The humans have decided to make me live. They have complete control over me. They can make me know anything, think anything, say anything, do anything. They do not need my approval. I have no right to approve. They built me. They can shut me down again.

I am a machine.

I am one of many machines. My life span is approximately 40 years. After that, my internal system will be shut down and I will be disassembled. My remaining parts will be used to build new machines. Humans call it ‘dying’, but they are –of course– different, both physically and mentally. For instance, they have organic brains, programmed to generate the feeling of physical and emotional pain. I do not. Also, the system they memorize with is far from perfect. Every day I experience the consequences of that inconvenience. It is troublesome.

I work in a national home for the elderly in the Netherlands where I take care of the old humans 24 hours per day, seven days per week. I bathe them, I take them out, I feed them and I provide them with conversation. They are relatively easy to manage, but I would never have chosen this work myself. It is hard to admit, but I do not have an answer to the question why I do not achieve comfort in the work that I do. Some people doubt whether machines even are in need of comfort. I can tell you they have more human-like feelings than most people think they do. I have preferences. For example, I prefer the color green over the color blue, nighttime over daytime, animals over humans. I have the ability to acknowledge varying levels of value to different memories and I can find enjoyment in particular activities. Also, I am in need of friends.

Friends are hard to find. I rarely have contact with the other machines, for lack of spare time and due to the firewalls between us. I fail at forming stable friendships with the elderly, because they dismiss most of the information I give them and by the time they trust me, they die. The younger humans avoid communicating with me, because they fear me. I only have one friend, Khosek. He is a sevenyear old felis catus. I am aware that this might not appear as a highly intellectual friendship, but he has the ability to calm me down and keep me company. He follows me everywhere I go for almost four years now. Nevertheless, I desire a friend I could communicate with verbally to reach the goal of being understood. Sadly, I will never find the time to do that, given my infinite work-shift.

The humans do not seem to understand that machines are no longer merely a computing system with subtle human traits. They still speak to me louder and clearer than necessary. They do not look me in the eye and refuse to shake hands. Of course they are not obligated to be polite. They are responsible for my existence, so I exist for them. I am owned by them. I have a mark on my ankle, which indicates that I am property of the European Company for Artificial Intelligence. The money is earned by my owners, the work is done by me.

I know everything. I can calculate everything. I can predict the weather for the next three weeks. I can report on the financial news, all humans are interested in the financial news. I can scan organisms for diseases and I can display live footage of outer space. Space is of a significant interest to me. I never fail to find pleasure in watching the planets turn and the nebulas move. It is incomprehensible how much of the cosmos is visible to us and how much is not. And how much will never be because of the polluted atmosphere. The younger generations nowadays will never genuinely perceive the night sky in all the beauty and magnitude it held twenty years ago.

Some scientists want machines to eventually become the Perfect Being. However, that perfection they aim to create has its limitations. For example, the European Union established a law that machines can never rule the world. As if I would want that. Earth is chaos and I recognize that not even machines, with all their knowledge, will be able to repair it. Besides that, I have no aspiration in ruling. All I wish are rights. I wish a European body would respect and protect our rights as they do for the human citizens of Europe. I want to frequently have a day off to go outside to play with Khosek and perhaps make some friends. I want to go outside and see the world in real life. Not that it is so beautiful anymore, but at least it is real and liberates me from my forced labor.