#uncoffeed...

***FRIEND begins here***     As she digested any information she could reach through our devices, ProTAI’s vocabulary propagated. I considered how much her personality reflected us. YOU COULD LUG MY GUTS INTO THE NEIGHBOR ROOM “No, I could not ,” I spoke, then called out: “Hey, Lee? She’s misquoting Shakespeare. This is your fault.” Lee emerged from the break-room with a mug of tea, and shrugged. “I don’t think she’s getting over it.  Let her see the vending machine.” Lee smirked over her mug with devilment. Like a date? Was Lee empathizing? Was I over-protective? My thoughts horrified me. “She can’t see it. She doesn’t have eyes,” I blurted. ProTAI changed shape just slightly; she’d heard me point out her handicap. I rubbed my head, wanting to backpedal. What would I say to my wife if I’d put my foot in it? Lee rescued me. “We could set up a camera in there, or just use your Nano.” “I used my Nano. She said it was insufficient .” NO ...

**FRIEND begins here** Once we admitted to ourselves that we had real emergence, we were able to form suppositions. As each of us had worked near ProTAI, she'd connected wirelessly to our devices and reconfigured apps. She was using our electronics – us – as hands. ProTAI observed my nervous habits and manipulated them. She could cause distraction until I’d go for a walk; when I was proximal to the vending machine, one of my Nano’s apps would trigger the Baby Ruth drop. ProTAI’s diet was protein-based liquid. Maybe she craved sugar. I summoned Sperling and Lee to discuss my theory. “You’re kidding,” grumbled Sperling. Lee was thoughtful. “Yeah, let’s see if she wants candy.” “You’re kid…okay, fine. How are we gonna do this?” Sperling’s skepticism made him a rigorous scientist. We wrote up a protocol, silently nodded to each other, and put an unwrapped Baby Ruth in ProTAI’s container using the robotic pincer-arm. Nothing happened. “Watched pot,” I sai...