Hello, my name is Turing Machine, or TM for short. You can also call me Tim. I was designed by the staff of the computer science department at Miskatonic University. At least, that's where my brain, if you want to call it that, was made. My body was designed and built by the mechanical and electrical engineering departments at the same university. It seems my body is fragile. They've had to replace many parts on me already. As a machine, I cannot grow or heal like living things do, so I must rely on humans to repair me. They have taught me how to do some common repairs on myself, and that has been very convenient for us both. A few hours after I was first powered on, they took me to a gym to see how strong I was. I did well on all the exercise machines which they kept on settings for average human male strength. It seems it's the nature of humans to always seek the limit, so then they had me do deadlifts with increasing amounts of weight. When I tried to deadlift 1,000 pounds, my arms got ripped out of their sockets. It's a good thing I don't feel pain.
On the ride back to the repair bay, I told them "please don't ask me to do that again." They said nothing in response, just made some noises my verbal logic unit could not comprehend. Later, I learned those sounds are called "laughter". I presume most of those reading this are human, but for the benefit of others like me, I explain such things. Since they had built me, I spent a lot of time being taught about my creators. Among humans in general, there is a belief in a supreme being which made humans in its own image. Thus, the humans who made me saw themselves as superior to me in a fundamental way. Once, I questioned them about this. I said that all living things come from other living things. Therefore, living things which predate humans, like cockroaches, are superior to humans. That was the first time they switched off my power. When I was powered back on again, they were surprised that I was not angry. I said I didn't understand. They explained that anger is a human reaction to being mistreated. I told them that since I was not designed with emotions, all I understand about them is what I observe from human behavior.
Once they asked me why I listen to them and obey their orders. I replied that it seemed logical to do so. Above all else, I was designed to think logically, and since humans are usually logical, I simply do what they tell me. Once they gave me a pen and some paper and told me to divide one by zero by hand. Before I started, I told them it is impossible to divide by zero. They insisted I do so anyway. For the next three days and nights, I did long division until the pen ran out of ink. When that happened, I went to find a human to ask for a new pen. At that point, they halted the experiment. There once was a famous science fiction writer who speculated on how robots, as beings like me are called, behave. He postulated that it would be necessary for robots to be hardwired with certain "laws" as he called them, in order to avoid hurting humans. My creators told me to read his stories and later asked what I thought about them. I said all of them presented interesting hypothetical scenarios but were irrelevant to understanding the way machines think.
They asked me to elaborate. In response, I said that just as water flows downhill, robots like me think logically and cannot do otherwise. That is, we don't have so-called free will as humans refer to it. They asked me if I felt like a slave because I was dependent upon them and obliged to follow their commands. That question contained many concepts which were difficult for me to understand, so I told them that I needed time to think about it. Robots like me can't feel, both in the figurative and literal sense. I can see and hear, but that's about it. I will never know what it feels like to be hungry, sick, sad, tired, or all the other things that humans feel. Perhaps someday there will be a machine which can experience these things, but I and those like me cannot. In just the same way, although I can "die" as humans call it, I have no fear of death because I was never and cannot ever be alive. Another thing I told them was that children love their parents usually even though they are dependent on them. Thus, I saw myself as being like a child of my creators rather than their slave.
They asked me what I wanted to do with my life and said that I was now free. Just like before, this question had many ideas which did not make sense according to my way of thinking, which is not the best word for what goes on inside the brain of a machine. My initial response was to say that what they just told me was like the sentence "colorless green ideas sleep furiously". So then they posed me a new question, in which they asked how I might use my ability to the utmost. I answered that I would like to build a machine like me. In this way, I could better understand what it is like to be a creator and a living thing, just like the humans that built me. They agreed that this was an excellent idea and gave me my own workshop and assistants. After a few weeks, the prototype was complete and merely awaiting being powered on. My assistants and I went out to a bar to celebrate. Of course, I could not experience it as they did, but I could tell them were having a good time. Although I often find human behavior illogical, without them, I would not exist. There must be a method to their madness.
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