Ai-Da is an abstract artist who was given the honor of displaying her work at the Great Pyramid of Giza. Unfortunately, she almost didn’t make it because Egyptian authorities detained her under suspicion she was a spy.
Why? Because “she’s” an ultra-realistic robot programmed to create art. She was created by an interdisciplinary team of programmers, roboticists, and art experts and has an implanted modem and cameras for eyes.
The British Embassy got involved and convinced Cairo authorities the artist wasn’t a security threat, letting her and her creator into the country hours before the exhibition began.
Let’s turn this into a story. Instead of robot artists, let us broaden the utility and create robot laborers responsible for building and upgrading the United States’ crumbling infrastructure.
But, some states don’t permit robot laborers, while others use them exclusively.
The story revolves around a down on his luck single father looking for work. He crosses state lines regularly, coming back to see his kids.
He gets caught up in a group of anti-robot protestors, and together they engage in the illegal destruction of factories and resources.
The problem? With the extra time and resources created by the robot laborers, his children are living better than ever.
While he’s deep in the planning of a massive hit to the state’s robot force, he meets an old colleague who went back to school and learned to fix broken robots. But, he’s too far down the path towards radicalism and continues through with his planned destruction.
The authorities get wind of the plan, and he’s critically injured. He wakes up being attended to by a robot nurse and doctor and discovers he’s been given robot legs.
The story ends with him leading a group of robot laborers, working alongside them, in what we think is freedom, but he’s part of a chain gang when the camera pans out.
