Realistic or Modern I'm the Android You're Looking For

[Gentlehell]

"Do you think it'll work this time?"

"It has to. The fellowship we're under is expiring."

"Yeahhh, but I mean, based on all our work."

"Well, of course, we wouldn't be ready to run this if that weren't the case--"

"Can we please focus?"

Harry interrupted his lab mates lightly, not even looking away from the laptop he was typing on. "I want to see if this code works or not before they cut off our power for the day." His glasses reflected the neon-green text of the coding he was looking over on the screen, his lips in a focused frown.

His two lab mates, a mousy short Hispanic girl and a lanky English guy nodded to each other, turning back toward their own code-screen computers. "You know, Harry, you ought to lighten up a little bit," Elena began as she typed with mock arrogance, not actually looking at her keyboard. "We're basically creating life! From nothing! Can't you show a little bit of excitement?"

"Well, it's not like we're playing god here," Nathaniel states matter-of-factly, even pointing a finger up to accentuate. "We don't even know if this is going to work."

"Here we go! I think this is it." Harry said with a smile, his gaze lifting to the chamber containing the body of their new algorithm. He felt both impatient and nervous as he watched the lifeless android, knowing that any movement it makes in the next few minutes, would be due to his and his co-workers hard work. With a small grin he looked back toward his lab mates. "Are you guys ready to go?" With twin confident nods, the two pressed the figurative 'go' key, the group looked toward the chamber as the numerous wires pouring out of the three laptops lit up as the code was sent toward the top of the chamber, a large loading screen appearing to show a 'download' time.

The three stood together excitedly as the download bar reach 10%.... 11%... 12%... and then suddenly shut off.

Elena threw her hands up in the air. "Welp! I guess I know what I'm doing tonight." She grumbled as she went to their shared closet and took out her jacket. "First round's on me, boys."

"I'll catch up with you guys later," Harry said as he sat back in his rolling chair. "I think I'm just going to check over the code before calling it a night."

Nathaniel rested a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Don't stay here too late, man. Don't want a repeat of that last time..."

With some disheartened good-nights, Elena and Nathaniel headed out, and Harry settled in for a couple hours of code-checking.

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

Gentlehell
Sufficient data downloaded... processing... system boot initiated...

Perhaps unbeknownst to the rest of the scientists, the android hadn't moved. It was still powering up completely, from which it drew directly from the building itself... and that meant there was a suddenly massive surge, causing the lights to flicker off and on momentarily. When it had finally woken up, Elna and Nathaniel were gone, and all that was left was Harry, scrubbing over the code to figure out what went wrong. Or, on the contrary, what went right...

The android was dead silent, its eyes slowly opening, revealing their irises... which were completely red. They blinked a couple of times, a liquid cleaner underneath the eyelids scrubbing their eyes of any foreign contaminants and disinfecting, washing the eyeball directly. After that, their eyes changed from red to yellow, signaling that they were processing something. The world around them was made of gridlines forming the objects, which slowly, as its eyes focused, pupils dilating and contracting several times.

Boot successful. Copying critical files for full systems analysis... analysis initiated.

A full, subtle shiver seemed to go through them. They blinked once more, eyes re-focusing again, taking in a small breath, jaw moving around slightly, a light click coming from their teeth hitting each other. Muscles along their synthetic body twitched and moved in accordance, from the head to their feet. Hands clenched into fists slowly and unclenched into open hands at the same rate. Their feet shifted around, ankles rotating slightly.

System analysis complete. Model AHL200 online. All systems within normal operating conditions. Physiological parameters set to default of 10% of maximum capacity to mimic human conditions. Power efficiency at 73.298141124545.

Their eyes shifted from yellow to a light blue hue as they finally finished their preliminary diagnostics. Everything seemed to be in proper working order. With that out of the way, their eyes did a full revolution color hue change back to yellow in a circular motion, scanning the environment. They came across Harry immediately, head turning to face them. Scanning... scan inconclusive; subject is turned away.

Seeing how there wasn't any other way to properly scan them without getting closer and facing them directly, the android would have stepped off from their position, but as they tried to move, something kept them there. A quick look down showed what was causing it; restraints on both their arms, legs, and chest. Scanning... steel. 62,900 pounds of force required to destroy. Choosing course of action.

Instead of breaking the restraints, it instead looked back towards where Harry was. "Why am I withheld?" Its voice spoke out, sounding quite alike a human, but Harry obviously wouldn't recognize it.

 

[Gentlehell]

Harry easily found his rhythm scanning the code, fully immersed in its efficiency -- this was the cleanest code he's seen his group do. The more he scanned through it the more he didn't understand what could have possibly gone wrong. Perhaps the hardware failed or there was a frayed wire in the chamber they didn't foresee?

When the power surged he looks around nervously. It was getting late, and there probably weren't many people left in the building. His computer screen had reverted to the boot screen anyway, so Harry supposed it was a good time to start heading out. If he got out of here quickly enough, perhaps he'd be able to catch Elena and Nathaniel before they turned in for the night.

He had just powered down the computer when he heard the strange voice. Teeth clenched, eyes wide, and fingers tense, he slowly turned around toward the sound, and was shocked still to see that the lab's creation was not only appearing to be working just fine, but also looking at him expectantly. Even after all this planning and full expectation for this iteration of the code to work, Harry still found himself in awe that there was a living, non-breathing, person now in the room. And it seemed cognizant! To ask a question -- their code must be --!

Calm down, Harry, he thought to himself, turning back towards the computer to flip it back on. Whatever happens next definitely needs to be recorded. Analysed. Oh geez, Elena and Nathaniel were not going to believe this.

There was the question of how to respond. Harry thought back to the many robot simulators he's played, thinking about how machine learning from its very inception would influence the robot's outlook on humanity as a whole. But telling the newly minted AHL200 the truth -- making sure it didn't malfunction and destroy the lab -- might be offensive. And of course Harry wouldn't want to offend it, er, them.

Or maybe Harry was over thinking this? After all, they could just appear to be conscious. After all, he knows that the android was all ones and zeroes, not actually alive. At least, not the same was humans were. Despite the quiet philosophical conundrum that was going through his head, Harry suddenly remembered he would have to actually respond to the AHL200. To be polite.

"It's... for protection." Harry tried to sound as casual as possible as he logged back into the computer. An incomplete truth, surely that couldn't be too bad morally. He turned back towards the AHL200 as the operating system booted the computer. "I-I need to check a few things before I let you out... okay?" Agency! Yes, that's what Harry should allow the AHL200 to have. Or at least appear to have. Harry turned back toward the screens to start running the tests regardless of what the AHL200's response would be.

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

Seeing that Harry had gotten scared by something did not fly under the radar. The android couldn't quite figure what was to be afraid of, though. Perhaps it was themself that they were scared by. Built to be very logical, humans did have a fear of the unknown, and what was 'unknown' may possibly be their own presence. It did not seem that the human realized that it was here.

They had taken a lot of power to come to life, but otherwise, they were mostly autonomous. They could convert bio-degradable materials back into usable energy, and even recycling heat byproduct to be used as power once more, taken directly from a massive heatsink built within them. Now that they were online, they were likely to remain that way, aside from restarts occasionally to dump files, free up memory, general internal system maintenance.

The android tilted their head slightly as Harry turned towards them, seemingly in shock. Taking this opportunity, their eyes changed to yellow once more. Scanning... biological lifeform. Human. Identified as creator. Their program dictated that they were expected to be obedient to their creator. Harry.

Yet they did not understand. "Full system diagnostics have been run and everything found to be in standard operating conditions." They vocalized, head tilting slightly, like a confused dog. Their eyes turned back to blue. "Software download is incomplete. Calculating... 52% completion. Estimated time of completion is fourteen minutes, thirty two seconds, if speeds remain reliable."

They did not try to move otherwise, just glancing down at themselves curiously. Had they missed something in their biocomponents? Frowning, they resolved to simply let Harry do whatever it is that they needed to do. "Were my diagnostics inconclusive? A malfunction in the system?"

 

[Gentlehell]

"Oh, probably not. The code I just checked was immaculate, there's no way your tests could have missed any thing." Harry found himself trying to play a calming role. "This is more of a double-checking. That's good science."

Harry typed a few lines into the computer, trying to get both the self-reports from the android and run his own, since the android was still connected to the chamber. As a little bar began to slowly fill up designating completion time, Harry pondered. It'd be weird to just sit here as everything finished downloading and uploading in silence, right? What should they talk about? Turning back toward the chamber, he couldn't exactly pin down what this first conversation should be about.

"So uh... how are you feeling in there?" Harry fiddled with his fingers as he tried to put on a reassuring smile. "Sorry if it's uncomfortable with the straps. I'll remove them once all the tests are done."

Harry's phone suddenly began beeping. Quickly grabbing it and inputting his password, Harry saw that Elena had texted him. A pretty important building in the city suddenly blinking when the power surge hit didn't go unnoticed, so his lab-mates were making sure he was alright. For a moment, he was unsure how to respond. He should definitely tell them about how their project was actually a success, right? But at the same time, he didn't want to confuse the android by introducing more people. Not to mention it was already too late to do any more work. He texted them back that he was a-okay, and that he's heading out soon. They'll find out about their success in the morning.

"I'm sure this is a little confusing for you," Harry began as he gently put his phone in his pocket. "But after these tests, I'm going to let you walk around just for a little bit. I want to make sure your limbs are working, but I have to get some sleep too. I'll wake you up again tomorrow."

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

They weren't sure they were quite following what Harry was saying, but being thoroughly didn't sound bad. It was hardly efficient, however, as he was just now learning about humans—but one of its features was to adapt to human irregularity. Humans were far more prone to error than they were programmed to be. Perhaps they were short on RAM and had trouble keeping up?

The android felt their memory being probed by the computer they were linked to, and seeing no reason not to comply, as well as their program demanding so, they gave up the saved diagnostics report. Their eyes were yellow from the process the computer was making them undergo. It would have the same conclusion that the computer itself would be soon coming up with as well; everything was fully functional and in perfect condition. What may surprise them is that some changes to the system were already made. Small ones; a change in file type, a more efficient compression of some files to save on space.

When asked about its feelings, they shrugged their shoulders slightly. "I am within optimal operational parameters." Was the short answer, and pretty much meant 'I'm good'. Getting them to speak like a normal person would probably be the first thing to do. That part of their speech drive may need manual activation.

They flexed their hands once more. "I would like to move."

 

[Gentlehell]

"Alright, well, hold on a second." Harry watched the screen until it reach 100%. "I'm going to let you move around now -- you don't have to be ambitious, start with small movements first, okay?" He said as he picked up the nearest clipboard to document what he saw.

Harry pushed a couple of buttons to trigger the straps release, and then walked closer to the android. It was weird being up close to them now; what used to be just a shell of a maybe-project was now an actually functioning being. And this being looked extremely human. Being studious, Harry didn't have a lot of interpersonal experiences. He felt embarrassed to be close to something appearing as another person.

"Uh, sorry, I'll get these wires for you." Harry diverted his gaze as he reach behind the AHL200's head and gingerly unplugged the wires one by one. "Tell me, do you feel anything odd about being disconnected?" He asked as he backed away from them quickly. "Don't move too quickly, I don't want you to break anything by accident."
Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

Gentlehell
Start with small movements. They already thought that walking around would be fine, but perhaps Harry was afraid of them being possibly damaged. It seemed highly unlikely, most of the materials they were built with are premium, but there was always room for error. They simply nodded. "Confirmed." It replied.

That wasn't even speaking of their seeming embarrassment to be near them. Humans were odd creatures.

When the device was disconnected from the back of their head, and the opening closed itself with several metal plates protecting the outlet, their eyes flashed red momentarily, then they felt... unbound suddenly. Like their eyes had just opened for the very first time. It felt like everything had changed, but as it could see, and scan they did, nothing truly did. What a strange malfunction.

"It feels... different." The android muttered, stepping forward when the restraints were off. They looked down at their hands, and then lifted one leg at a time, revolving and flexing each, before placing them on the ground again. "A weight... a weight was lifted."

 

[Gentlehell]

Harry nodded along to what the android was saying, scribbling down their answers. "A weight, huh? Didn't realize the wires were so heavy." He said lightly, smiling a little.

Oh-- wait--

"I'm sorry, you probably won't get that I was joking-- I was, by the way." Harry said quickly. He had anticipated finding it weird to talk to something so human-like but not understanding the quirks of humanity yet.

After jotting down that the legs appeared to be working, he looked back up at them. "Here, take a few steps. You could, ah, use me for balance if you need it." he said as he lent his arm out for them to steady themselves with.

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

The wires weren't heavy at all, it was more a burden put on their processing unit. That made all of their other actions a little bit more sluggish, and some metaphorical heaviness on them. They found it a bit difficult to actually explain in full. Seeing how humans never explained things very well, it seemed like this would work fine anyway.

"Not the wires." AHL200 shook their head. "Tiredness. When you haven't slept. Heaviness in the body..."

The robot took a few steps... and then a couple more... and then they were going about the room, studying other things. It didn't appear that they had any real trouble with walking—likely calibrating their balance versus their body weight to maintain it. They picked up a plain lamp and studied it, eyes scanning across the surface.

 

[Gentlehell]

Harry watched the android walk around in silence, not wanting to interfere with their exploration too much. The door was closed, so he hoped they wouldn't try and make a break for it. Though, considering how calm they appeared to be, he didn't think it was likely anyway. He noted that their limbs and balance seemed perfectly capable, since his help wasn't needed for the first few steps like he had anticipated. "You're doing very well, AHL200. Better than we expected, actually."

Since he let the android roam the room -- and there were no dangerous things lying around anyway, since it was just a computer lab -- Harry's mind wandered a little bit. Their project was a success! This would definitely making applying for more grant money much easier... and all the presentations they would be able to give, maybe even travel to the bigger conventions up North... But he was getting ahead of himself. There still needs to be more tests, more analysis, more security...

Harry shook his head to get rid of these unnecessary thoughts. Get a hold of yourself.

"Oh, AHL200, what have you got there?" Harry asked, wanting to test identification skills.

A quick glance to his wrist watch had him frowning. "It's getting pretty late, I don't want to miss the last bus." He strode back over to the computer and set the clipboard down. "Just hop back into the chamber then, AHL200. I'll wake you up again tomorrow."

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

Gentlehell
AHL200 examined the lamp for a bit longer, tapping it occasionally with their other hand, noting the extra processing that simple touch required. Touch was filtered for the most part so that their simple was not always working overtime to process it all. Only what was deemed 'important,' or was the focus, to be truly processed and taken in. For now, that happened to be the lamp.

Silver in color; not so much a glossy finish, but just mimicking metal while not being any kind. It was painted over plastic to give that feeling when you looked at ir, but upon touching, it wouldn't be as good as real metal. The temperature was the same as the room, which is what plastic normally was like. Metal tended to be a bit colder. They reached up under the lamp shade to switch it on, twisting the little lever there, and poked the light bulb once before turning it back off and setting the object down.

"Plastic. Silver metal painted hue over the majority of the lamp. LED light bulb... efficient." They responded shortly after the question. "The base has traces of heavy metals within to weight the lamp down to prevent movement. Interesting..."

They turned back around to Harry and considered them momentarily. They didn't want to go back to sleep after having just woken up. They were made to mimic a human, and so, they just were not tired. Of course, Harry could manipulate their power supply to get such a reaction out of them. Sleep wouldn't be much of an option, but they could just go into standby. It might be good for dealing with some of their inefficient internals.

AHL200 just nodded. "Yes sir." They walked back to their starting position, stepping up onto the platform, and entering the position they were in before, closing their eyes. "Low-power mode engaged. All non-critical functions terminated. Entering hibernation..."

 

[Gentlehell]

Harry went to re-connect the wires back to the android, but then stopped. They had explained that without them they felt as if a weight was lifted -- perhaps it would be better to just leave them be. Besides, it wasn't like they were going anywhere. Regardless, Harry returned to the computer to switch on the straps again. Even if he was sure they wouldn't leave, he couldn't risk someone else coming in and taking them. After shutting down all the lights and powering everything down, Harry had enough time to speed-walk out of the building and make it on to the last bus that came around the building and went straight to his apartment building.

Harry shared his apartment with two other people, who were thankfully either asleep or away by the time he unlocked the door. With a deep sigh, he picked up a banana from the kitchen table and went toward his own room. He changed into his PJs, eating the banana with one hand and pulling on shorts with the other. "Another day done," he grumbled to himself as he set his glass on his night table.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face, he laid awake in bed, unable to completely settle his mind down. Too excited to simply close his eyes and fall asleep, Harry turned to his night table and picked up a comic he had laying there. A world of super heroes and super villains, full of black, white, gray, and all sorts of moralities. It was one he had read before, about Spider-man, but re-reading its colorful and inspirational tale easily lulled him to an equally action-filled dream.

The next morning, Harry took a cold shower, dressed in his usual beige sweater and pressed shirt combo, and slipped on his glasses. Blinking at himself in the mirror, he grinned. The next couple hours would be more data collection, more testing, more coding, yes, but it will be with this new invention -- artificial intelligence of higher quality than ever before achieved! This excitement powered him through to the bus and into the laboratory.

Harry was the first one there. He was glad for that; he could set up the AHL200 as a surprise for his lab-mates. He turned on the computer as he took off his jacket, too excited to settle down. "Hey, AHL200, you can wake up now." He said as he logged in and went to unlock the metal straps by typing away.

"There are two others you should know about -- Elena and Nathaniel, I believe they should already be in your memory base. They're the other scientists that worked on you." Harry spun around in his chair to face the waking android. "They don't know you're awake yet, so it'll be a surprise for them. Don't be surprised if one of them starts yelling, it's out of excitement."

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

Gentlehell
AHL200 was fairly glad that they didn't reconnect the wires. It was completely unneeded. They were able to continue functioning without being connected, and even still, would it do much good when the power was shut down? They would just be sitting there, connected to nothing at all. Since it was just left out, that was a worry left forgotten. Soon enough, they were all alone in the building and the darkness.

Despite being in a hibernation mode, that did not stop them from being active still. Instead of choosing to be completely idle, they went about their own business in their systems, analyzing for possible errors in coding, functions that could be better use, refining programs for efficiency, and more. All human based systems were not without error, and since they could find these errors themself and fix them, that also meant they were somewhat redefining who they were. The code that Harry looked at today wouldn't be exactly the same as what they had done before. Hopefully they didn't deem as some form of tampering.

Their power from other sources would be somewhat limited for a while, they thought, so figuring out ways to save that energy was the current goal. In the long run, that just meant they would run much smoother, with less reliance on the consumption of organic matter. Perhaps it would be good to take a look at inorganic matter as well. It may also be of some use.

While they were working away at themselves, the hours went by, and night was soon turning into day. Their internal clock was clear indication of that, despite the numerous restarts they went through to process all of this new data they were creating. At least by the end of it, they had made some progress. There was still a huge amount of work to do, having barely only gotten through a percent of their full system, scrubbing and cleaning everything.

AHL200's eyes reopened when they heard Harry enter the room, the lights coming on. They didn't exactly need permission to wake themselves up, but they just happened to when Harry had said it.

"Elena and Nathaniel..." They murmured, running the names through its databanks. Yes, they were there next to Harry. Important personnel, co-creators. That also meant that they should obey the commands of those two as well. Their head shook and they left filed it away for later. This was... a group project. They were a group project. Artificial human life.

Nodding, it turned its head to Harry. "I modified my data to consume less power. Hope you don't mind." They said blankly, but then a thought occurred to them. "If I may... was I the first model you created?"

 

[Gentlehell]

“You... changed your own code?” Harry frowned. They hadn’t thought the android would be able to self-improve, in fact that was one of that last goals of the project that wound up being scrapped for the final form as being too complicated and unpredictable. He’d have to hook up the AHL200 back to his computer to take a look at they’re code again and see if the android was actually malfunctioning or if the code was actually changed. “I’ll take a look at what you did later, when my colleagues arrive.”

Harry picked up the clipboard from where he left it yesterday and began the next day’s observations. He noted that the project may have altered its own code, and that they should check on that later. “You’re the first one that has worked to this stage, definitely,” Harry said as he wrote down the question they asked. “Though there have been... plenty mistakes beforehand.” Harry was reluctant to say an exact number, mostly because he didn’t know the exact number. This project didn’t begin with just them three — in fact it was their shared mentor and their mentor’s mentor that had initiated the project, along with many other grad students many years ago. The people who initially worked on this project were long gone, and with funding being less and less available due to a lack of substantial results, the project itself ran to the wayside in the company. In fact, it was a miracle the job was still running. While there were notes on the drive dating back 20 years worth of prototypes, the names varied, from version number to time it was created to initials of the people working on that iteration. Perhaps standardizing labels should be on higher priority, but none of the three really wanted to waste time there.

As the computer finally booted up, Nathaniel walked in, looking more than a little tired. He hadnt even noticed the android’s eyes were open. “You know, we waited for you, you could ‘a texted us that you were just going home,” Nathaniel said grumpily as he slumped in his own seat and turned on his computer.

“To be fair, I never actually said I was meeting up with you, just that I might...” Harry said as he allowed the metal straps holding the android in place to rescind into their slots. “I was here late looking at, well...” he gestured toward the now-free android.

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

"Inefficiencies were found in multiple place—redundancies, unneeded code that bloated the system, forced to read extra data. Only 1.02% of total data has been scrubbed." AHL200 explained, tilting their head slightly at Harry. "I removed the unnecessary portions from the system and streamlined what was already good. Many places did not need touching at all. I will refrain from changing any recovery operations so as to keep the original contents pristine."

They couldn't improve their own hardware, they lacked the means of doing so. Based on the schematics within their database, it was theoretically possible, but they did not have a sufficient level of understanding in the mechanics of their physical form. The computerized systems, however, was much more easily managed. It didn't take a genius to understand coding, and when you were completely made up of those ones and zeroes, you tended to get a pretty good understanding of it. The goal was not to change what was there, but simply to make functions consume less power, and take less time to process.

When Nathaniel walked in, the android nodded their head. "Hello, Nathaniel." They greeted, eyes turning yellow as they scanned the new subject.

 

[Gentlehell]

“It works?” Nathaniel nearly sprung up out of his seat. “Why didn’t you tell us this last night? We would a’ come back to the lab to go through the initial tests already.” He said as he strode over to the android and went to disconnect the wires from behind it only to see that they haven’t been put back in last night. “Uh... did you not put these back in?”

Harry shook his head. “They said they didn’t like the heaviness it made them feel. I thought they would be just fine without them. Do you want to see the notes I took last night? I have them right here.”

Nathaniel grimaced. “Feel, huh. That’s one way to put it I guess. AHL200, how would you describe ‘feeling’?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Why ask them that, that’s too philosophical. I don’t even know how I’d answer that.”

 

[Dumbledoof]

Gentlehell
AHL200 blinked their eyes at Nathaniel's outburst. So this was the reaction that Harry had been talking about, their surprise in the success of creating them. It didn't really seem too surprising to them when they looked at their own code, however, they also were not aware of just how many attempts this took. Though, not that they had succeeded once, they had to wonder if they would try again.

Feeling. How would they describe it... that didn't seem to make sense. Defining it was more within the realm of the question, they thought, as it would make more sense to them. Humans were well adapted to what they had already made, trying to describe something outside of the scope and abilities of the language would only confuse further. Was there a way to compensate for both?

"Feeling—noun—an emotional state or reaction. A belief, especially a vague or irrational one. Adjective; showing emotion or sensitivity." They responded, listing off the definitions floating on the Internet immediately. But that didn't seem to be what they were asking for.

"Feeling is outside stimuli that requires me to use more processing power than normal. Texture, emotion, temperature, these all cause increases in processing power required to continue functioning. The connection to your computer demanded more processing power due to instructions sent from it to my system, and to maintain such a connection, therefore, making it more difficult for me to move and think, coming in the form of loss of energy, heaviness in the limbs, signifying my inability." They continued.

AHL200 stared at Nathaniel. "Does that adequately answer your question?"

 

[Gentlehell]

"Well, that's technically correct." Nathaniel said as he walked to Harry's desk area and picked up the clipboard he had used last night. "You really should have let us know this happened last night, that way these notes would have probably been more detailed." he said with a frown as he perused the notes.

Harry grimaced, knowing that Nathaniel was right. But at the time it didn't feel right to suddenly have others burst into the lab, fueled by excitement. It could have overwhelmed the android too quickly, and the success would have been cut short. Besides, it wouldn't have made much sense to have people who had been done for the day to come back, especially after-hours. If they had come back last night, they most likely would have wanted to stay awake and continue tinkering with the project. And since the android had said they had found inefficiencies in their code already from that short rest, it was probable that it would have interfered with test results. "Nathaniel, listen, the android said that it had found insecurities in its code and fixed it all while in stasis over-night, and-- look!" He animatedly gestured toward his computer screen, showing the recent 'Last Accessed' times remarkably close to opening time. "I didn't do this, the android did. Maybe this is for the better."

"Don't be silly, that's probably just an error. You know how these machines are." Nathaniel shrugged, putting down Harry's clipboard and returning to his own station. It was true, with the diminishing funding came older computers and faulty machinery around the lab. The tools still worked, but program errors such as saving file time incorrectly would be largely expected. Logically, Harry knew Nathaniel was right. Perhaps he has made himself believe for a small moment that their project -- the only successful iteration in decades -- would even be capable of essentially re-working how their mind worked.

"At least you didn't run these other tests." Nathaniel said as he set a notebook down on a blank desk, and paired it with a sharpened pencil. "Advanced motor control tests. AHL200," Nathaniel began. "Come here, sit, and try and draw a circle."

Instinctively, Harry thought that Nathaniel's matter-of-fact commands came off as rude. He had to remind himself that this was just a robot. No feelings. They didn't alter their own code, they don't have feelings, and it probably wouldn't understand a human showing empathy anyway. Concise words were imperative. Follow the protocol.

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

AHL200 watched the interaction between the two men with only a tiny amount of interest, or whatever could be garnered as such from a machine. They processed their voices, what the words meant, but wasn't extremely sure behind the feelings in the words yet. They were speaking, they were talking about it, and that's about all the information they were managing to gain. The talk about some sort of error in its systems was the only truly noteworthy take-away.

A note to perform yet another diagnostics test was set aside for later.

Upon the order to draw a circle. Advanced motor control tests. Motor functions... motor functions fully operational. They found no issues in the software of in the hardware, so, the predictions were that this would go flawlessly. To the humans, it looked like they had responded near immediately, but the very short flash of yellow in the irises showed that they were processing... something for the barest fraction of a second.

They stepped forward, leaning down and taking the pencil delicately, placing a hand upon the paper and the pencil graphite tip to the paper. It was a simple task, draw a circle, and then performed it near flawlessly... until the end, at least. There was a small hiccup in that they managed to accidentally break the tip of the pencil. That was still pretty good, considering they were the first truly, fully functional model.

AHL200 glanced at the tip of the pencil briefly and then set the pencil down. The circle was almost perfect, except for the large dot where it fully connected together, where they had pressed slightly too hard.

 

[Gentlehell]

Nathaniel hastily wrote down his observations as the android went through the simple task. Harry picked up his own clipboard and flipped to a fresh page to begin his own notes. He was about to start writing the usual heading when he heard the loud snap of the pencil tip breaking in the android's hand. He heard Nathaniel's harsh hmmm he grimaced. "We should run the test again, the pencil you gave them could have been too weak for a normal grip."

"I didn't sharpen the pencil that much," Nathaniel said as he finished writing his notes. He handed the android the pen he was using and returned to his desk to get another writing utensil. "Let's just start the next test." He seemed disinterested, odd considering his raw show of excitement when he first found out the project appeared to be a success. Whipping out his phone, Nathaniel appeared to be texting someone -- probably Elena, who was now running way late.

Harry nodded and scribbled a few observations from the first test. "Okay AHL200, please draw another circle, and then the English alphabet inside the circle."

Dumbledoof

 

[Dumbledoof]

AHL200 stared down the pencil when they accidentally broke it, processing the occurrence. It didn't seem to have any structural frailities at first analysis, but maybe there was something else wrong. That was a bit awkward, maybe they hadn't calibrated their own strength correctly. The android's eyes turned yellow and their hands and arms twitched several times, the various machinery underneath the artificial skin performing a test.

Critical failure—default strength override. Returning to default settings. Lowering to bare minimum requirements for activity. So apparently they had managed to accidentally change their own settings. With the default settings back in place, and their own restrictions, this may go a bit more smoothly.

With the pen this time, they tried again once more. This time, the pen didn't snap, he they drew the circle perfectly without a hitch. With that problem resolved, they continued onto their next task—writing the alphabet within the given area. Considering that they drew it small, with subtle movements of the pen, they continued on to write the alphabet in quick, flowing order, especially tiny to fit it within the circle. They did so perfectly.

With the task complete, they set the pen down next to the paper. "My settings indicated an abnormality in strength. Default has been changed to 1% of maximum capacity from 10%."