Accompanied by Sarah, Lili Ling attended her first conference with Jekyll Rival, held in the cyber sphere near JE headquarters, since his bunker was no longer available for visitors due to security concerns.
“Thank you both for coming here today!” exclaimed the Jekyll Rival hologram. “Glad to meet you, and thanks for the fascinating proposal. Sarah and I studied your proposal and even worked out some logistics that would be necessary to develop the gynoid doppelganger you proposed. Hopefully today we can fill in some more details and resolve any outstanding issues. But to kick things off...how did you come up with such a clever notion?”
“Well, basically, it arose in response to my kidnapping, but was heavily influenced by mixed results from previous experiences with personal visits versus virtual online meetings,” Lili explained. “Although the kidnappers eventually released me unharmed, I'm still trying to recover from the psychological stress of that terrible experience. And of course the consortium resented paying the ransom, so now they discourage those risky on-site visits, asking me to meet clients virtually instead. Nevertheless, the direct personal meetings always seemed more successful than the virtual versions. So...after mulling over this frustrating situation, I decided to think outside the box...why not try combining those different approaches in some way, to gain the best of both worlds...achieving effective personal interaction while remaining safe?”
“Well said!” commented Jekyll. “Makes sense – and even opens up opportunities for creative new projects too. Most of our previous android projects sought high degrees of autonomy...especially those developed out in the Asteroid Belt with inherent communication lags due to the great distances involved...and that tendency continued even for our projects back here on Earth...full autonomy requires very sophisticated robotics technology, especially in advanced artificial intelligence. Your proposed project seems to focus less on autonomy...you intend to control the gynoid yourself...and more on what I'd consider psychological or sociological factors...which Sarah can better address.”
Sarah chimed in: “Great context, thanks Jekyll...indeed so, Lili's project presents challenges, but less with regard to autonomy, placing greater emphasis on how the gynoid will interact with, and be perceived by, her clients. Our previous projects tended to produce highly autonomous, although somewhat generic androids...whereas the new gynoid needs to more closely model her own particular traits...but since she will herself control the gynoid, autonomy becomes a secondary concern.”
Lili responded: “Quite so, this new gynoid would operate relatively nearby, close enough that communication would require only a few seconds at most. Not only that, but really I see the gynoid as an extension of myself...completely under my control...she would serve as my eyes and ears when I cannot safely attend in person...but leave the actual decisions to me. Just as important, I believe our clients would find the gynoid easy to relate to....non threatening...indeed, even engaging!”
Sarah mentioned another aspect: “Well, this brings up the issue of just how closely the gynoid should imitate the human appearance...would clients respond better to a gynoid that closely resembles the human...or might the 'uncanny valley' effect lead them to prefer a gynoid who seems more obviously artificial. For that matter, we could develop a series of gynoids with appearances arranged along a spectrum, to provide a range of gynoid models that she could send to various clients with differing preferences along those lines.”
Jekyll jumped in: “So glad you mentioned a collection of related gynoids! Economy of scale affects every project we undertake...in this case, we could use the same underlying robotic mechanism for multiple gynoids...and with minimal investment necessary for autonomy. we could focus more on desired appearance variations needed to accommodate different client audiences...all this could be achieved at very reasonable cost.”
Sarah brought up a crucial issue: “Oh, we also must address ethical aspects of Lili's proposed project. Fortunately, the very minimal autonomy involved here...which allows us to view this type of gynoid as more of a tool or drone, rather than as an autonomous artificial being...seems to lessen at least those ethical issues. However, we'd still need to evaluate the gynoid's capability to experience suffering...perhaps that too might turn out insignificant if we minimize the gynoid's sensory capabilities and 'awareness' at any level.”
“Along those lines,” mused Jekyll aloud, “we should also address the issue of expendability. Presuming the gynoid were not considered an autonomous, sentient being...we might be less concerned if the gynoid were threatened, damaged, or even destroyed. Economy of scale comes into play here as well...loss of a single gynoid from a collection of gynoids would not become a show stopper, so to speak.”
Jekyll paused, and noticed that both Sarah and Lili had tired and grown silent. “Well, we've certainly achieved a great deal here today – thanks, both of you! Although we still need to iron out several details, it looks like we've established the practical feasibility of your proposed project. So let's proceed with the preliminaries...let's get the ball rolling on this fascinating project!”
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