Archive of Our Own ^beta

One thing Guy-Manuel has always liked about robots: hard limits.

There are certain things robots simply cannot do, like feel hungry or crave something or get emotional. They have one face and they can’t change their expressions. They can’t cry, they can’t get frustrated, they can’t love you back. He knows that he and Thomas are not really robots, underneath all the metal and plastic and LEDs, but it’s nice to pretend sometimes. That he could be so unaffected.

The black, blank surface of his helmet gleams. It doesn’t look like a face. It hardly works as a mirror; Thomas said once that it looks like it swallows light. It gives nothing in return. 

He stares at his reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator, stomach dropping as they rise up, up, up. It’s another after-event event, one of those that Thomas says he doesn’t enjoy but settles into comfortably while Guy-Manuel does his best robot impression. Shut down. Vacant.  

Okay, that’s harsh; he does alright. He can socialize. He just doesn’t like the big rooms of people all circling like sharks. Always crowded, but never a crowd — crowds imply unity, imply a sort of collective experience, all together hearing and seeing and feeling. Here, at these things, everyone seems mostly out for themselves. Even speaking with friends loses some measure of intimacy amongst the roving eyes and expensive sips out of polished glass. And, of course, there’s his clumsy English. Every sentence he has to process, translate, and then respond to; translate back and spit out in thickly-accented, halting words. He’s gotten steadily better over the years but there’s still some small, tangible embarrassment that sticks to the back of his throat whenever he goes to speak. Easier with the helmet on; then he can get away with saying nothing at all.

Beside him, Thomas is fidgeting with one of his gloves, pulling it tighter over his long fingers, pressing into the interdigital folds. The helmet over his face gives nothing away, but like this, in the near-silent hum of the elevator, with these new state-of-the-art systems they’ve got, Guy-Manuel can just barely hear the faint rasp of Thomas’s breathing in his headset. It’s slightly quick, but Thomas’s often is, and it’s unobtrusively even. Inhale, exhale.

He can hear the sound only because he’s used to listening for it in the quiet, those little gaps of space when they’re not making noise and it’s just the two of them, alone, bodies orbiting each other like satellites. 

His grasp on each breath is tenuous, muted. Inhale. He knows he’ll lose them as soon as the elevator doors open and they start moving again, dispelling Thomas’s steady breathing with sounds as innocuous as the slide of metal doors and the swish of fabric on fabric. So he lets it take forefront in his mind for the time being. Exhale. Measuring it against the slower, heavier rhythm of his own.

Neither of them speak. They don’t need to. They had done their speaking earlier, Thomas saying remember we’re meeting at the hotel later and it won’t be that bad and ready to go? And Guy-Manuel saying yeah and sure and why the fuck not?  

Now Thomas relents the little tug of war with his glove and drops his hands to his sides. Stood still under the pulse of passing lights with each floor, his reflection looks every bit robotic as they claim to be. Guy-Manuel studies his own posture; detects the downward slope of his shoulders, the duck of his head. Thomas’s helmet turns towards him as he straightens up. 

There’s a puff of breath in the headset. It’s not quite a laugh — just a response. They’ve always responded to each other. Little, incremental things, invisible to outside gazes. Mumbles, nudges. The hums and whirs of machinery. Inhale, exhale.

Guy-Manuel watches the last of the floors pass by in flicks of light, resignation settling, familiar, somewhere in the pit of his gut. He wants to keep his helmet on, though he knows they always come off for things like this, for drinking and talking and Thomas laughing and Guy-Manuel standing by a window wishing he hadn’t quit smoking. 

Inhale. He traces the line of his metal jaw with a metallic glove, the motion abstracted by the vision of his reflection doing the same and neither of them able to feel it. Exhale.

The elevator doors open. Thomas’s breathing disappears.

::

It is surprisingly easy for a computer to acquire a thin veneer of conversational ability. A program can simulate dialog with a user, creating the impression of conversation with the system. Something approaching a natural conversation is achieved by devices such as: generating canned responses, echoing the user’s statements, recognizing key words, some stock phrases, and revisiting issues taken up from earlier parts of the conversation.

[An example of a conversation with this system.]

Person: God, these things are all the same.

Robot: Yes.

The system agrees with the statement without further clarification of what is meant by ‘these things’.

Person: Always the same people, the same suits… oh, her dress is gorgeous. I mean, look at this. Moët and Chandon. Always the same champagne. Gotta say, I don’t feel much like a killer queen, do you? [Laughs].

Robot: No.

Agreement is determined to be the most pragmatic response to non-functional and subjective statements.

Person: Ah, tragic. Freddie Mercury would be horrified, no doubt.

Robot: He would be horrified, yes.

Person: Mmh, speaking of which — I love the seventies feel of your new album, it’s so lively. Funky, if you will. [Laughs]. I know you’ve probably gotten a lot of that. I’m serious though, it’s very good. My daughter loves it.

Robot: Thank you. 

The system answers ‘thank you’ when it recognizes a compliment.

Person: Her favorite song is the one about dancing. What was that… Lose Yourself to Dance. Right. I’ve caught her jumping around her room to it, I think I’ve heard the phrase about a million times! Lose yourself to dance. It’s so catchy.

Robot: Thank you. We are glad to hear it.

Person: You two are geniuses. Truly. It’s incredible.

Robot: Ah, I would not go that far.

The system’s self-evaluation disagrees with the term ‘genius’.

Person: No, I’m serious! Using repetition in such a clever way, I mean. Hard to do, I should think, but you two pull it off. Of all the songs my daughter has fixated on lately, yours is by far the least annoying. Trust me, that’s high praise.

Robot: Repetition can get dull very easily. We like to not keep things the same.

The earlier statement about lack of variety is recognized.

Person: It’s admirable. This shindig could certainly take notes. [Laughs].

::

Even with the helmets off, there are comments about them. Always, at things like this. Thomas is happy to chat about thousands of US dollars and how sweaty his head gets afterwards. His curls are disheveled as he talks, hands roaming through them at random intervals while they gesture around his words. The thinning strands shine like coils of copper wire under the pointed beams of the hotel’s eco-friendly mood lighting. Sympathetically, Guy-Manuel feels the ghost of years of greasy, stringy hair as his sticks to his neck where it hangs loose since he’d taken it down with the helmet earlier.

He balances his drink in his hand with two fingers free for a cigarette he doesn’t have — a lifetime of habit. Self-conscious, he holds it firmer, five fingers pressing into the steadily warming glass. Takes a small sip; yes, it’s the same Moët and Chandon as always.

He’s been pulled into a loose circle with Thomas to talk about the updated versions of their ‘look’, all sleek cuts and clean lines now. Guy-Manuel feeds quietly on their praise. He hadn’t recognized himself either, the first time he’d looked in the mirror. He’s been chasing that high ever since. Right on cue, Thomas mentions the freeing notion of not being recognized on the street. Someone calls them shy, and laughter follows Thomas’s bashful acknowledgement that they might not be far off. Someone else calls them masks instead of helmets by mistake, prompting a joke about superheroes, and privately Guy-Manuel thinks the idea of ‘masks’ might not be too far off either.

Thomas and Guy-Manuel wear helmets, which is to say they put on masks. For lots of different reasons: shyness, the desire for anonymity, the belief in artistic merit over the cult of personality, the potential of elevating performance. 

Thomas does it because he wants to be someone else. Guy-Manuel does it because he doesn’t want to be himself. They sound like the same thing, but they’re really not.

Put another way: there’s a reason Thomas’s helmet has a face, and Guy-Manuel’s doesn’t.

::

For centuries philosophers have argued about whether a machine could simulate human intelligence, and, conversely, whether the human brain is no more than a machine running a glorified computer program. Some find the idea preposterous, insane, or even blasphemous, while others believe that artificial intelligence is inevitable and that eventually we will develop machines that are just as intelligent as us. Artificial intelligence is neither preposterous nor inevitable: while no present computer programs exhibit “intelligence” in any broad sense, the question of whether they are capable of doing so is an experimental one that has not yet been answered either way.

The AI debate hinges on a definition of intelligence. Many definitions have been proposed and debated. An interesting approach to establishing intelligence was proposed in the late 1940s by Alan Turing as a kind of “thought experiment.” Turing’s approach was operational—rather than define intelligence, he described a situation in which a computer could demonstrate it.

::

Guy-Manuel finishes his drink and gets another one. Looking back from the bar, he sees that Thomas has moved on to a collection of industry friends on the far side of the room, and Guy-Manuel opts to stay by the bar rather than join them, letting his hair fall into his face as he leans back against the bar top — another lifetime of habit. He sips quietly and thinks about the blank helmet. The mask and what it takes away. 

The escape from personhood is comforting. Guy-Manuel stops being a person with a name and a face or even a real body; becomes a robot. Better: the idea of a robot. Defined by a conceptual framework, part of a narrative that cannibalizes his real life and spits out Daft Punk. 

He’s one of “the robots”. No longer a singular unit that exists in its own right. As a robot he doesn’t exist without the other robot beside him. The other robot, the other half: Thomas. They’re connected by virtue of existence — no one without the other. 

It sounds more real than it is; the idea takes him back to the earlier years where it seemed like they were always together, even when they weren’t. Back in those early days, Guy-Manuel and Thomas would sit together hunched over the turntable in Thomas’s room, a tangle of limbs and breaths mingling, hearts in sync, so close their bodies almost seemed to be merging together. It sounds like sex but it wasn’t. 

Guy-Manuel sometimes thinks about how if they really were robots, they would’ve been combined into one superunit, for the sake of efficiency. Two halves of a whole. How many times had he heard that over the years?

He tips his head back and squints up at the tiny row of lights. “Shit, I need a smoke,” he mumbles to himself.

“What was that?” the bartender asks him in English.

“Uh,” Guy-Manuel fumbles. “Nothing. Talking to myself. Wanting — um, a cigarette.”

The bartender sighs heavily. “You ‘n me both, man.”

Guy-Manuel quietly watches him continue wiping down the counter for a beat, not sure what else to say, before finally looking away, opting to say nothing at all. He sips his drink. Across the room, Thomas has turned enough for him to make out the fuzzy cut of his profile, haloed by those copper wires. He’s got his mouth open. Laughing.

His gaze drops to Thomas’s glass; empty, loose in those long fingers. Always the same champagne. The flute swings dangerously as Thomas motions. Guy-Manuel catches him start to lift it, glance down, and then respond to something, empty drink momentarily forgotten. 

He turns back to the bartender.

::

Such AI programs appear able to hold intelligent and surprisingly fluent conversations, including the ability to follow commands, use basic logic, and learn new terms. However, the system is very fragile and the illusion it creates is easily shattered. 

Person: Oh, hey, you’re — you’re one of the robots, yeah?

Robot: Yes. Hello.

Person: Hi, yes. I love your new album.

Robot: Thank you.

The system answers ‘thank you’ when it recognizes a compliment.

Person: Brilliant work, and the guests you worked with were fantastic.

Robot: Thank you.

Person: Seriously, if you guys don’t win a Grammy or something I’ll be shocked.

Robot: Thank you.

. . .

Person: Hey, and you’re the other one — Thomas, was it?

::

Guy-Manuel explains it — the helmets, the story, the whole ‘we died and became robots’ thing — to a friend once like this: It’s a kind of anonymity people notice. People look at him without looking at him. They can love him and want him without him ever being in the picture. He gets the childish fantasies of his youth: the screaming crowds, adoring faces turned to him, praise for his music, all without ever really being seen.

“Hey! Where’s the helmets, guys? Maybe these robots are human after all.”

Thomas manages a polite laugh in response. Guy-Manuel does not. He levels a flat, heavy stare at the man who, oblivious, prattles on, offering some cheerful platitudes about their record that Thomas swallows for the both of them.

He has a receding hairline, less flattering than Thomas’s, and a weighty gold watch, and a million stupid questions. About the robots; the mythos of Daft Punk. His deeply irritating wink-wink-nudge-nudge-ing is practically tangible, those pointy elbows might as well be digging into their sides. Guy-Manuel leaves the questions mostly up to Thomas, who has better English and more patience.

“Okay, so, hypothetically, if the studio really did explode, how did you guys survive until someone found you?”

Thomas fields this.

“Man, that must’ve been expensive as hell. How much did it cost? Hypothetically?”

Thomas fields this one, too.

“So who even made you robots? Was it a military thing?”

Thomas fields this one as well and he really only has so much more patience, Guy-Manuel remembers, watching the drift of focus from his eyes. 

“Wouldn’t you guys technically be cyborgs then?”

This is one Guy-Manuel knows. “No, they uploaded our consciousnesses like programs into our new bodies.”

“Oh, so like androids then?”

In lieu of a response, Guy-Manuel tips his glass back and takes a nice, long drink. Thomas, beside him, follows suit.

::

No artificial intelligence system has been created that comes anywhere near passing the full Turing test. Even if one did, many philosophers have argued that the test does not really measure what most people mean by intelligence. What it tests is behavioral equivalence: it is designed to determine whether a particular computer program exhibits the symptoms of intellect, which may not be the same thing as genuinely possessing intelligence. 

Can you be humanly intelligent without being aware, knowing yourself, being conscious, being capable of feeling self-consciousness, experiencing love, being... alive?

::

Two half-drunk, weary, all-too-human faces stare back at them in the elevator’s mirrored walls. Thomas is cradling his helmet between two palms, thumb stroking carefully over the brow of the visor while his eyes wander to somewhere far, far outside the elevator. Guy-Manuel has his tucked securely under his elbow. He can’t help the tiny grunt of displeasure as he shifts on his feet, the ache of standing for too long starting to crawl up his bones, a headache curling up and settling in the space behind his forehead. 

“Tired?” Thomas murmurs to him, familiar French rolling much more comfortably off his tongue as soon as it’s just them. Guy-Manuel hums and readjusts the grip of his arm.

“I’m ready to leave,” he grumbles, “and be a real person again.” 

Thomas snorts and jostles his shoulder gently. Their reflections sway together, Thomas into Guy-Manuel who goes too, and then follows when Thomas moves back. The elevator light is less than flattering for both of them, turning them into the middle-aged men they are now. Robots don’t age. 

“It wasn’t so bad.” 

“No,” Guy-Manuel says, relenting. “It was boring.”

Thomas’s small mouth quirks at the corner, where years of smiles have left their mark. “At least it was just that. Used to be terrifying, remember? I wanted to grab you and hide somewhere, so they’d stop looking at us.”

Guy-Manuel watches his own eyelashes flutter briefly at that. The muscles around his eyes soften. Thomas’s do, too, and it doesn’t make him look any younger than it does Guy-Manuel. 

“I wanted you to,” he admits.

It’s not like Thomas has never told him that before. Still, the secretive, almost embarrassed smile. Still, the careful hand on his shoulder. Still, the fractional lean in. 

Thomas sighs ruefully. “Look at us now, huh?” Guy-Manuel does. Two not-robots side by side as the sleek elevator shuttles seamlessly down, a steady stream of lights catching the glint of their helmets and their glassy eyes. “We’re not kids anymore, Guy-Man. We’re not scared anymore.”

“We still hide.” Guy-Manuel shifts the helmet at the crook of his elbow, feels the press of its empty shell against his side. 

“It’s just another version of ourselves,” Thomas argues. This is an old argument. They’ll likely never settle it, just keep batting their respective perspectives back and forth until they stop talking to each other, or die. 

Guy-Manuel stares at Thomas’s other face in his hands, at the flat cut of his metal mouth, and then up to his other, rounded mouth, soft and curving at the corners. 

His own two faces, blank.

Thomas doesn’t sigh right away, because he’s used to Guy-Manuel’s pauses and silences, just like Guy-Manuel is used to his stops and starts. The hums and whirs of machinery. As it becomes obvious that he isn’t going to say anything, though, Thomas lets out a small breath. Doesn’t nudge him again but shifts closer, enough that their shoulders brush. 

“Okay. Let’s go be real people again,” he says. “I heard the bathtubs here have little jets for bubbles. And there’s the soaps you always like, the lemon ones. I saw them in the bathroom earlier.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“That sounds fucking nice.”

The elevator glides to a stop, the light of their floor coming to a stationary hover atop the little engraved number. They step out, the lush, manicured carpet muffling their shuffle down the blessedly empty hall, until they come to the first door of their two rooms; Guy-Manuel’s.

Thomas reaches up and presses a brief hand to the back of Guy-Manuel’s neck. The touch is warm. Human. He nods when Guy-Manuel looks up at him, and smiles lightly when the nod is returned. The helmets hang limp at their sides.

Guy-Manuel steps close enough to press his forehead and its dull ache against Thomas’s shoulder. He can smell sweat, champagne, cologne, suit fabric a day worn. Headily, undeniably human. His goodnight goes mumbled into the space next to Thomas’s neck, where a placid throb of blood pulses body-hot and living. There’s a spread of that same blood under the skin of his cheeks from the effects of all the alcohol.

Thomas says “goodnight” back blinking at him with warm, sleepy eyes. He looks down, and then with a mischievous glance up, presses his helmet against the flat surface of Guy-Manuel’s. The silver metal knocks into dark glass with a leaden clunk. Solid, deliberate. Face to not-face.

“Maybe these robots are human after all,” and it’s silly, mocking that earlier inane conversation, but Thomas looks stupidly fond as he says it, and suddenly it’s all a bit too much for a hotel hallway, outside Guy-Manuel’s door.

He can’t help the snort that escapes him. “Idiot,” he says, equally fond. “Later, Thomas.”

“Later, Guy-Man.”

::

Tomorrow, Guy-Manuel will put on his helmet and it will smell of hotel-issue lemon soap. In the darkness of waiting, elevator and car and backstage, they will both sit very still, like robots, and he will listen for Thomas’s breathing; Inhale, exhale. And silently Thomas will do the same.