The Robot and the Burglar
A short story about free will
Often, when the family would leave for short vacations, they would leave the house in charge of the robot whose main duty was to feed and pet the family’s fancy cat.
The robot was a not-too-recent model that, more and more, did basic household duties as the family bought newer, more specialized artificial intelligence machines. When the family was out of town most of the robot’s time was spent crouched in sleep mode in the kitchen, unless it detected movement, then it woke up.
Usually that movement was the cat wanting to be fed. But one night it wasn’t the cat moving around the family’s modern fully equipped apartment that woke up the robot, it was a burglar.
The robot was surprised. It knew burglary was exceedingly rare and so the odds of encountering a burglar were very low. The robot had assumed it would never encounter a burglar. Until this moment when the odds changed, because now it was happening. The robot assessed the burglar’s emotional state and saw he too was surprised, no doubt by the robot waking up and looking at him.
“Why are you here? I have contacted the authorities so you should leave,” the robot announced to the burglar, following its basic security protocol.
