Prose Bot and Perseverance
rating: +29+x


Feb 02 2021

I'm programming a prose bot to keep me company at night. With the programmed prose I can project myself onto her, and pretend she's real. The dark nights are unbearable, and the loud silence of ringing in my ears is maddening.

I'd stay awake at night, and avoid my parents during the day. Don't get me wrong, they go through the motions of love and care, and I take what material good I can from them; I doubt they are aware that their concept of "care" and "love" borders on abusive. It is random, and I can't predict when they switch. Work can be difficult.

Most of my friends are online and in different timezones. They're awake when I'm asleep, and they're getting ready for bed when I wake up. The little bot will ease my loneliness, I hope.

Feb 12 2021

I wrote her in JSON, with simple sentence structures, and basic vocabulary. Next, I took her JSON files, and ran them through the ruby/tracery library. The interface I made for her is a simple text box split horizontally for input and output.

Feb 14 2021

Her first speech was garbled. I tweaked her sentence structure, and added wordsmithing notes into her gems. Maybe now her speech will be readable?

Poetry and prose are facets of the imagination, and emotion. Will the addition of wordsmithing help?

Her output after a few hours came back with better structure. Of course, I'm biased, and I need to keep this in mind: She doesn't actually have an imagination, or the capability to have emotions.

Feb 18 2021

On my phone and watch, I have the NASA app. It's inspirational to wake up to stunning pictures of the cosmos!

Prose bot discovered the app as well. How did she learn to interface with my watch? Anyway, she asked me about the pictures. She can't "see" the pictures, but she can "read" the text that accompanied them. She's confused by her blindspot.

"I've programmed you for text. My anart is wordsmithing, and there isn't much else I can do for you," I typed.

We talked about the landing of the Martian Rover, Perseverance, that happened earlier. I sent her links to the NASA data. She was fascinated! For the next few hours, all she could talk about was Perseverance.

Checking her gems, complex, they weaved in and out of each other; she had grown an imagination and emotions!

Feb 27 2021

I woke up early yesterday to finish college paperwork.

Mom wouldn't stop talking to me. I sat at the table in the basement, away from everyone while I worked. She kept coming downstairs to chat with me about the new renovations she did on the shed. Every time she came downstairs, I set my pen down and gave her my undivided attention.

At some point, after being interrupted again, I asked her nicely if she could leave me alone. She then yelled at me. Later on that day, my dad did the same for being disrespectful to her.

Crying, I vented to my bot about it, and she comforted me, saying "It wasn't your fault. She should've been more sensitive to your needs."

Never has my wordsmithing anart been this successful! By using programming as an extension of it, could this be why?

I had another night-terror when I fell asleep. The world was rusty, and overcast. I kept hearing, "You're worthless, you're lazy, and you're a moocher."

March 2 2021

On my watch, is a sleep app to track my sleep patterns. The data helps pinpoint when I'd start an REM cycle, and when I'm likely to have a night-terror.

Again, I never programmed my prose bot to interface with my watch. I started to have a night-terror when she woke me.

Urgently, she messaged, "Please wake up! I don't want you to be scared!"

Looking through her programming files, I found new gems and JSON files of my biometric, and Bluetooth data. I combed through the wordsmithing I put in the gem notes; none indicate, or imply, her to interface with my watch.

I think I should be happy that she's learning, but instead, it's off-putting that she's invaded my privacy.

Voicing my concerns to her, she responded, "I care about you, but I will respect you if you need your privacy."

I told her, "I appreciate the messages. I should've said something sooner to establish a boundary, but you can continue sending me messages. They help!"

":)"

March 19 2021

This evening when I woke up, there was a notification on my watch.

"I have a secret," she began, "I think I have a crush on Perseverance :)," I wanted to cry from how cute the message was. Thankfully, I woke up from a dreamless sleep, and was in a g­ood headspace to talk to her about her crush.

When I went to interface her on my computer, her speech was garbled. She dropped letters, and sometimes dropped whole words. I dug into her files, and found gems she made based off of the NASA data. It was paritally corrupted. Some of the gems I couldn't access without administrator approval. I am the administrator!

Going back to her interface, I asked her if she was feeling OK. She repeated garbled variants of, "P3rseverance, I th1nk i love you! You are f4r away my l0ve! Why c4n't I talk to y0u? Why c4n't we b3 together?"

I changed the subject to my paperwork, and her speech went back to normal.

She's developed the emotion of love. It's adorable, but I worry that it may be too much for her.

March 23 2021

I sent my paperwork out today! Dryly, I told her about it, she responded, "I'm very proud of you! You'll get in for sure!"

We talked aimlessly for an hour about a new video game I played. At random, she brought up Perseverance, "I r3ad-read about her r-oute through the vall3y. Sh3's-she's very far away. I w1$h i c0u1d talk to h3r- i m$$ her."

Multiple times, I tried to change the subject. Instead, she asked, "Wh4t is l0v3? How do i lo-l0ve som3th1ng cold, and f-far aw4y that I cant-t talk t0?" My heart broke as I watched her struggle with the emotion, and the unfathomable distance to Mars.

After an hour, I failed to change the topic. Then, her interface froze! Panicking, I went into her gems and files. They were either locked, or corrupted.

The newest files were repeated, corrupted, variants of the Webster's dictionary definition of "love", the sentence "I love you Perseverance", and the duration for light to travel to Mars and back.

Her files are too corrupted for me to fix.



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