#60 - Son of a Bit

Mike stared at the little robot. “What?”

“I said, traffic is-“

“I heard what you said. Why the hell would you bring us this way, then?”

Bit turned and pointed through the windscreen. “There’s a parking space on the left up there about to come free. Please pull in safely.”

This was the short story that accompanied Susan Cook's speech at the User-Centred Design Conference a couple of weeks ago. The model of AI featured in this story is designed to be a linking service for all your various 'Internet of Things' objects in the home, but one that can also learn to work better with you through interaction. It would present itself in a way that makes it forgivable should it make a mistake. Although Bit talks quite a lot in this story, in reality there would probably be more gestural and nonverbal interaction, perhaps making use of simpler tones.

You can find more information about the speech, and the other two models of AI, right here.

As always, I would love to collaborate with you! If you have short fiction that you would like me to include as a standalone episode of Pocket Fiction, drop me a line!

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Music: “The Pyre” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By attribution 3.0.

Sound effects used in this podcast: Urban Ambience: Park 3 by Karl Salamander; Highway Driving Exit Idle by mitchellsounds; 061018_indicatorsR by ermine; Handbrake by ninebilly; tone beep by pan14; Office Ambience Mix by kwahmah_02; and intercom by kompactt.