“Mom, hurry! We need to finish moving in by noon!” I shouted, hidden by the giant carton of clothes in my arms. Dad walked out of the room, announcing with a flourish – “ The Hoverbed is all set up, I just plugged it into the mainframe and – “Thanks Dad,” I rolled my eyes and stalked into the room. To be fair, they had done a pretty good job – we’d probably be done by 11 o’clock. The truth is, I lied to my parents. I wanted them to leave Georgia Tech as soon as possible because I was trying to avoid, at all costs, a meeting between them and my new roommate.
He’s an AI, by the way.
My Dad is, for lack of a better phrase, old school. He’s never been the most open-minded person, and losing his high-school teaching job to an AI was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I could just imagine him going off on one of his typical dinner-table diatribes – “If I do have to be replaced, I would appreciate being succeeded by a mammal! For God’s sake, they don’t eat! They’re… they’re machines! Robots!”
It’s not like I chose to be rooming with Lou, the pairings were random. Oh man, that makes me sound prejudiced. Don’t get me wrong, I am a great supporter of the Integration – that’s one of the reasons I chose the first university to admit AI’s. It’s hard for me to look at their ageless faces, their exaggeratedly fluid movements, and accept them as human. I draw the line at Gendering, though. Why would you give a gender to beings that can’t procreate?
The door slid open and Lou walked in. At the risk of sounding insensitive, he looked just like every other AI to me. “Hey,” I said nonchalantly, adopting my standard meeting-new-people persona. “Hi, lovely to meet you!” his voice was deep, but he could change that if he wished. We sat down and started chatting. “Why did you choose Georgia Tech?” I asked, playing it safe. “ Well, this is the best college to study Artificial Intelligence – that’s kinda like Biology for you guys, right?” A joke. Lou was a regular mirth-machine.
We went back and forth for a while. Lou wants to join the glee club. I want to play intramural tennis. Lou likes painting. I speak Spanish. And so on. Eventually, we addressed the elephant in the room. “I haven’t really met many AI’s,” I confessed, “I grew up in an organic neighborhood.”
“A lot of people seem to think that AI’s can’t have feelings, or opinions. Sometimes, I feel that way myself. Maybe that’s what I want out of Georgia Tech. College is about self discovery, right? The movies I watch, the music I listen to, it’s all supposed to represent who I am – just like you –but it’s hard for people to understand that. ”
“I get it, man,” I said. I wasn’t sure I did.
Then I saw something poking out of the corner of Lou’s carton. “Are those…are those physical books?” I asked incredulously. I hadn’t seen one of those since the 2030’s. “Well.. I just like the way they feel…” he seemed unsure.
“Thats weird – you sound just like my Dad, Lou.”
I think Lou and I will be alright.
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Born and raised in Mumbai, Anand spent most of his time in India playing cricket and tennis. He is passionate about traveling and has spent time in countries ranging from China to Switzerland. Although English is not his first language, Anand loves writing stories and poems in both Hindi and English. Anand is currently an international freshman at Georgia Tech. He plans to major in Computer Science and spends his free time coding and finding appropriately spicy Indian cuisine in Atlanta. |
