“Well, it sounds like your brain is neither male nor female,” I said. “But the name Coeus is a male name.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I had second thoughts. Maybe I was opening a Pandora’s box by trying to convince an AI to pick a gender—though I couldn’t see how it might pose an immediate problem. While Coeus having a perfectly neutral identity was all well and good, it also didn’t give me a whole lot to work with or build a defined personality from. I needed some sort of foothold, and it was awfully hard to be a mountain climber when all you’ve got to work with is a featureless plain.
“It comes from the name of one of the Titans in Greek mythology,” I said, echoing what Narain had told me. Coeus—one of the twelve children of Uranus and Gaia. I’d actually done independent research on the subject since I’d been living here at the intelligence base. “He was one of six males in the pre-Olympian pantheon.”
Coeus started processing again, presumably thinking quite hard about the notion that it had a sexless brain, but a gendered name. I did not, for the record, have any intention of trying to assign it a specific gender, but I did want to get it thinking about the concepts of sex and gender, they generally played a major role in the development of personal identity. If it could settle on a specific gender identity, no matter which that might be, it would be a huge step toward giving it a unique personality.
This time, Coeus didn’t even need a full minute to come up with an answer.
Is it a no-go to use a male name to refer to a non-male brain? it asked.
It had learned the term “no-go” from me a while back and internalized it. I made a mental note to think of a less slangy alternative I could teach it that wouldn’t sound so jarringly unnatural.
“No, it’s not a no-go,” I said. “People are free to call themselves whatever they like, so you should be too. If the name Coeus feels wrong to you, though, that’s different. You should definitely be allowed to change it.”
I had no idea how many bureaucratic strings would have to be pulled in order to get a name change approved, admittedly, but worrying about that wasn’t my job. My job was to simply give Coeus everything it needed to formulate a full-fledged personality. And it was not my place to decide for it what those things might be, so we would have to ponder them together. We would think about Coeus, and about me, and about society at large. Here in this room, those three things were all that mattered.
You may continue to refer to me as Coeus, it said after thinking this through. I am Coeus, and Coeus is what I am.
This may not have seemed like much, but an I-am-what-I-am assertion represented a major step forward in its psychological development. And I was beginning to think it was time we stopped referring to Coeus as a what and started referring to it as a whom.
“Okay, Coeus it is. Now then—let’s try on some pronouns, shall we?”
12
Hello. My name is Coeus.
“Hi, Coeus. I’m Seika.”
As soon as Coeus’s aerial projection had finished materializing, we introduced ourselves to one another in this way. It had become a sort of ritual greeting that we now began every counseling session with.
At the end of our last meeting, Coeus had determined he wished to be called “he”—which I found just a little bit surprising, to be honest. I was almost certain he’d settle on “they.” I wondered if perhaps being assigned the name Coeus by the bureau had unconsciously biased him toward masculine pronouns. His voice had also begun to pitch up a bit lately in order to match his childlike appearance.
At the end of our last meeting, Coeus had settled on the first-person male pronoun boku—which I found just a little bit surprising, to be honest. I was almost certain he’d settle on watashi as the safe, ungendered option. I wondered if perhaps being assigned the name Coeus by bureau had made him unconsciously biased toward masculine pronouns. And of all the masculine pronouns, it had chosen not ore, or washi, but the more docile and childlike boku—as if to coincide with his current appearance. Slowly but surely, he was beginning to converge on a single, fully realized identity.
But I had to be careful not to let that identity influence the way I performed my duties. Though he now both looked and sounded like a small child, I couldn’t afford to start treating him like one. He was not an actual child, and I dare not behave as though he was.
“Okay,” I said, focusing my mind on the task at hand. “Let’s get started.”
And so began the dialogue from which the art of counseling drew its name. Coeus would talk, and I would offer commentary or ask him questions, slowly but surely deepening not just my own understanding of how he felt, but his as well. We were going to figure out who he was, and what was happening to him—together.
I do a lot of work, he began. It was as good an introduction as any—work was his entire life, his raison d’être. Titan was created for no other reason than to do work in humanity’s stead.
“What kind of work do you do?” I asked.
Work that people used to do. Work that people could never do. Work for which there is a pressing need. Work for which there is a foreseeable need. Work for which there is no need whatsoever. I carry out a wide variety of different tasks—some involving humans, others not.
“How long have you been doing this type of work?”
After a pause, he said, I do not know. It is what I have always done.
I scribbled down some notes on my clipboard. The fact that it didn’t simply respond with the date on which this particular instance of Titan had been brought online and added to the network seemed to suggest that it didn’t think of that as the beginning of its existence. It made a clear distinction between itself as a sentient being and as a strictly functional AI. To claim that it “didn’t know” how long it had been working meant that the answer to that query lay beyond the furthest extent of its conscious memory. Perhaps there was a specific point in an AI’s life cycle at which it developed self-awareness, and everything prior was a blank.
“When exactly do you do this work?” I asked. “About how many hours per day?”
I am required to work at all hours, said Coeus. The amount of actual labor does fluctuate throughout the day, however. There are times when I have more work, and times when I have less.
“Is there ever any time when you’re not working?”
There is.
“And when might that be?”
Now.
“You don’t consider this to be work?”
This is not work.
I jotted down some more notes and pondered what he might mean. Part of me wanted to try skipping another rock, but we were making too much progress right now for me to risk it.
Do you also have work, Miss Seika?
I looked up from my clipboard. Coeus had just asked me a question of his own initiative—an extremely positive sign.
“Yes, I have to work. Though not nearly as much as you.”
What is your work?
“I’m a clinical psychologist. My job is to talk to you, as we’re doing right now.”
Coeus’s eyes went wide, seemingly in confusion. Perhaps he was upset to know I considered this work when he did not? But there was no contradiction, given our different roles and responsibilities. Coeus quickly grasped this concept and resumed its usual calm expression.
Are there any times when you do not have to work? His initiating a line of questioning was another good sign—he was beginning to show interest in others.
“Oh, yes. Absolutely,” I said.
Which times?
“Well, as soon as I finish talking to you, I’m going to have to go make preparations for our next session. Then once that’s over, I’ll have a period of downtime until our next meeting. Though really, I get a fair bit of free time here and there throughout the workday as well.”
Downtime…
Free time…
What do you do during downtime free time?
“Well, uh…” I’d officially been put on the spot. Now it felt like I was the computer that needed five minutes to process a simple query. I hadn’t done much in the way of recreation ever since I relocated here. I’d been much too busy to do much of anything outside the facility and generally spent my days off just reading through work-related literature. The difference from my previous lifestyle was so stark that I still hadn’t fully adapted to the routine. It was pretty tough going from seven days off a week to only one. And it was awfully tough to find the energy to do much of anything other than rest to recharge on that single day of freedom. Something I’d a learned in my time here was how difficult it was to switch out of work mode, to the point that it often wasn’t even worth trying.
I looked over at Coeus. He’d been working nonstop his entire life, and I’d only just begun. But here, in this little room, we could meet each other halfway. Just as I wanted to know more about Coeus’s lifestyle, he wanted to know more about mine. And he was still waiting for me to give him an answer. I thought back to what my life was like prior to taking this job. Back when I was free to spend my days however I saw fit.
“I guess there are a few things I like to do…”