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A Young Scientist and an Artificial Girl
A Machine with Emotions [Please Give Feedback So I can improve my Writing, Thank You!]
Chapter 1: Creation
In a broken down room there was a scientist who had created the very first sentient robot, ever. This is the story of the Scientist’s life since then.
“Looking at my theoretical blueprints for the very first sentient machine in the entire world, In about 20 minutes she should awaken naturally, or rather, Unnaturally on its own by the sunlight! However, since I knew I’d be too impatient, I can just plug her into an outlet connecting into her back!” Said the young scientist with an exhausted excitement.
“MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm--” went the small fans inside the artificial girl’s body like a computer when you press the power button.
“I hope to god I did this right. If not then I wasted my hard earned money and time.”
“Please Confirm If ‘US English’ is the correct language to converse with to whom is here.”
“Correct. Now I have a question, do you have emotions?”
“Emotions?”
“Yes, do you?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Ah, thank god.”
“Why is that a good thing?”
“You are the very first machine with a consciousness and feelings.”
“I’m a machine?”
“Yes, and above all that, you are living proof souls don’t exist.”
“If I am a machine, then who built me?”
“I built you.”
“Does that make you my dad? Or mom perhaps?
“For one, I’m a male, and two, I may have created you but that doesn’t mean I’m your father.”
“I have a question.”
“How do I know what these words mean? If I was just now built I shouldn’t even know how to talk, yet I can.”
“You’re comparing yourself too much to a naturally born human in the sense of development in the brain. I manually put that information in your ‘Brain’.”
“Will there be any future developments to my ‘brain’?”
“Possibly, If I feel that’d be necessary then yes, most definitely.”
“Final question, why was I created?”
“Remember when I said that you are proof that souls don’t exist?”
“Yes.”
“You are essentially, the key to immortality. I want to use the same methods to create you, to do the same to my consciousness.”
“Why do you want to live forever?”
“Thought that was the last question!” The scientist said with a smile on his face.
“Guess you’re right. So what are you planning to do with me?”
“Let you live a normal life.”
“Wh-”
“-You might be thinking ‘Why?’ or something like that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want to see how a sentient robot would live as a normal human since I want to become one to a certain extent.”
“Okay.”
“Now that we are done here. I’ll let you have a bed to sleep on.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If I’m a robot than why do I need to sleep. Furthermore, that should be impossible.”
“I only used the term sleep as a joke. I really meant that you don’t have a 24/7 battery. In fact, It would have normally taken you about 20 more minutes to start up if I hadn’t had plugged you in the wall earlier.”
“Okay, I get it now. Although, It’s hard to tell when you’re joking.”
The young Scientist laughs and says: “That’s the first joke you have ever heard!”
“Yes, which is why I had trouble deciphering.”
“Guess got a point there.”
The Scientist smiled and began to walk forward and told her to follow him to the room. However, once the robot tried to walk forward she fell face flat on to the ground.
“I know you implied no more questions, but how I do move forward?”
The scientist gave a little chuckle and then grabbed a hold of her right leg and moved it forward. Then the scientist did the same with her left until she could do it on her own.
“We’re here!” The scientist said with the utmost excitement hoping she would be really happy
“When I look at the national room sizes of apartment sizes in the country: XX, it says that this room is below average.”
“Well, my apartment is small you see! I also see that you just used the search engine installed inside of your body.”
“Ah. That’s what it was. I thought humans had hivemind-like brains that were all connected to each other to improve mankind.”
“If that were the case, we would all be as smart as Einstein!”
“Yes. If anything, humanity should have tried to develop some sort of way to create a connection between all of Humanity.”
“I’d have to disagree with you there. Humans have different types of societies and with that comes to war. If anything it’s for the best that we don’t have such a thing. And besides, that could make people go insane.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Besides that, the search engine allows you to keep things to yourself and create your own opinions, which in of itself can definitely improve humanity.”
“I see.”
“Well that aside, how’s the room? Y’like it?
“Well, I’ve never seen any other rooms so I’ll just assume it’s okay.”
“Great. You should start learning about 10th grade in high school for tomorrow.”
“Is this about the ‘living a normal life’ thing?”
“Most definitely!”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and by the way from now on your name will Isabella Brookz. We’ll share the same last name so it won’t be weird if we’re spotted going home together.”
“Is it bad to go home together if we don’t have the same last name?”
“Well, the short answer to that, is yes.”
“Okay.”
“See you in the morning.”
As the exhausted Scientist closes the door he prepares clothes for the girl and passes out in his computer chair after playing video games for too long.”
Brute honesty coming at you, ready? Please don’t take what I have to say about your story personal. Just trying to help.
The story flow is too straight forward. What I mean is its too eager to get to the end. The dialog is an info dump pointing out the situation with no feeling. Both of them may as well be robots conversing. There is no character, no spark of life that makes either one of them stand out as real individuals.
The scientist himself has no name or visual description to go off of. You could try using the white haired scientist with a missing tooth or something. Or his super skinny because he is too busy to stop his work and eat. That will give some indication of what he looks like for the reader. He needs a quark that makes him stand out as an individual. He can’t stop tapping his feet or he has a nervous itch on his thumb all the time. I recommend researching Back to the Future’s Doc Brown who is such a character, there is no way anyone will go away from that movie without remembering him. Could say he was living on the edge because at any moment he could be caught by the authorities for manufacturing life. Could indicate that he was extremely lonely so he built a robot to be his daughter, lover, friend (whatever your aiming at). Based on your story tag I can guess which one.
As for the robot, she was way too dry and uninteresting. The only way I knew she was a girl was because of the title. You could have the scientist try and explain her gender and get nervous because it sounds like a parent giving ‘the talk’ to their children. She needs to be more curious about existing. “Why do I have these things on my chest region and you don’t?”Is she fully functional as in the replacement to a human or a pale imitation?
Is she fully clothed, is she naked? Did the scientist put her skin on at this point in time or does she look like metal? You could have the scientist offer her a mirror, allowing the robot character to see and react to the person staring back at her. Does she see like a human or have a computer display feeding her all sorts of information like time and temperature. Does she feel pain? Have her pull out some of her hair because she doesn’t know her own strength or what hair is to be concerned. That could explain a lot for the reader by her reactions.
Have her play with flexing her hands and be fascinated that they move upon her command. Life is new to her so she should be eager to learn if she is truly artificial life. This is all depends on if you are going for the type of robot you want like in Steven Spielberg’s movie ‘A.I.’ where a child robot desires nothing more then to be human or Robocop where he is human (sort of), has no emotions and is simply following a program. Or Terminator 2 would be a good example to follow, a machine that starts out cold but learns the value of human life.
What is the setting? Is this the present? The near future? Or the distant future? Could be the 80s. Is the research into AI illegal or it is that people have never made any progress in the field? The environment is not set other then in this dude’s apartment who must have quite the electric bill and pissed off neighbors from all the noise. These can all be explained with tiny details like a type of music playing in the background, the scientist using an IPAD or some future scanner to see if all the robot’s systems are working effectively. Could have the scientist do some inner monologue to get the truest sense of accomplishment of creating life in this fashion. I know I would be leaping for joy at achieving something so significant in history.
Thanks for the Criticism I’ll try to improve it in chapter 2!
I don’t mean to come off so hard on your story, I actually like the concept to the point where I got inspired in crafting a story while reading it. Certainly will be reading any additions put out with this story.
Nah, I get it. I was actually hoping for harsh criticism because I’d rather improve on my books than have someone ignore them because they’re bad.