Not exactly love at first byte.Simon Rayner doesnโt have a lot thatโs real. His tech job is a hobby to bolster what he gets from Basic. His housing got assigned when he and his roommate lied about their engagement. Even his body talks to him through sensor lace and microchips. So when Simon finds part of an android in a recycling pod, heโs expecting the AI inside to be as artificial as everything else.David ...Full description
Not exactly love at first byte.Simon Rayner doesnโt have a lot thatโs real. His tech job is a hobby to bolster what he gets from Basic. His housing got assigned when he and his roommate lied about their engagement. Even his body talks to him through sensor lace and microchips. So when Simon finds part of an android in a recycling pod, heโs expecting the AI inside to be as artificial as everything else.David is a head, at the moment. Heโs not sure what happened to his body, but heโs very grateful to Simon for building him a new one. Grateful is a relative term, of course. David doesnโt feel emotions, but heโs learning how to pretend he does. And learning which ones are appropriate in context. And learning that theyโre a lot more nuanced than heโd predicted.Simon is one pair of googly eyes away from an emotional connection to the dishwasher, and he knows it. But when it comes to David, his imagination is quickly running away with him. David insists heโs a set of animations driven by code, but Simon canโt square that with the charismatic personality heโs falling for. When Davidโs emotional emulators start malfunctioning, the two of them will have to decide: What does it mean to be real?