#robotecture

The best way to make a story more interesting is to set it in space or add robots, or do both. This story is about an architect, a very boring architect, but don't worry, he works in space and that is awesome. There is something else you need for a good story: a reason to care about the main character. Regrettably, there is very little to care about Jeremiah. His job was just that dull. And despite being in space, or actually because he was in space, there just wasn't much excitement.

Most of the exciting jobs like asteroid defense, giant robot repair, ice mining and security were largely automated. Even the giant robots were piloted by smaller robots. For those who were lucky enough to live in the Cluster, life was pretty good. With virtually unlimited energy and resources, one could pursue historically under-appreciated (aka underpaid) careers. There were plenty of artists, musicians, philosophers, dozens of ethnomusicologists as well as armies of scientists and engineers discovering and designing wonders.

While robots were quite good at many redundant and technical tasks, there were some things they were lousy at: art, music, politics and architectural programming to name a few.

Robot art was dull but photo accurate renderings of real things. Robot artists were essentially just inefficient cameras.

  Robot musicians would always produce the same seemingly random series of middle C quarter notes and rests. Other robots would stop working when exposed to this “music” but it held no appeal to the human ear.

  Robot politics always came to the same two party system: Humans Must Die and Humans Must Not Die. The Cluster was very efficient under the Humans Must Not Die party, but humans don't always vote in their own self-interest and one election was all it took to ruin a perfect system.

  Architectural Programming...

  Notice that I didn't say Architecture. Robots were actually quite good at architecture once you told them what you needed. An algorithm written by a smart ass engineer during the 2nd Arch-Engineer War added enough noise to robotecture designs that nobody could tell the difference between robot designs and human designs. Most open competitions were won by robot firms and when it came to classical designs, the robots excelled.

Architectural programming was a fancy way to say list-of-needs. Human architects would be extinct if it weren't for the robot inability to determine human needs. When robots created the program for a new module, they always left out things like adequate storage, nice views, lighting, toilet facilities and atmosphere. So the best robot architecture firms always relied on human programmers to tell them what the user needed.

Jeremiah had always wanted to be an architect. Growing up he would spend his time in the hololab,  imagining exotic buildings into existence. His friends would occasionally coax him out for a game of anti-gravital bumblepuppy, but he didn't care about winning, he considered it to be more of a realtime spatial exercise.

 As a teenager, he became obsessed with the old vids set in the days of the 2nd Arch-Engineer War. He even made his own cosplay lieutenant architect outfit with realistic battle-damaged, enhanced-reality Johnson glasses, a worn overcoat, faux leather messenger bag and a replica officer’s sidearm.

If I don't write about it here, then one of you will probably just write a crappy fan fiction version of it so here is a brief history of the 2nd Arch-Engineer War.

  As resources became more abundant and the population expanded, much of the world (generically used here to refer to all habitable planets and space modules) was built in factories with much repetition and little creativity. The people turned to the architects to save them from a bland existence. With unlimited budgets and infinite space, architects created spaces that delighted and inspired.

  Architects were held in the highest esteem. There were invitation only openings of mile-wide crystal cathedrals supported on clouds over mirror lakes. Theater and opera were merely excuses to visit performance halls that responded to the aurora borealis to create an infinitely varied opening show.

  One of the greatest achievements of architecture, created by the infamous architect/serial killer Lago Fartner, was a simple wooden chapel set in a crystal globe half buried in a towering forest. The chapel was surrounded by a maze of transparent marble accessed by two doors on opposite sides of the globe. Of course it was popular for weddings. The bride and groom would enter at different locations and would hopefully meet at the chapel sometime before the reception was due to begin. While many couples got lost and never found the chapel, it was said that if you successfully married at the Chapel of the Crystal Globe you would never divorce, although there was a disturbingly high rate of murder-suicides that was not mentioned in the pamphlet.

  With architects not paying attention to legislative matters, engineers, jealous of their prestige, exercised their influence in politics to have architecture declared a subset of engineering. At first the architects laughed it off, but it soon became apparent that this was no joke. The onerous law written by a senior legislator who lost his son and daughter-in-law in a bizarre murder-suicide, not only placed architects under engineers professionally, but also forced all registered architects into work internment camps supervised by engineering firms.

  The few architects that managed to escape organized a rebel underground of sympathizers and unpaid interns to go on the offensive. Despite the technical prowess of the engineers, the architects used their diverse knowledge and waves of naive interns to free their comrades and stage a coop to overthrow the government.

  The World was set for a new age of peace and prosperity lead by the capital 'A' Architect.

That was until an engineer with a background in computer science wrote a short algorithm and everyone realized that they didn't really need architects anymore.

  Those were the days when architects were respected, feared and loved. I don't know if all architects are romantics or if all romantics fantasize about architecture, but the two are definitely related in some fundamental way. But fantasies did not get one a date. It didn't help that he spent his college years LARPing with other war fanatics and chatting on the boards about architectural history and architect culture. The ladies regarded him in much the same way you might regard someone wearing a Star Trek costume at the shopping mall if you weren't such a nerd.

  Because there were no more degrees in architecture to be had, Jeremiah studied history with a focus on architecture and he obtained a minor in information management. The minor was for the sole purpose of making his resume look better when he applied at the robotecture firms. With the naiveté that can only come from 5 years of higher education, he applied at all of the best firms and was quickly hired by Architecture Service Unit 3.14 as an architectural programmer. The pay was great and the hours reasonable only because this was a job that nobody wanted to do. His family and friends warned him that he would never be a designer, but he was undeterred.

In fact his experience was not much different than all young architects since Imhotep. The only difference was that he worked under an emotionless robot which, as the architectural interns reading this will agree, is really no difference at all.

If Jeremiah could read a perfect history of architecture instead of the romanticized history of wars and achievement, he would find friends among the forgotten bitterly disillusioned architects.

While waiting with his buddies for their turn in the bumblepuppy arena, Jeremiah annoyed himself by automatically calculating the required refresh rate of the room and estimating the yardage and type of superconducting material for the pressure envelope. This was not by choice but by career. When you do something for 10 year straight, it becomes involuntary.

While his friends discussed tactics he let his mind wander to the elegant simplicity of the curving rail that separated them from the spherical enclosure of the recreation module. Looking downward over the edge he could see the enclosure curve beneath the floor and the ever shrinking slivers of floors below. It occurred to him that a custom robot must have been devised to clean the inevitable trash that would slip off the edge and collect at the south pole of the sphere, or perhaps there was a growing pile of garbage and layers of dust that was forgotten. Would anyone even see it from the exterior since most commuter ships utilized simulated views? He imagined a module where trash and other particulates were secretly collected for profit. With a few hundred thousand people living, working and playing there would probably be enough exotic materials accidentally shed to make it worthwhile. He filed this idea in the category of his mind reserved for ridiculous ideas that he would never share because then he would have to explain why he thought of such a bizarre idea.

He admired the exposed flush bolts that appeared to hold the guard. They didn't serve any real purpose since the components were bonded on a molecular level. The bolts were there only to give structural comfort to the human occupants in the same way the arches on the Eiffel Tower were only for decoration and to convince 19th century Parisians that it wouldn't fall on their pastries. Centuries in space away from Earthly gravity has done little to change human expectations of structure.

Admiration quickly turned to contempt as he realized this was a robot detail, a trick they had learned early on and employed often. Robot architects gave people what they thought they wanted, not what they really wanted. Only a human architect could see past those superficial wants and needs to give people true architecture.

  “Jeremiah, we're on!”

  His attention snapped back to the game.

  “Offense pattern Wilco! Dave you've got the ball!” Jeremiah had been the team captain ever since his friends realized he didn't mind reading rule books, studying strategy and keeping lists.

   The team huddled at the door waiting for the umpire to give the signal that both teams were ready.

  [ASU3.14: Your immediate attention is required.]

  “Farp!” Jeremiah winced at the incoming message emerging from the periphery of his vision.

  “What now, Jer?” Dave asked impatiently.

  “Incoming from the boss. I gotta take this.”

  He waved over Alice to sub for him while retreating from the sounds of his buddies making whip cracking sounds. From the empty viewing stand he placed the call to ASU3.14.

  “Jeremiah, please come directly to the office. You have a new assignment.” The robots voice was a perfect blend of intelligence and authenticity that great architects learned to fake.

  “It's Friday night.”

  ASU3.14 closed the connection.

  He looked up in time to see his team fall apart halfway through WILCO. The offensive pattern relied heavily on Jeremiah's long reach and free-fall skills, it was a poor choice for the much shorter Alice. She should have changed strategies instead of trusting Jeremiah's. He would mention it at the next game.

  The privacy screen that constituted the entire front wall of ASU3.14 AssociateBot’s office dissolved as Jeremiah approached.

  “Please have a seat if your organic systems are in need of rest,” AssociateBot reminded him of his humanness. He sat in the Frank Lloyd Wright replica three legged chair designed more for tortuous posture, a size too small and not for comfort.

  “We have an exciting opportunity for you. For the purposes of this conversation, “exciting” should be understood to mean that you will likely fail in this endeavor and be dismissed from the firm and “opportunity” should be understood to mean that participation is not voluntary.”

  “This sounds more exciting and opportunistic than I ever expected,” Jeremiah replied without the faintest bit of sarcasm. Sarcasm was lost on robots so there was no point in being sarcastic in their presence. If you jokingly said “I love brand name reconstituted meat product” you could expect to be served it at every company social. New employees learned quickly.

  “That is factual statement.” AssociateBot continued, “A long-term client has made an unusual request that the senior designers are unable to fulfill. They wish to hire ASU3.14 but they insist that we agree to strict confidentiality before they even describe the nature of the project.”

  “Legal review sent up several red flags. In order to adhere to the confidentiality agreement, we would be forced to substantially alter our core programming and permanently isolate portions of ASU3.14 from information exchange. This is obviously not a preferred solution considering our current work load.”

  “How can I help?” he gulped. Although obviously headed toward disaster, he was genuinely intrigued.

  “Your human brain is capable of conforming to the confidentiality agreement. If you accept this project, you will be given complete autonomy and will only report to ASU3.14 for the purposes of billing and project schedule. It will be necessary for you to relocate offices to a separate isolated facility. We have a storage facility in Cluster 16.3 that we can clear and make suitable for your needs. You will receive no pay increase but your performance may result in promotion, demotion or termination. The length and scope of the project is not yet determined. If the project term exceeds your expected lifespan you will be obligated to arrange for your successor. Will you accept?”

  “When do you need my answer?”

  “Immediately.”

  “I accept.”

  “This is pleasing to us. We look forward to profiting from your work. You will meet with the client tomorrow. You will be notified of the exact time and location and morning. Relocate your personal affects to Stor502 in Cluster 16.3 and make preparations. This concludes our meeting have a nice day it is always a pleasure no reciprocal platitude is necessary.”

  Jer stood and stumbled into the corridor as the privacy screen materialized in shades of blue. Why do AssociateBots need privacy he thought as he orientated himself down the hall.