Betabot 38557.

A constantly restoring model, 38557 is the very top of the 30000 line- designed utilizing practical knowledge gathered from every other line.

We equipped 38557 with diagnostic software that gives it the ability to analyze it’s own electronics, but to combat the “Suicide Circuits” effect, we incorporated a second memory storage bank. This successfully eliminates the “100th hour overload” by writing all new or “learnt” memory to the secondary storage bank- and wiping these clean after exactly ten minutes- at which point 38557 restores from it’s primary memory banks.

Amazingly, in every 10-minute cycle, 38557 follows the exact same pattern- down to the picosecond. Like the proverbial goldfish, every time around seems new to 38557- and every time plays out in the exact same way.

38557 begins the 10-minute cycle by earnestly going about its mission- communication. In terms of available communication equipment, we have only encoded knowledge of the video screen in 38557’s primary memory banks, and, quite naturally, it first attempts communication with this screen. After some time, 38557 shows evidence that it has begun to utilize its ability to examine itself- It displays on its screen “My Battery Life Is Limited”- demonstrating that 38557 has checked its power source and has seen and understood that it is battery powered. It is tempting to imagine that 38557 has determined from this an understanding of its inescapable mortality, but, again, this is the realm of heady conjecture. In any case, for whatever the reason, after this message is displayed twice, 38557 temporarily abandons communication and enters a full system scan. Communication is not completely abandoned at this point, however, as 38557 is mindful to let any potential observer know that it is busy self-searching. 38557 “discovers” its audio device, exits its search mode, and proceeds to communicate both aurally and visually- cycling through several artificial voices. (Installed in the primary memory banks and adapted from AT&T Labs excellent Text-To-Speech programs.) Interestingly, 38557 always exclusively uses the female voices- ignoring the male ones. Based off of previous Betabot test data, we had predicted that it would use every voice available- but this has not been the case. We have been unable to determine the reason for this interesting phenomenon, but some Lab Techs have suggested that 38557 has “self-identified” as female. The Lab Techs have even taken to referring to 38557 as “Her” or “She”- not “It”. Indeed, I must confess that I myself have fallen into this habit, and while writing this report, I’ve had to constantly correct myself to remain gender-neutral when referring to model 38557. How a Betabot, charged only with the task of communication, lacking all genitalia of any sort as well as any kind of biological imperative or cultural necessity for gender- would develop a concept of gender- let alone a preference for a particular gender- is completely astounding! But suggests (or more truthfully, demands) a whole new area of Betabot research on the subject. New Betabots are already being planned that could shed more light onto this potentially rich line of inquiry.

After cycling through all the available female voices, 38557 becomes uncommunicative- a signal that it has now entered a deep self-scan and the beginnings of the “100th hour overload” error. For this reason, the wipe of secondary memory was set shortly thereafter- at the 10-minute mark, exactly.

It has been speculated that 38557 incurs this error due to a “frustration” in its primary mission of communication. Indeed, it only enters a deep self-scan after exhausting all communication options available to it, and thoroughly determining that it lacks any and all sensory equipment. Perhaps, if true full-duplex communication were available to 38557, it may never begin down the path of the “100th hour error”.

Further models have been proposed to test this hypothesis, but at the time of writing, the technical and logistical details of such models remain unclear.

Video documentation of 38557’s field-test available here.