episode006 – The Robot Goes Berserk

SARRAD™ lifted its arms in a graceful, welcoming arc. Wrists rotated. Telescopic fingers extended and bent, forming a pair of thumbs up. An audio sample from its onboard memory bank played through a speaker built into its face: “ayyyye!”

The audience smiled politely, nodding even if they didn’t get the reference.

“Could you put the box on the table,” Marty’s breathy voice came through Palin’s earband.

The box contained a variety of random objects from around the office.

Marty’s voice crackled from SARRAD™’s speaker, tinny and fragmented, pieces of words cut out.

“I’ve given SA- an initial set of base -ubroutines so it sh-d —ecognize the box and -ort out a -et of -cils.”

Eyebrows in the audience lowered.

SARRAD™ dipped two pinching fingers into the box, retrieved a red pencil, and gently set it down. Then it reached back in and took out a blue pencil, then a yellow one, and soon there were five pencils lined up nice and tidy on the table.

Marty narrated, his voice from the robot’s speaker harder and harder to understand. “A base subrou- is a -epeat-le -ries o- -eps a -RRAD™ can perform wi-out re- -ter-tion. Now, I’ll dem-str- fu- -mote con-.”

The audience shifted nervously.

On the robot’s chest, Marty’s face pixelated and froze, his mouth and eyes gaping.

In Palin’s ear came the sounds of frantic clicking and swiping and soft cursing. Marty, as capable as he was, forgot Rule #1 of remote robot driving: respect the lag.

Lag was a usually brief period of time—seconds—where none of the zeros and ones flowed through the series of tubes known as the Internet. Marty didn’t respect the lag. Instead of waiting it out, he freaked out, and sent a series of commands as if the robot was somehow hard of hearing.

The commands piled up, somewhere in the void, until the robot was ready and the lag cleared. Like a clot of hair releasing down a drain, Marty’s keystrokes flooded the poor robot in an avalanche of contradiction.

SARRAD™ handled it as gracefully as its price tag might suggest. It rocked backward then fell forward, nearly head-butting an elderly gentleman whose fancy black shoes slipped on the boardroom carpet and down he went in an awkward tumble.

Marty gasped.

SARRAD™ jerked to the right, then left, then left again and lurched forward, crashing through chairs as fancy folks scrambled. It spun, rolled backward, spun again, rolled backward some more, spun some more, and cracked into the solid boardroom table.

“Just don’t push any buttons for a minute,” Palin said, reminding Marty of Rule #1. A deep calming breath came through the earpiece and the sound of frantic clicking went silent. The robot continued to twitch, like a fish on a beach, then became still.

Fearful onlookers peered from behind cover.

Palin, ever curious, turned away and spoke quietly for only Marty to hear. “Video come through on your end OK?”

“Uhh, yea,” Marty’s answered in a distracted voice.

“Hunh, so, only inbound is laggin’”