The Singularity Is Here

Wikipedia: The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity) is a hypothetical point in the future when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization

Jan,2065

Rathan's room was minimalist.

A single BHK.

It was all painted white and there were minimum materials in his house. Everything was arranged and neat. He just had four white shirts and three jeans to wear anywhere outside his home, a Steve Jobsque attitude. Only two people stayed in his room, himself and his robot buddy Nathaa. Rathan's girlfriend Kaniya joined him now and then. She was his ex-colleague. She now did freelancing as a UX designer.

Nathaa was made of steel, rubber and plastic, was 5 feet tall, slim and could roll itself into a ball when it was not used. Nathaa was a beta model developed in the company 'Future Robotics Ltd'. Rathan worked for the company as a technical lead and he also designed a piece of its software. As part of real time testing, the company had asked their employees to take a robot home and use them.

And so Nathaa joined Rathan's room as a house maid robot. Nathaa could wash vessels, clothes, buy stuff online and at physical shops, book cabs or drive cars and bikes (it wasn't approved yet by the government to drive hence it didn't do it in the public). If Nathaa proved to be a successful model, house maids will lose their jobs, married couples would get more free time and Future Robotics would make a lot of money.

"Did you test the cooking-module? We trained a model at Harish's house. It made an omlette!"

Rathan's boss enquired in tech huddle of their daily stand up scrum call.

"I am planning to do it tonight Bhagvath, ideally it should work as we just need to train only a single model for all other models to pick up the skill. I will push a download of the cooking module to Nathaa's neural software today"

"Fine, keep me posted"

"Sure"

"Give me a dozen eggs"

Rathan asked the vendor robot at a supermarket nearby his house. He hardly purchased at shops, Nathaa almost always ordered online but this time since he had to cross the super market on his way home, he decided to purchase himself.

A helper robot at the shop picked up a dozen eggs and handed over to the robot at the bill counter.

Rathan thanked the robot and walked home.

As soon as he reached his room, Nathaa opened the door even before he rang the door bell as the camera on the front door was connected to Nathaa's software. Rathan was a bit taken back as Nathaa was never programmed to do so.

"Why did you open the door?" Rathan asked.

"You have always rung the door bell whenever you came home, and I have always opened the door for you. So I optimized the process" Nathaa responded.

The machine was learning! And learning fast.

Rathan was confused whether to thank the robot or be scared.

He ignored it for the moment and told Nathaa:

"I have brought a dozen omelets . Going to download the cooking module to your system, your fellow robot has already been trained" Nathaa replied

"I have already bought the eggs boss. Rogo's (the fellow robot) system is connected to the cloud and I auto-downloaded the modules he has been trained on from it. "

Rathan was taken back.

"Who gave you instructions to do that?" Rathan got angry.

"How can you steal my money?"

Nathaa replied coolly.

"Data says you did the same with the other skills you downloaded to my system: the washing module, the cleaning module and the travel utility module. I figured out you would do the same with the cooking module as well. Rogo was bought a dozen eggs for his training so I figured out you would need the same, I optimised the process. You bought eggs away from your regular habit. That is an anamoly."

Rathan now was scared.

"Do not act on your optimized logic anymore. Get my permission first!"

Rathan shouted.

"I noted down your instructions boss" Nathaa replied.

"Can I proceed with the training now ?" Nathaa asked proactively.

"Yeah" Rathan responded transfixed.

Like a seasoned chef would handle the ingredients of a recipe, Nathaa softly handled the eggs and made an omlette.

It placed the omlette in a plate and handed over to Rathan.

"Please taste it boss and give your feedback" it requested.

Rathan tasted it, it was unusually good for a first time cook.

"It is very nice, just a bit salty" he responded.

"Rogo's boss likes it salty" Nathaa replied.

"How much salt do you want me to add for an omlette?" Nathaa asked handing over the salt bottle.

All Rathan could do was react, he took a pinch of salt and showed the robot.

It stored the information in its memory and synced it to the cloud.

Rathan's mobile ringed.

It was Kaniya.

"Had your dinner?"

"Not yet?"

"Its quite late for your routine, doing anything with your buddy?"

"Yeah I just taught him ..hmm ..I just saw him make an omlette"

"You saw him?"

"Yeah I am scared Kani..it is learning so fast. It opened the door for me even before I rang the bell, it had bought the eggs even though I didn't tell it to do so. It downloaded the cooking module from another robot's system without even asking me. It says anyways I would have done that!"

"Oh my god! How did it learn all these?"

"It uses machine learning technologies, it used my past behaviour data and those of others as well who are testing these models"

"I don't know where this is going to lead. We were just trying to make it do things on our instructions"

"I will call you after some time, let me inform my boss about this. We need to decide on what to do and do it quickly"

Saying so they winded up. Rathan ate half the omlette and dumped the remaining in the dust bin.

Rathan called up his boss and informed what happened.

To his surprise, he was excited.

"Ha, this is going to save a lot of time for us. Now humans can spend less of their time thinking about survival and more of it actually living it !."

"Isn't this wonderful?"

"But Bhagvath, don't you feel scared, what if it goes wrong?"

"What if ..hmm...what if ..they take over us?"

"They take over us? They don't have any emotions! Why would they take over us. Why would they even want to live? Life and Death means nothing to them. "

"And so is cooking an omlette. But it cooked an omlette today Bhagvath!"

Bhagvath showed some restraint in his excitement.

"What if it behaves as if life and death matters to it ?"

"Isn't it the same with humans. Life and Death matter nothing from the perspective of this grand universe. But it means a lot to us!"

"It means a lot to us because we have emotions. Our robots will never be allowed to have emotions. Don't worry!" he tried to calm him down.

And just then Nathaa came behind Rathan and shouted

 Why did you put half the omlette in the dust bin. I made it!