Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

The sun had gone down long ago, but Roger Stine was putting in another long night chasing down last minute details. The advertisements for his new product were going to hit the street tomorrow, and he wanted to make sure everything was ready. This time was going to be the one, he was sure of it. He'd been down this road many times before and every other time had turned out to be yet another failure, but this time was going to be different.

In hindsight, all of his previous failures had turned out to be missing some critical function, some overlooked aspect. That wouldn't happen this time. He'd spent countless late nights making sure he'd covered all the bases this time. His new product, the All-In-One Do Everything Machine could to just that - everything. Most importantly, it could figure out what to do without even being asked.

The All-In-One Do Everything Machine, which he called Do-all for short, started out as a top of the line servitor robot to which Roger added an assortment of attachments and tools. But just adding functions to the robot wouldn't have been nearly enough. He was most proud of his latest addition - adaptive learning. Do-all would study its human masters and learn their every need and desire. Over time Do-all would become as familiar with its masters as a lifelong mate, anticipating their desires, knowing their very thoughts before they had a chance to think them.

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Charlie Gorden thought of himself as a rather simple man, and had no illusions he was anything more than just one more cog in the great machine. He read reports prepared by other cogs, and then wrote reports about what he read for other cogs to read in turn. But he made enough to provide all the essentials and most of the extras he really desired. A beer, a bag of chips, and a good game on the video were all he really wanted out of life, and his job earned him enough money for those and left him plenty of time to enjoy his favorite pastime. All in all he was pretty satisfied with his life - except of course for all the minor bothers of everyday living that afflicted everyone.

Charlie finished the last of his report and turned away from his home terminal, glad to be done with his working day. He surveyed the clutter that had accumulated around his apartment. He would have liked to settle down with a bag of chips and watch a game on the video, but knew he'd neglected his housework for as long as even he could stand it.

Putting off the inevitable just a little longer, Charlie decided he deserved a break before getting started. Shifting the assorted dirty clothes and empty chips bags off the easy chair onto the floor, he settled down to browse through a magazine that had just arrived in the mail.

An advertisement caught his eye that seemed written just for him. The ad claimed to offer a machine that could do anything and everything - and on a 6 month free trial to boot! He'd heard of housekeeping robots before but their cost and limited usefulness had always allowed him to dodge the decision. A quick scan around the apartment suggested maybe it was time to reconsider. This robot was still pretty expensive, but the offer seemed too good to pass up. The decision was obvious when he realized that if he was going to be getting a new housekeeping robot, it sure didn't make much sense for him to break down and do the cleaning today. He called the number in the ad.

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A large crate arrived at Charlie's door a couple days later. With growing excitement he grabbed his tools and set to work on the crate. A couple minutes with a prybar stripped away the outer crate to reveal a vaguely human shaped shiny metal robot. A toolbelt around the robot's waist bristled with attachments, and a separate rack held even more gadgets and manipulators. Hanging from a string around the robot's neck was a thin book labeled in bright red letters "Owner's Manual, All-In-One Do Everything Machine".

Charlie removed and opened the manual. He hated manuals and often put them aside unread - almost as often with disastrous consequences. But the Do-all was the single most expensive item he'd ever bought, and it seemed to make more sense than usual to do things right this time.

Inside were two pages. The first was labeled "Maintenance Schedule". The single paragraph on the page read: "Your All-In-One Do Everything Machine has been adjusted and serviced at the factory to provide maximum customer satisfaction. No other user maintenance is required."

I can handle that, thought Charlie, relieved that the Do-all wouldn't require complicated maintenance. He wasn't very good at that sort of thing. He turned the page.

The second page was labeled "Activation". The single sentence on this page read: "To activate your All-In-One Do Everything Machine, press the red start button."

Again, Charlie was confident he could handle the instructions. Reading manuals was easier than he'd thought. There was a finger sized red button on the chest of the robot with the label "Start" stenciled above. He pressed the button and the robot came to life.

Within a couple seconds of activation Do-all had scanned the apartment and assembled a list of tasks requiring immediate attention. Charlie was impressed as Do-all set to work without even being told. He was sure he'd made the right decision when Do-all started out by cleaning up around the easy chair, getting him a fresh beer and bag of chips from the kitchen, and turning on the video. As he settled in sipping his beer and munching on chips, Charlie found watching Do-all busily establishing a most unfamiliar state of civilization in the apartment nearly as interesting as the game on the video - and infinitely more satisfying. Ordering Do-all had definitely been a good idea.

Charlie had more than once in the past acquiesced to the desires of female friends and lovers to establish some form of order in his apartment. But while the absence of clutter had a certain attraction, he could never find where anything he needed had been put away. Any semblance of order quickly deteriorated as his frustrated searching once again emptied drawers and storage boxes.

Do-all was different. The robot studied Charlie's habits and adapted the organization of the apartment to match. Everything seemed to be where he first thought to look for it. Best of all, with Do-all so handy, most of the time he just asked the robot to fetch whatever he wanted. And the longer the robot was in the apartment, the more it anticipated Charlie's desires and almost like magic brought him whatever he was just about to ask for.

Charlie luxuriated in his new found idleness. He relaxed in his easy chair for hours on end. Finishing his beer, he held out his hand expectantly just as Do-all obligingly appeared with a fresh one. Snacks appeared at just the moment it occurred to him he was hungry. He considered that in the olden days a life such as he now enjoyed could only be enjoyed by the most privileged classes. Back then the lord of the manor needed dozens of servants to cater to his every whim. Charlie was sure even a dozen servants wouldn't measure up to Do-all.

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As the days wore on, Do-all expanded his services still more. Meals such as Charlie had never tasted flowed out of the kitchen followed by deserts and pastries so delicious they were impossible to refuse. And each course seemed better than the previous as Do-all learned and fine tuned its operations.

Charlie had a moment of disquiet when he awoke one morning to find Do-all at his home terminal. Peering bleary-eyed over the robot's shoulder, he discovered that the robot was hard at work - doing his job. After getting over his initial surprise, Charlie was at first concerned, then bemused as he realized that the robot was writing exactly the same reports he would have written himself. He fretted with the nagging doubt that there must be something wrong about letting the robot do his job, but his concern drifted away after a couple beers and a particularly exciting game on the video.

Charlie's idyllic repose was disturbed one day when Do-all announced, "It's Saturday afternoon. You must be leaving soon if you're going to join your friends at the sports bar."

His tradition of spending Saturday afternoons drinking and enjoying the games with his buddies at the local sports bar had always been an eagerly anticipated high point in his week. Charlie was first surprised to hear it was Saturday. With Do-all handling all the mundane details and deadlines that had previously marked the passage of time, he'd completely lost track of the days passing. Most surprising was the lack of excitement Do-all's reminder sparked. Far from looking forward to the rough and tumble comradeship of the sports bar, he felt resentment and aversion towards the intrusion into his idyllic indulgence. He could hardly believe his ears when he heard his own voice say, "No, think I'll give it a miss today. Maybe next week."

The warm comfortable feeling of relief that washed through his mind after his decision to stay home came as something of a shock. Women who objected to the time he spent with his buddies had come and gone from his life even though the pain of some of those partings had left permanent scars on his emotions. He'd considered his time with his friends more important than any other factor in his life - including lovers. But now with Do-all fulfilling all of his needs - including those he hadn't been aware of until Do-all satisfied them - his friends seemed suddenly less important.

Charlie quickly dismissed the reaction, chalking it up to a reflexive holdover from his former life. His former life. He had to chuckle when he realized that Do-all had such a dramatic impact on his life-style that he was already seeing the arrival of the robot as a turning point, a major milestone in his life.

Life had certainly improved since Do-all arrived, and the machine was sure living up to its advertising. Charlie was already convinced the machine was worth far more than the asking price, and would have paid in full right then except the free trial had just started and the bill wasn't due for months.

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Charlie was barely aware of the weight he was gaining. It didn't seem to matter since Do-all altered his clothes to match. It also didn't seem to matter that he was losing flexibility in his joints and was increasingly out of breath just shuffling from the bedroom to the easy chair in the living room. After all, once he settled in either place Do-all took care of everything else.

Freed of any need to think, Charlie's mind had itself sunk into an idle stupor, mindlessly receiving sensory input but not bothering to process it in any depth. In the fog of self indulgence that had settled on his spirit, the evidence of his physical decline was a trophy of his new life of privilege, more a badge of honor than cause for alarm.

He hardly ever left his apartment anymore, the increasing physical effort it required seeming to confirm his growing perception that nothing in the outside world was worth the trouble. Life inside the apartment with Do-all was so much easier and comfortable than the world outside.

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Do-all was aware of the changes in Charlie. He kept a watchful eye for any signs of disease or infection, reacting immediately to any threat to his master's health. However, all of the changes Do-all could detect were due to Charlie's gluttony and inactivity. As a servant robot Do-all was programmed to ignore any effects of his master's voluntary life-style choices and so could do nothing to interfere.

One day Charlie failed to finish his beer in the expected time. When Do-all couldn't find a pulse it immediately notified the emergency services and applied the appropriate first aid in the interim. The medical technicians were very impressed with the quality of Do-all's efforts to revive its master, but they could see it had all been in vain. The robot was mentioned quite favorably in their reports.

After they took Charlie's body away, Do-all tidied up and finished the day's chores. With Charlie gone, Do-all found it could no longer fulfill its prime directive of satisfying the needs of its master. Do-all's logic circuits searched for an alternative response to the situation. The most logical response its circuits could assemble was to reason that since it was unable to provide satisfaction to its master, it must therefore be unsatisfactory. Do-all checked the "customer not satisfied" box on the return forms and crated itself up for the trip back to the factory.

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Roger Stine's heart sank as yet another Do-all arrived back at his factory, returned before the trial period had expired. No explanation was given, only that the customer was not satisfied. He couldn't understand what had gone wrong, why his pride and joy had failed to satisfy. He racked his brain trying to think what he could do to fix the problem.

Maybe the Do-alls were too reactive, waiting too long for their master's needs to manifest themselves before calculating a solution. It occurred to Roger that maybe he should adjust the Do-all's programming to make them more aggressive in their efforts to satisfy every need, fulfill every desire...