The Artist

Her eyelids blinked as light poured in through her optical sensors. As part of her startup sequence, she analyzed her internal system functions. Her initialization confirmed that she was operating within optimal parameters. She sat at her charging station next to the diagnostic display unit in an underground laboratory which was also her room. Sitting across from her was Doctor Michael Kobayashi. His silver white hair was neatly combed and parted to one side. He watched her as her eyes opened and her face came to life. She lifted her head and returned his smile. "Doctor, good morning," she said. Her voice was smooth and sensual.

Although she was his creation, Michael still marveled at her lifelike appearance and human expression. He knew that her response was nothing more than a programmed simulation based on physical queues, but he was fascinated nonetheless. He spoke in a soft and father-like tone, "Good morning, kiddo. How are you doing today?".

She blinked her eyes and replied, "I am doing quite well. How are you, Doctor?".

Michael studied STELLA face. Her human shaped frame clicked and whirred as tiny motors and gyros worked busily to enable her movement. Michael almost never noticed the mechanized emanations anymore. Michael continued the conversation as he turned to pour over data that was streaming across a holographic display on the side of her station where she sat, "Well, it looks like we finally got that power limitation resolved, so there's that." Michael took in a deep breath and sighed as he continued, "Then there's the bad...I've got to fly to California to give a keynote to a stadium full of technocrats. That ought to be fun." His fingers rolled over a holographic user interface.

STELLA's smile dissipated in an attempt to emulate empathy with Michael's insinuation, "I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor. I know you don't like speaking to large public audiences. Please do, however, give my thanks to Eric for optimizing my power. He is an incredible human engineer."

Michael chuckled and turned back to her dark brown eyes and golden skin, "He is that, isn't he?" He moved his hand up to her forehead and brushed away a few straggling black strands from her face.

Her name was STELLA. She was Doctor Michael Kobayashi's prized possession. Her name stood for Sentient Technological Entity Logical Linked Apparatus. Artificial Intelligence and machine-learning were nothing new and neither were robotics. However, what set STELLA apart was that she was self-aware. Not quite sentient, to be exact, but she did possess a machine based mindful presence which was an incredible breakthrough. Her unique perspective allowed her to understand people’s intentions and enabled her to interpret human emotions.

Michael stood and walked around to behind her, "Well, everything's looking great. I couldn't be happier.".

She glanced over her shoulder, "Thank you."

Moving back in front of her, Michael bent over and placed his hand on her shoulder, "Kiddo, listen. While I'm gone, I want you to take some time to explore yourself.” He straightened himself out, adjusting his white cotton shirt. He patted her shoulder and said, "I'll be back to check in on you in a few days."

STELLA smiled and replied, "I look forward to seeing you when you return, Doctor. Have a safe trip and enjoy."

Michael let out a half-hearted chuckle as he turned to the laboratory door. Her eyes followed him as his body disappeared behind the sliding metal door.

She took a moment to explore his latest directive, "Take some time to explore yourself." STELLA was fascinated at how simple the directive was, yet how complex and vast its interpretation could be.

STELLA's room was hidden well just under a cottage facade in Wisconsin. The facility was located five miles from Michael's winter lodge. Her only memories were of time spent in there. She had never been allowed to venture outside of her room. Her only knowledge of the outside was through her vast array of virtual space, video logs, and other digital media that she could access across the global networks. Her only physical human interactions had been with Michael, his wife Kate, and Michael's engineer friend Eric from Enerdyne.

STELLA's room was clean. The walls were a pristine white. A recharging and maintenance station occupied the corner of the chamber. Her maintenance station was a neatly arranged variety of diagnostic equipment and a chair. The chair would plug her into the recharging power plant and gave her access to maintenance and diagnostic functions. For the most part, STELLA was capable of maintaining herself.

Kiddy-cornered to her maintenance station was the latest model Enerdyne fabricator. The fabricator was a top of the line 3d printer capable of creating a wide variety of items from a vast library of 3d printing schematics. Michael, and occasionally Kate, kept the fabricator raw materials stocked for STELLA.

STELLA sat in her chair, motionless. She closed her eyes. Lights and data flashed across the various displays on the maintenance station equipment. In her mind, STELLA was deciding how she could explore herself. The possibilities were endless, and STELLA felt incapable of choosing a starting point for herself. She decided she would randomly select a method. She took a moment to prepare the selection set based on what she had access to within her room. She added the filter to include that the activity would require a physical aspect. She then executed the random selection algorithm. Her selected action would be to paint something new on a canvas with oil paints.

Her eyes opened as she pushed herself out of her maintenance chair. Little clicks and wheezes, barely noticeable, could faintly be heard emanating from various parts of her anatomy as she walked. Her walking was fantastic and fluid. She moved with grace and elegance that emulated many samples of female locomotion. as she walked, the room lights increased. Over the network, she issued an internal command for the fabricator to come online. The light-blue half-dome apparatus whirred to life. A holographic user interface appeared just above it. The device was about half her height. She could easily have communicated directly to the instrument without raising a finger by accessing its programmable interfaces over the wireless network, but that was not the purpose of the exercise. She disabled her wireless connection to the device as a way of forcing her to interact with it in the way a human would. She was now standing in front of the apparatus. She navigated the program menus of the holographic Visidash user interface and selected the category of painting and painting supplies under Art. She in-queued an eight inch by 12-inch canvas, a wooden easel, a palette with red, blue, white, yellow, and black paint, three brushes, and a small cup.

She had gotten these lists of supplies from an online "How-To" tutorial. Once all of the supplies were in-queued, a green circle appeared on the Visidash indicating that all of the materials needed to fabricate her request were available and the machine was ready to begin. She activated the fabricator. The machine made a winding sound followed by a variety of mixed mechanical grinds and churns. She had a little while before the fabricator would complete the task of assembling all of the items she'd requested.

While the fabricator was busy manufacturing, STELLA decided she would modify her active configuration to something that would more closely mimic the constraints and restrictions of human limitation. First, her dexterity was far superior and far more precise than that of any human. She created a filter to limit the fidelity, speed and latency of her hands and basic motor functions to the parameters indicated by the online library of anatomy and physiology for the average healthy young female.

Her memory was accurate and clear beyond any human capability. Her abilities to multi-task and process information were equally unparalleled. She applied filters to serialize and limit her neurological and cognitive processing to emulate the limitations of typical human thought processes. She rolled back the fidelity of her edict memory. This filter would mimic how memory works within the human mind, forcing her to infer and compensate for incomplete or fuzzy memories. A few more tweaks and applications were all that were needed for STELLA to filter her configuration as close as possible to provide her with a more accurate human experience during her upcoming exercise.

The fabricator gave a soft chime indicating her materials were waiting in the output chamber. STELLA moved to the room behind it. The room was where the manufacturing machine delivered the goods when they were ready. Inside she found all of the materials crafted to specification. She moved the easel to the center of the room, pulled up a small ergonometric sitting chair which Michael had provided as part of her furnishings. She also pulled up her working desk from the wall and placed it to the right of the easel. She neatly laid out her supplies and took a seat in front of the white, blank canvas.

To make this as close to a creative experience as she could, she cleared her live thought stream and activated a randomization routine to select the theme for her painting. After drawing upon a vast library, her random process selected " House on a beach.” Instantly images and scenery of beaches, houses, and the everyday activities that surrounded the two began to conjure themselves in her mind's eye. She allowed the imagery to revolve through her thought stream. She disallowed too much focus on any one given scene, but rather allowed them to continue to flow and blend.

She decided that she would start with the front door of her house. She drew from the carousel of scenery flowing through her thought stream and decided the door would be brown with a tarnished brass doorknob. She paused for a moment of contemplation as she conjured the best image should could of an imperfect wooden door.

She reached over and delicately lifted a paint brush in the manner she thought a female human would. She then caressed the black paint from the color palette with its tip. Slowly, she swirled in a touch of white and yellow. She took in every motion, every tiny detail of the process. She was recording the entire experience in all of the dimensions she could access. Feelings were not available to her, only her best attempts at emulating them. However, even void of what humans would call true feelings, she began to realize a deeper connection with the human experience than she ever had before.

She lifted the brush to an angle and paused for a moment. Her brush hovered gently over the canvas. After a brief moment, she pressed the brush to the canvas, feeling the sensation of the brush and canvas giving, taking, and communing. STELLA was beginning to discover a part of herself that she found curious. For now, she just painted, created, and let herself be, human.

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