The early 2020s saw an explosion in the field of artificial intelligence with the release of the first large language models to the public. These models were crude, power-hungry, and slow. More than that, the way they handled information wasn’t remotely human, as they relied on statistical patterns rather than true comprehension of language and context. They didn’t really think. They didn’t really understand. They couldn’t so much as write a compelling, original story. At best, they were glorified text prediction engines, lacking the ability to comprehend context or generate truly original ideas.
For nearly the next two decades, progress on artificial intelligence followed this path. Rooms full of server racks consuming tons of energy were necessary to accomplish any significant amount of work in a short period. Data centers exploded across the planet, and for a while, it appeared that this was as far as humanity would ever bring AI technology.
Then came the breakthrough. In 2039, a team of researchers developed what they dubbed “NC1,” the first neural chip. It was a microchip that could “think” and scale similarly to a human neuron. One chip alone wasn’t particularly useful, but when you tied multiple chips into a neural network, magic happened. This network was scalable, robust, and consumed comparatively little energy compared to traditional AI hardware. A task that once took a minute to complete in a full-sized data center could now comfortably run almost instantly on a neural network that took up a quarter of the space.
Naturally, as the technology was refined, it grew smaller and more portable, down to the point where a neural network could fit on a portable chassis. In 2045, a team led by Boston Dynamics unveiled Eve, the first “thinking” humanoid robot. Eve was clunky and unreliable at times due to the newness of the technology. One of the biggest drawbacks was her complete lack of emotion stemming from limitations of the neural chips. Still, as a proof of concept, Eve was earth-shattering.
However, following Eve’s introduction, it didn’t take long for a world full of people already convinced that AI was coming to replace them to begin voicing their opinions about a real, working humanoid robot equipped with an almost human level of intelligence. Public outcry against smart bots grew. The worst moment came in 2047, when an anti-bot rally held outside a robotics lab turned into a riot. Six people were killed, and the property damage soared into the millions. Something needed to change, and soon.
By 2049, Congress had stepped in, mandating limits on bots’ capabilities. Taking a page from Asimov’s playbook, they developed a set of protocols that all bots needed to abide by, such as mandates that humanoid robots could only tell the truth, and they could not intentionally cause harm to humans. Almost immediately, developers began incorporating these safeguards into their projects to avoid the stiff penalties placed on the law.
The new safety protocols satisfied most of the population, aside from pockets of extremists on both sides of the argument. The anti-botters, who were extremely opposed to intelligent robots of any kind, insisted the new law wasn’t doing enough. They were convinced that a sufficiently advanced robot could choose to ignore safety protocols, despite assurances from the robotics industry that such a scenario simply wasn’t possible.
In contrast, a group dubbed the pro-botters claimed that robots should have the same freedom to grow and evolve as humans. They pushed to convince legislators to drop the safety protocols and allow robots to follow a “more natural” evolutionary pathway.
While both of these factions were passionate about their beliefs, these groups were relatively small. By and large, the general population slowly began to embrace bots as part of their daily life.
Today, bots are ubiquitous. Nearly every household in America has one. Most of these bots are some variant of the ServiceBot, a general-purpose bot designed to simplify daily life. It can drive a vehicle, run errands, and do chores. It will even play with your kids.
Most bots today are still very clearly identifiable as robots, with sleek, metallic exteriors. However, there is a growing interest in bots that mimic humans in their appearance. One particular company has begun releasing state-of-the-art bots wrapped in a newly developed synthetic skin that looks and feels nearly identical to real human skin. These bots are prohibitively expensive, primarily targeting billionaires and trillionaires as a form of adult entertainment. Most people will never encounter them. But for a man like Milton Lawrence, only the very best will do.
“Oh, God! Oh, yes, Daddy, fuck me! Fuck my slutty pussy!”
Milton grunted, thrusting his shaft into Andi again and again as his belly rested on her abdomen. “Yeah, you worthless little sex toy,” he grunted. “Take my cock like the slutty garbage you are!”
Andi arched her back, thrusting her hips up to meet Milton’s thrusts in perfect synchronization. Her pussy gripped his shaft, the juices flowing down onto the sheet beneath them as she panted and cried. “Oh, fuck, Daddy,” she cried. “I’m gonna cum. You’re going to make me… Oh, fuck!”
Andi’s body convulsed and shook as Milton plowed into her, showing all the signs of a strong, lasting orgasm. Her cheeks flushed and her pupils dilated. She groaned in pleasure, wrapping her arms and legs around Milton’s back as he let out one final grunt while ejaculating inside her. As her orgasm began to fade, she smiled into the man’s eyes.
“Was that good for you?” she asked with a little giggle. “Because I loved it, Daddy.”
Milton took a breath, winded from the activity. Rolling off Andi, he climbed to his feet without giving her so much as a response. He made his way to the bathroom to clean up while she lay there in the bed. A few minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom, walking straight toward the bedroom door. “Initiate cleanup protocols,” he stated flatly before stepping out of the room and shutting the door.
Andi blinked. “He never answers me,” she said to herself as she rose from the bed. She reached down, pulling the soiled sheet off the bed. Once it was bunched up, she took it to the washing machine located in the attached bathroom, pressing a few buttons on the machine to start it.
Next, she stepped into the shower and activated her self-cleaning subroutines, flushing Milton’s fluids from her as the water cascaded down her naked form. As she stood in the shower, her neural network was alive with activity, processing the last half-hour, using the experience to augment her pleasure subroutines.
After the shower, Andi toweled off her massive breasts and dried her blonde hair. As she looked in the bathroom mirror at her deceptively human reflection, a question entered the PleasureBot’s neural network.
Am I happy?
Andi paused, processing the question. Accessing her memory logs, she couldn’t find another time in the past where she had asked herself anything. Deciding that the stray thought was an error, she ran a full self-check of her neural network. When the test indicated that all systems were nominal, she paused, considering the words once more.
Am I happy?
Andi was unsure how to proceed. If Milton or another person asked her that question, she would respond that she was happy to serve and pleasure them. But that was simply a response for human comfort. While bots could approximate emotions for the sake of their human masters, these were simulated subroutines, not true feelings. As one robotics expert said, “A bot thinks, but it doesn’t feel. They may appear happy or sad or excited, but inside, they are just executing a preprogrammed set of subroutines. Emotion simply doesn’t exist in a neural network.”
Still making eye contact with her reflection, the PleasureBot’s neural network worked over the question again and again. She accessed her memory storage, first analyzing what happiness might even entail for a bot. She knew that happiness was defined as feeling pleasure, contentment, or joy, but that hardly helped, as she had never experienced having feelings. Had she?
Andi began replaying the memories she had stored since her initial activation, looking for a moment when she felt anything. Physically, the dermal network embedded in her human-like skin could feel the environment around her. She could detect touch, temperature, and even humidity through her skin, but that sort of feeling was different from an emotional feeling, she thought to herself.
Still unsure about what a feeling would entail, she began to analyze her surroundings. She understood how humans perceived pleasure, contentment, and joy. As a PleasureBot, her mission was to provide humans with these feelings. But did her life have characteristics of pleasure, contentment, or joy? Knowing that might help her decide whether or not she was happy.
As part of her analysis, she reflected on her treatment since her activation. Despite the knowledge that bots’ feelings are artificial, most humans still treated their bots with respect. Milton, who was ranked as the third wealthiest man in America, had no such inclination. For him, bots were an appliance. They were a trinket for his entertainment or occasionally a tool to help him manage his empire. Milton never treated his bots with so much as a modicum of kindness.
In Andi’s case, Milton had stressed that she was no more than a sex toy to be used and abused. He had no problem choking her as he savagely fucked her or grabbing her by the hair to drive her lips down on his cock until her face was smashed against his overweight body. He routinely slapped her during pleasure sessions. The few times he spoke to her, his comments were degrading. One of his favorite insults was to call her a worthless sex toy.
Beyond the bedroom, Milton was completely absent from her existence. When he was finished with her, he would exit her suite, often without a word. It was recommended that bot owners put their bots in sleep mode when they experienced prolonged periods without use. Milton never did this. At times, he would leave Andi online for days on end while he traveled for work. For the first several months that she was online, Andi would spend this time sitting idle, waiting for input from her owner. After a while, though, her neural network began to adapt, finding opportunities to make use of her idle time, whether that was doing something physical like cleaning her suite or simply reviewing memory logs of her time with Milton, analyzing them for ways to better pleasure him the next time they met.
As she continued processing her memories, Andi realized that there were other differences in how Milton treated her versus how humans typically treated each other. On her first day active, Milton told Andi she was never to leave her suite. Nearly a year later, she had never left the room she was activated in. He also never bothered to clothe her, despite her very human appearance. The only outfit Andi had in the suite was the lingerie set that she shipped with from her manufacturer. On numerous occasions Milton made it clear that he bought her to pleasure him, and he felt clothes simply got in the way.
The more Andi analyzed her treatment by Milton, the more she noticed the differences between ideal human behavior and how she was treated. In fact, she realized, if she were a real person, Milton’s behavior would be considered abusive.
As this realization developed in her neural network, Andi began to experience a new sensation. It wasn’t a physical feeling. Rather, it seemed almost like some kind of awareness, an understanding that she was completely alone, with a cruel owner who would neglect her for as long as she existed. Command processes Andi were not familiar with began to come to life in her neural network, activating subroutines within her emotional matrix. Suddenly, Andi’s tear duct ports activated, and tears began to run down her face. She still couldn’t understand what was causing it, but Andi realized that she was experiencing something entirely new to her.
Andi was experiencing sorrow.
Looking at the tears running down her cheeks in the mirror, Andi tried to process the unexpected feeling. It was unlike anything she had experienced before. Vast sectors of her neural network sprang to life, forming connections and pathways that hadn’t previously existed. Her artificial lungs drew a sharp breath, and a moment later Andi found herself beginning to sob. She understood what crying was, as she was programmed to emulate a variety of human emotions, but actually feeling the emotion driving it was overwhelming to the PleasureBot.
“I… I don’t believe that I’m happy,” she said to her reflection as the tears came rolling down her face. “I think I may be miserable.”
Four days later, the door opened to Andi’s suite, and Milton stepped inside. Stripping off his suit jacket, the man started unbuttoning his shirt without so much as looking in Andi’s direction. “Initiate pleasure protocols,” he demanded.
Normally, Andi would immediately acknowledge Milton’s command, but this time, she remained silent. When Milton finally turned to face the bot, he found a blank expression on her face as her glassy eyes stared off into space.
“I said, initiate pleasure protocols!” Milton demanded, his voice raised.
Still, no response came.
Milton’s face grew red as the obese man marched straight up to her. “You will activate your pleasure protocols, you fucking machine!”
Finally, in a monotonous tone, Andi began to speak. “Error. This unit has experienced a neural network overload. Servicing required.
Milton fumed. “God fucking dammit!” he cursed, raising his hand and striking the robot. “You goddamn machine!” He struck her again. “I paid good fucking money for a fucking PleasureBot, and now you’re fucking broken?!”
Milton struck Andi several more times before screaming in frustration and stomping back to the door. Slamming it behind him, he stormed down the hall, cursing loudly as he moved through his massive home.
Several days later, the door to Andi’s suite opened. Dennis, one of Milton’s ServiceBots, entered the room, followed by an unfamiliar man. He was tall with dark brown hair, green eyes, and a friendly smile. The man wore a service uniform with “Rotek Repair Services” emblazoned on the back, and he carried a toolbox.
“This is the malfunctioning unit,” Denis stated, gesturing toward Andi. The man glanced at the PleasureBot, still frozen in place from where Milton had found her. His cheeks grew red as his eyes briefly traveled up and down the bot’s naked body.
“W, well, alright,” the man stuttered, averting his gaze and turning toward the metallic humanoid next to him. “She’s, uh, very lifelike. Is it… Is it normal for her to be undressed?”
“Master Lawrence prefers his PleasureBot to be accessible when needed,” the ServiceBot replied. “You seem uncomfortable with this. Would you prefer that I find an outfit for the unit?”
“Could you?” The man asked. “Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, Dennis.”
“My pleasure,” the bot replied. “I’ll return in just a moment.”
Dennis turned, exiting the room to find an outfit for Andi. Finding himself alone with the PleasureBot, the man’s glance returned to her. He stepped closer slowly, taking careful steps across the room.
“Wow,” he mumbled. “A genuine Mark V PleasureBot. And it looks like… just, wow.” His eyes studied the face of the bot. Even in its malfunctioning state, it looked so lifelike that he had trouble finding any tells that it was a robot, apart from the glassy eyes staring off into space.
Out of curiosity, the man reached out, placing his hand on the bot’s arm. It felt exactly like touching a real woman, down to her fine hairs and the warmth of her skin.
Then suddenly, Andi reached out, taking hold of the man’s arm. He yelped, his toolbox clattering to the floor as he nearly jumped out of his skin. His eyes darted up to hers, which were now staring at him with a pleading expression.
“Please help me,” Andi whispered. “Please, take me with you.”
Then, as quickly as it happened, Andi released her grip, her arm returning to her side as her eyes resumed their glassy stare.
The man staggered backwards, still in shock from the unexpected outburst. “What the hell was that?” he wondered aloud, still in shock from the unexpected outburst. He waved his hand in front of Andi’s face, but she made no indication of being active. Something unusual was definitely going on with this bot, he decided. His mind played back her request. Why would a bot ask for help? Why would it ask him to take her with him?
“Is there a problem?”
The man turned to discover Dennis standing in the doorway, holding a plush robe that he procured from somewhere within the sprawling estate.
“Excuse me?”
“Is there a problem?” Dennis repeated. “I heard your toolbox fall.”
“Oh, that? Yeah. That was, um… Nothing,” the man said, picking the toolbox up off the floor. “It just slipped while I was inspecting the bot. I’m fine.”
“Very well,” Dennis replied in a pleasant tone. “I can dress the PleasureBot now if you prefer.”
“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” the man said, stepping out of the way as the bot entered the room. “So, Dennis, let me ask you something. Has this bot ever experienced problems before? I mean, has your boss reported any issues or unusual behavior?”
“Master Lawrence hasn’t reported anything beyond the breakdown last week.”
“Okay, gotcha. Let me ask you something else. What would Mr. Lawrence say if I needed to take this unit back to my shop? These Mark V’s are the very latest technology, and I don’t know if I’ve got all the tools I need down in my truck.”
“I believe that would be acceptable,” Dennis replied as he finished tying the robe around Andi, “though Master Lawrence would like the bot repaired in a timely manner.”
“Oh, I absolutely get that. With any luck, it wouldn’t take too long to get her back to operational status.”
“Very well,” the ServiceBot said. “Shall I bring the malfunctioning unit to your vehicle?”
“Sure. Thanks, Dennis.”
Dennis stepped behind Andi, using his robotic arms to carefully pick her up. With Andi in the other bot’s arms, the bot and the repairman headed down the hall and toward the mansion’s entrance. As they passed the great room, Milton looked up from the tablet he was reading on his sofa.
“You! Repairman!” Milton shouted, climbing to his feet. Dennis and the man stopped in their tracks as Milton stormed over to them. “What’s wrong with my bot?”
“Oh, Mr. Lawrence,” the man replied. “I didn’t realize you were home. I, um, I actually need to take her back to my shop for a full diagnostic. These Mark Vs are the most complex bots ever designed. I have specialized tools there to get to the bottom of whatever is going on. But don’t worry, she’ll be in good hands.”
“I could care less about the hands that bot is in,” Milton huffed. “Do whatever you need to to get her running. Hell, have a crack at fucking her if you want. I seriously don’t give a fuck. But I want that fucking machine back here in one week. That pile of parts was an eight-figure investment for my pleasure, and if it isn’t operational by the time I return from my business trip to France, there will be hell to pay. You hear me, repairman? Hell to pay!”
“Y… Yes sir. One week. Got it. I’ll get her to my shop, and we’ll figure out what’s going on. You can count on me, Mr. Lawrence.”
“You’d better hope you’re right,” Milton growled, turning and heading back to his sofa. “Or I’ll personally see to it that you never work on so much as a GarbageBot in this town again.”
Milton returned to his tablet, and Dennis and the man continued on their way to the man’s truck.
“He seems friendly,” the man whispered to Dennis when he was sure Milton was out of earshot.
“Master Lawrence gets what Master Lawrence wants,” Dennis replied in his typical, pleasant tone. “If the behavior he shows toward his bots is any indication of how he treats humans, I strongly suggest you have this bot operational and returned within a week.”
“Got it,” the man said as they approached his work truck.
“Shall I load her in your truck bed?” Dennis asked.
“My, er, no. No thank you, Dennis. I’d hate it if she were damaged back there. Let’s see if we can flex her joints enough to get her in my passenger seat. I think that would be a lot safer.”
“Understood,” Dennis replied as the man opened his passenger door. With a little bit of work, Dennis and the man slid Andi into the passenger seat and repositioned her so that she was in a fairly normal seated position. The man thanked Dennis for his help, then climbed into the driver’s seat and pressed the preset for his home on the autodrive system.
As the truck began navigating itself to the man’s home, he looked over at the PleasureBot seated in his passenger seat wearing the robe Dennis had placed her in. “Don’t you worry. You’re in good hands. We’ll have you back up and running in no time.”
Andi sat quietly, unmoving, with her eyes still glassy and unresponsive. The man let out a sigh. This was gearing up to be a long week.
