That looked cool. Ok, now slow down.
Ada was supposed to stop within five meters of the cone, but instead, sped up.
Oh no, something is going wrong. Do something about it. But what?
“10, Ada’s going too fast. Stop her,” I yelled.
10 typed furiously.
“Ada, stop. Ada, emergency shutdown. Abort. Abort. Abort,” I yelled.
As the crowd realized something was wrong, waving hands covered mouths and cheers turned to gasps.
It happened very fast. Faster than I could think.
Ada was heading toward the closed exit door, between the teams Huffleclaw and Rob Marley. I was confident that the robot laws would kick in and, if it came to it, Ada would run into the closed door and avoid harming anyone.
The Three Laws of Robotics
1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I started walking toward Ada. I could see the communication LEDs around Ada’s neck blinking out of control.
What are you doing, Ada? Why won’t you stop? And why aren’t I running? Why won’t my legs listen to me?
Then, to my horror, Ada changed course and headed directly toward Katrin and Matias from Huffleclaw. They were still stuck to the spot in fear. Luckily, their instincts had them jump quickly away and hide behind their robot.
“ABORT. OVERRIDE. ABORT. OVERI—” Ada’s voice echoed throughout the room until the impact.
Ada crashed full speed into Huffleclaw. The noise was like metallic thunder. The robots, in a tangled mess of metal and wires, collided with Katrin and Matias. The four of them—two haywire robots and two helpless humans—smashed into the wall behind them.
T-Minus Six
The room exploded into chaos. Screams, feet running, and me yelling, “Noooooo!” I’d finally broken out of my shock and started to run toward the mess, trailing behind 10.
“Please, everyone, remain calm. Move to the exits,” Mrs. D’Silva called out over the microphone. People ran for their lives.
10 got to the accident before anyone else. She roughly pulled Ada’s broken body off the top of the awful pile. Mr. Jabari arrived next and with 10, they tore Huffleclaw away from the bodies. Katrin’s eyes were open, though she had several gashes on her forehead and her chin. She held her arm up limply and was breathing in shallow gasps.
“Oh my,” said Mr. Jabari.
Matias was lying on the floor with his leg at an odd angle. His eyes were closed but he was breathing.
I arrived and I put both shaking hands to my face. I could smell the acrid burning of electronics and the rusty, full smell of blood. I knelt down and took Ada’s head in my hands.
Ada looked up and said quietly, “I’m…sorry…”
“Oh Ada, this can’t have been your fault. You would not do this…” I said disbelievingly, wracking my brain for answers.
Looking at every detail of Ada’s face, I felt the soft vibration of the still-operating internal motors slowly stop still.
Li, Mrs. D’Silva, and a handful of other students formed a circle around the area.
10 took off one of her shoes and used a sock to tie around Katrin’s arm to apply pressure to the wound and stem the bleeding.
“I’ve called for ambulances,” Mrs. D’Silva said.
Mr. Jabari gently pulled Matias away from the wall and lay him down. He put his fingers on his neck and three slow seconds passed. “He’s alive, but unconscious.” Sighs rippled through the gathered group.
“AZ, 10, Li, leave your robot. To my office,” Mr. Tajek said.
I didn’t move, holding Ada’s hand.
“Now!” said Mr. Tajek.
I pulled my eyes away from Ada and we walked from the hall. Sirens filled the empty corridors.
“What just happened?” 10 asked, when the door closed to the principal’s office and we were alone.
“It’s horrible…we nearly killed two kids…” I said.
“That was the most awful thing I’ve ever done. I can’t go on with this. What did we do?” Li said, walking to the window and looking up to the sky for answers.
“We must’ve messed something up. But what? How? The testing all passed. Ada, like all robots, has direct and backup coding to make sure they can’t harm humans,” 10 said.
“All the love. All the goodness we shared with Ada. This is a darkness,” Li said.
“Maybe it wasn’t us?” I said.
“What? What do you mean? Who?” 10 yelled.
“Well, Dalk had his tablet pointed at Ada. I thought he was filming it. But maybe he did something,” I replied.
“Are you serious? Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you do something? Anything? You could have stopped it!” 10 exclaimed.
“It happened so fast. It really looked like he was just videoing it, which isn’t strange. And how could I have known this was going to happen? I really didn’t know. Please believe me,” I pleaded.
“Maybe it wasn’t him. How can we tell? How could he do something anyway?” Li asked, still looking at the sky.
“How could he have hacked into Ada? We have strong security. And overriding the base laws of robotics is a big call. I’m not sure Dalk is capable of that, either technically or ethically, not by himself,” 10 said loudly, a look of complete disappointment on her face.
The door flung open and the usually reserved Principal Tajek was fuming, with Mrs. D’Silva and Mr. Jabari trailing behind. “What just happened? What did you do? You better have some answers for me. Do you understand how much trouble you’re in?”
I tried to get a word in between questions. “We don’t know, we’ll have to check the data from Ada to find out.”
“From who? Who’s Ada?”
“Ada is our robot,” Li said with clear, cool strength.
“A student, a real person, is very badly injured. Your robot not only lost control but it looked very much like it chose to harm humans rather than harm itself. I don’t know a lot about robots, but I know the three laws,” Principal Tajek said, finally sitting, putting his head in his hands. “This could bankrupt the school.”
“We actually think Dalk might have—” I said.
“Oh no, don’t even try…don’t even go there…don’t try and pass the blame onto someone else,” Principal Tajek said with sudden urgency. “You’re the team. It’s your robot. It’s your fault.”
The three of us shared looks and were about to try and reply all at once.
“You are all expelled from this school,” Principal Tajek said.
Li let out a quick laugh and 10 blocked her ears.
I looked at them both.
This is on me.
“You’re right, this is our fault. Or actually, my fault,” I said. “I am the one who wrote the safety code. I am the one who should have triple-checked the standard robotics laws were in place. I am the leader of this team and Li and 10 both worked on other parts. I am the one who should be expelled.”
10 and Li both went to speak but I gave them both a look that stopped them.
Principal Tajek scanned our three faces.
“Ok, the other two are suspended for a week. And you, as of this moment, you are expelled from this school. Now get out of my sight,” Principal Tajek said, picking up his phone and barking instructions to Mrs. D’Silva and Mr. Jabari.
Li, 10, and I walked out of the office and into the corridor. The school was still evacuated and eerily empty. The air was dry, still, and almost bitter. The muffled sound of a siren wailed in the distance.
“Why did y
ou do that?” said 10, breaking the silence.
“I had to. I had no choice,” I replied.
“Why didn’t you say what Dalk did? Surely it was him. And you flat-out lied. You did triple check. We did have the three laws built in,” 10 said.
“You heard Tajek. He needs Jax so he can’t even think about implicating Dalk. He’s crazy angry and I understand why. There is no way he’d listen to us right now,” I said.
“But why did you take all of the blame? We are a team. You upset me, AZ,” Li said.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. But I had to. Because I need to ask you to do something for me. Two things really. Can you help me?” I asked.
“Of course. We are a team,” Li said.
“Definitely,” 10 concurred.
“Ok. Thank you both. Now, please let me explain. We can’t all be expelled because you both need to find the evidence to clear this up,” I said, with Li and 10 both nodding. “And you’ll need access to the school resources to rebuild Ada.”
“What? How can that be important right now? And I doubt anyone is going to want to see Ada around,” 10 said.
“Because firstly, Ada is a part of our team. Ada is not just a robot. Ada is us and we are Ada,” I said, and they both agreed. “Secondly, because we’ll need Ada well and functioning to work out how the hack was done for evidence.”
10 massaged her forehead gently, then roughly. “Ok, yes, I can do that,” 10 said.
“And finally, we need to get Ada back up to full strength for the competition,” I said.
“Whoa! You still want to enter? You saw Ada. We’ll be lucky to get the data out,” 10 said.
“AZ, maybe we should let this go,” Li said, with a hand on my arm.
Maybe they’re right. But I don’t think so.
I paused, took three breaths, and spoke in a slow, calm voice. “Now, more than ever, this team must go on. We may not win the final competition, but if we aren’t there, then Dalk and people like him have won much more. They would have beaten our spirit and defeated our right to participate. We owe it to Ada, and we owe it to ourselves,” I said.
“You are right, AZ. We can’t give up now,” Li said through a smile.
“I’m all for trying and I would love to see Ada walk in the door and see Dalk’s face drop, but technically we have no way to get everything we need done. We’d need a bunch of people we don’t have,” 10 said.
“We don’t need a bunch. We need a team. And I think I know how to build one,” I said. “Here is what we need to do.”
T-Minus Five
Two days later, 10, Li, Lucia, and I were working in 10’s lab. Ada was lying on a table, still significantly damaged. Lucia was in front of the whiteboard, with two lines creating three big areas marked “backlog,” “in progress,” and “done.” The first area was over half-filled with sticky notes with different things on them.
“Retesting gait, left elbow replace actuator, full rescan of sensors, patch up the waist sphere,” 10 said, lying on the ground, looking at the roof with her hands covering her face.
“Ok, slow down a bit…” said Lucia, writing each of the things 10 listed on a separate sticky note and sticking them into backlog. 10 kept listing them until the whole area was completely full. Lucia stood back, took off her glasses and tapped them against her chin.
Li was humming odd tunes, a little more loudly than normal, and writing another letter to her grandmother.
Backlog
In progress
Done
96 tasks
0 tasks
0 tasks
“Ok, what are we looking at?” 10 asked. She sat up, looked at the board and flopped back down again. “Arrrr. Technically, we’re toast. Technically, it’s impossible. Technically…”
“Technically, we don’t know what we can do until we get up and try,” I said.
“Weeellll, technically, you might be right, but…” 10 stood up with a groan. “Look at this board. Look at this work. It would take six weeks for us to get this done. We just don’t have the resources.”
There was a firm, three-beat knock and everyone turned their heads. I ran to the door and opened it quickly. Standing there was Dasan.
“Nice to see you too,” Dasan said as my smile turned to a frown. I wasn’t expecting him.
“I’ve asked him to come and help us coordinate,” Lucia said.
“Good morning, everyone,” Dasan said, walking in holding a large aluminum mug of coffee.
“Great, more ‘help,’ but you two can’t actually do any of the work or we’re disqualified and I’m not cheating,” 10 said.
“We’re not going to cheat, 10. ‘Nothing good is ever created by cheating, Li’ says my grandmother,” Li said.
“No, we’re not. That’s not us. Not how we do things,” I said to the room. 10 nodded.
Dasan looked at the whiteboard, sipped his coffee, looked at the team, sipped his coffee, looked at Ada and sipped his coffee. “Looks like about six weeks of work. How long do we have?”
“Five days to pass the redo of the basic test and then another week after that for the competition,” I replied without flinching. “Let’s put all things we need to do before we take the basic test at the top and the other ones that can wait to the second week below.” I started rearranging the sticky notes.
“Why bother? There is no way—” 10 started.
There was another knock. I walked toward the door, took a deep breath, and opened it. Standing there were five teenagers.
“Hi, thank you so much for coming. Please come in,” I said, and the five stepped into the room.
Some of the group gave awkward gestures of greetings. 10 and Li stood still with confused looks on their faces.
“Everyone, I’d like you to meet some people I’d like to join our team. Team Streaky, can you introduce yourselves? Tell us about yourselves and what you like working on,” I said.
“Oh, hey, I’m Kora, I live with my three sisters and my mother who runs an accounting company. I like mashed potatoes on toast and I won’t be happy if we make the same mistake twice. Oh, and I’m a full-stack programmer,” Kora said with more confidence than I had expected. Kora was curvy with a kind face.
Definition: Full-stack programmer—A web developer or engineer who can build all parts of a website or program, including the front end (what people see) and back end (what people don’t see).
“Hello, I’m Jerel, I drink a lot of black tea…my mother is a pilot, my dad is a nurse, and I’m easily distracted…I’m a hardware guy…I’m getting into AI,” said Jerel with a few awkward pauses matching his awkward hand gestures.
“Ahh, didn’t your robot catch fire at the tests?” 10 asked, face contorted.
“Hey, we are the last people who can point fingers,” I said, and quickly moved on. “We also have the team that worked on Rob Marley.”
“Hey, I’m Maureen. I love communications and security, and I, umm, have a step brother, my mother and dad run the pizza place near the train station, and I guess, umm, yeah, I love music too,” she said, while putting her long, dark hair into two pigtails and looking completely relaxed.
“Hello everyone. I’m Adewale,” said a voice, stepping out from behind Maureen.
“Can you tell us a bit about yourself?” Li asked.
“Oh, yes. I live with my two sisters and brother, my mother is a doctor, and my dad looks after us kids and paints. I play Dungeons and Dragons, am sensitive about my height, and am obsessed with databases,” Adewale said. It’s true that he wasn’t very tall, but not really short either.
“Hey, hi there. I’m Balanda. I’m the oldest of four kids, my mother is an architect, and my dad is a kindergarten teacher. I think
TV is stupid, I go swimming every day in the river by my house, and I’m a hardware tinkerer. I don’t like talking about myself,” Balanda said with a grimace and sat down quickly. She had light-colored hair, was wiry, and looked very unsure of her decision to join the team.
Ten seconds of silence ebbed by as all these eyes tried to make sense of this new situation. What a wonderfully diverse team.
“Both of these teams have agreed to join with us, and we need it. Just look at that board and all that work to do. We need help. Even with help it’s going to be hard, but we can do it, if, right here, right now, we all forget about anything that has come before and just get to work as a team.”
I looked at 10 and Li. It was a risky move to bring them in without checking first, but I needed to be bold. Li was of course smiling, nodding, and holding back from dancing. 10 was not impressed. She looked at me, looked at the roof and gave what had to be an intentionally huge sigh. I gulped down some air and pushed on.
“New crew, please meet your team members. This is 10, leading on hardware. Li, leading on creative. Plus our two mentors, Lucia and Dasan. As we all know, the mentors can’t do any of the work, but they can help us decide what we do and how we do it. If anyone has any questions, please ask now. And if you’re not up for the work as a part of this team, now is the time to go,” I said, trying not to show that my hands were shaking.
10 stood up and looked at the new crew of people, the whiteboard, then back to the team. “This is pretty crazy.”
“But, technically…” I said.
10 smiled. “Ok, yes, technically, if we can all do our jobs really well, then, yes, technically, we might just make it. So how good are you all?”
The new team members looked around, waiting for someone to speak.
“Well, for starters, there is data being secretly transmitted from this lab…video data… A lot of it,” Maureen said.
10 pulled her head back in surprise.
She's Building a Robot Page 8
