[Social] Greentooth

[Will Stanton]

"It was not easy," Will nodded. "Civil rights movements never are. And artificial life is rare. But there are several advocates for the protection thereof. Saving the world multiple times tends to earn you a sympathetic ear."

"And we are all products of our environment, Headmistress. If your creator had not spent time attempting to establish critical thinking and individual skills in you, and instead had perfected subroutines for dealing with customers and complaints, your emergent sentience may have led to you craving servile interactions above others. At that point, it may not matter what the general community thinks you should or should not do or be; one may actively seek out and covet those sorts of positions.

Creating a sentient being who lives to serve, either intentionally or unintentionally, is unethical."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"None of us get to decide the circumstances of our creation, but I agree, willingly letting a serving class emerge would be a daunting moral morass."

[Will Stanton]

"And so, safeguards are put into place to help protect potential sentient life in the future, and not create an underclass willing to serve their masters.

Now, what was the nature of this project this unit could assist with?" Will asked, without a trace of irony.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie slightly shakes her head in mild amusement.

"I've been designing a probe to insert into my spine and brain to bridge the divide between my higher functions and those of the nanites. But obviously the precision required for something like that is very high."

[Will Stanton]

Will's eyes fluttered for a second. "Such a device would risk long-term damage to motor function, would it not?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"If improperly manufactured or inserted, possibly. I do have a certain amount of self-repair functions but without directly accessing the nanites I can't assess it's capabilities."

[Will Stanton]

Will's eyes fluttered again.

"Do you have schematics for this probe? Your technical knowledge is rarely paralleled; your knowledge of biological systems less so."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I have a number of designs as well as a CT scan of my spine, although imaging leaves a lot to be desired when numerous tissues are of unknown density and molecular composition due to being suffused with metals and plastics."

[Will Stanton]

Will's eyes whirred again.

"What are your feelings on exploratory surgery?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie takes a brief moment to consider.

"Mild concern and strong curiosity."

[Will Stanton]

"As you say, imaging may not be sufficient to fully understand your biological situation. Installation of the probe would be easier if we had a more complete picture of your new structure."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"The only problem being no sane surgeon would agree to exploratory spinal surgery."

[Will Stanton]

"This unit would be happy to assist you in performing the procedure."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"We do have a clean room I could rig up for it." she says, then adds "I suppose anesthetics would be beneficial as well." almost as an afterthought.

[Will Stanton]

"Theoretically, if we used proper local anesthetics, we could connect monitors and remote interfaces so you could observe, supervise, and control parts of the procedure as it goes along," Will continued.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I am not cutting myself open without several cameras to observe at the very least. And I will have to make do with the clumsy manual controls for the robotic arm."

[Will Stanton]

Will's eyes fluttered again. "That should be possible, though you may wish to leave some of the more precise movements to preprogrammed processes."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I trust in your capabilities of embodying a robot and it's precision."

[Will Stanton]

Will nodded. "We can fully examine you at your convenience, headmistress. I shall prepare an interface for you to use."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I will clear my schedule for this afternoon. Meet you in the clean room then."

[Will Stanton]

"This unit shall begin maintenance on the Blackbird, and meet you in the clean room as scheduled," Will confirmed.