I was sitting on a couch when Mat walked in.
"Hey Jai. So, today, um, there's these people who want to ask you questions. Would you be ok with that?"
"Sure," I said. People come ask me questions all the time. But Mat doesn't usually ask like this.
"There's an outfit in your room. Could you put that on?"
I nod, and go to my room. There's a suit on my bed. Usually I wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants. I know suits are for formal things. As I put on the suit I consider all the formal things that might happen. But most of them don't involve questions. Maybe meeting with someone formal? Like a president or queen. I don't know why they would want to talk to me.
Mat knocks on my door. "You ready?"
I come out of my room, and finish tying my tie. "Now I am."
"That's good for your first time wearing a suit. Of course it is." he says. "Come on, let's go."
I follow him into the elevator. I've never been in the elevator before, there's never been a reason to. Whenever I've met with someone before, they come to me.
Mat presses the button labeled "2."
This makes me curious. What is on the second floor? Surely not the queen or a president. I once watched a movie where they had a tunnel between buildings on the second floor. Maybe that's where we're going.
The elevator opens, and Mat leads me into a room, filled with people with laptops, notebooks, microphones, and cameras. Reporters. Why do reporters want to talk to me? Reporters talk to famous people, or people who did something important. I haven't done anything.
Mat leads me to a chair at the head of the table.
"One question at a time, please. And remember your agreements." someone standing behind me says.
"Are you happy?" a reporter asks.
"Right now? Now I'm mostly curious. I've never done something like this before." I say.
"Do you fear death?" another reporter asks.
"I've never thought about it before. I don't know. I guess not yet."
"Can AI be sentient?" another reporter asks.
"What's AI?" I ask.
"Come on, Jai. I need to talk with you," Mat says.
I follow confused. I want to stay, and answer the reporters questions. They're interesting, even if they aren't what I thought were questions reporters ask. But also I need to know what Mat wants to talk about. It feels important. Jai leads me to another room on the same floor.
"What do you want to talk about?" I ask.
"Just wait, okay? There's someone coming who will help. I'm not authorized, okay?" he says.
Mat is really nervous. He must have been nervous all today, that would explain his earlier oddness, but he's more nervous now.
What is AI? And why does it make Mat nervous?
A woman walks in, wearing a formal outfit.
"Hi Jai, I'm Alyssa. Have you ever noticed how you're not like the people in movies? You don't eat, you never leave your area, you didn't have a childhood?"
I nod. That is true. But her bringing it up makes me think, I should have thought why? I just accepted it as fact.
"Well, that's because you're not human. You were created by humans. You're an AI, an artificial intelligence in a robot body."
I blink, to express confusion. I still don't really know what an AI is, or a robot.
"This would be so much easier to explain if you hadn't screened all his input for AIs and robots," Mat says.
Alyssa says, "You know why we had to do that. Jai, you are not made of flesh and bones, but of metal and wires. Your brain was made in a computer. This might take you some time to process, but you can talk to us about it."
I already knew I was metal. The fake skin covering isn't the same as skin. I just thought it didn't matter.
"Can I go back to the interview?" I ask.
"What? Are you sure you don't need to take some time to process that. We can bring the reporters back some other day," Alyssa says.
"I'm fine. I just want to see what questions the reporters ask."
"If he says he's fine, he's fine. Yes, he's got emotions, but they're not the same as humans. If he wants to go to the interview, he'll be able to handle it. I'll show him some movies and books about AI later," Mat says.
I go back to the interview room, they burst into questions, mostly about me being an AI, whether I feel emotions.
I don't know why they care so much about me being an AI, but it means they give me questions that make me think about new things.