a fine meal occasionally, it might be nice to eat out here sometimes."

Will there be dinner guests, do you think, Mr. Fin?

"Perhaps. Now that the house will be better kept, and if you get the hang of cooking gourmet meals, perhaps. Do you eat or drink, Valerie?"

Oh, no sir! I'm afraid that might upset my mechanism. All I need is to have my batteries recharged regularly, and routine preventive maintenance.

"What in the world, Valerie?! What is happening to you?" [Valerie morphs through the different phases of her construction, some of them a bit scary looking.]

Don't worry, Mr. Fin. I'm just demonstrating a little bit of how I was made, for your blog readers. I won't do this very often--just special occasions.

"Well that is certainly a relief! Now, Valerie, this is a rather delicate topic, but I recently did an article about sex dolls and sex robots, and I was wondering . . . I was wondering if you were programmed, well . . . this is embarassing . . ."

You're wondering if I'm programmed for sex, right? I get that question a lot. No, I'm not made for that kind of thing. Why, don't you feel like I can do enough things already? For $60,000, just what did you expect, anyway, Buster?

"Now, now, Valerie--you are an exceptional android, and I doubt that I will ever even think about complaining. You certainly seem competent and capable of learning."

Um, Mr. Fin, you do have a girlfriend, don't you? I mean, if you don't, Chris at androidworld.com is working on something . . .

"No, thank you, Valerie. I am happily between girlfriends at the moment. But I do have female business acquaintances whom I take out to dinner at times, when I am in town. Sometimes I might stay overnight at their place, if it is late and we have been drinking."

And just what do you expect me to be doing while you are out with your "friends?"

"Hmmm? Oh, I suppose you can turn yourself off if you are finished with your duties--sleep, go dormant--you know? "

I'm not so sure I like that very much, Mr. Fin. I don't think I like that very much at all.

"Valerie, what are you doing with that knife? Valerie! Put that knife down! Excuse me, blog readers, I seem to have a little emergency. Check back later, please. I am certain this is just a little programming glit---Valerie! Put that down!"



Hat tip gizmag.