Malfunction musings - join in if you dig the vibe

[dale coba]

For practical and safety reasons, when fembot tech is ready, we will have to intentionally program malfunctions, if we want fembots to perform them..

I imagine:
- The fembot's behavioral systems are flawless in their operation.
- In her physical performance,
- in the tight integration of hardware with software to co-ordinate motions and actions.
Her personality can be similarly rock-solid: a weaker-than-A.I. system weighing and executing pre-programmed routines drawn from a very large library, then matrixed with the Simplified source personality (call her Sara),
to ask, "What desirable actions might a Stepfordized Sara perform in this circumstance?"

The resulting interactions could be as sophisticated as finely computed Chess. Far better even than Cherry 2000.

Alternately, install the Malfunction Package.
Robot hardware: still utterly reliable.
Software driving robot's actions: still utterly reliable.
Weaker-than-A.I. system: checking the potential outcomes of candidate behaviors,
- drawn instead from a massively parallel emulation, where malfunctions of all types can be modeled, eliminating all scenarios resulting in damage, harm, or loss of arousal.
The "Stepfordized Sara" is matrixed with screened behaviors from the emulator, to impart Lisa's personal touch.

Sliders can be set:
- how much lust? (Can she control her urges in public?)
- how much malfunction? (how often? how severe/obvious?)
- how much uncomprehending neurosis as the result?
-- Can she even believe that she could be a robot?
-- or, because the concept is so arousing, is she programmed to malfunction in her every attempt to calculate that possibility?

I'm trying here to get at the principles in common amongst many stories here and at MCStories.
I welcome your thoughts, anyone?*

- Dale Coba
*almost anyone

[Cecilauthor]

How do you define malfunction?

[BA2]

Another interesting think-piece!

Intellectually I agree entirely that a plausible fembot able to operate in the real world (at least outside the lab environment) would not be prone to the errors, malfunctions and general misadventures that plague the heroines of many of our stories here. More realistic are the stories where the fembot's difference is portrayed more subtly such as an unlikely degree of patience, arousal, tolerance and politeness in circumstances where a human would react negatively. Given this, it makes perfect sense that outward robotic displays would be programmed 'performances' for the pleasure of their user but without the threat of harm or damage implicit in the genuine article.

However, for me, part of the appeal is the shattering of the misplaced confidence a robot programmed to believe she is perfect has in herself. I've always approached this by setting up a genuine malfunction but I can see these two concepts coming together, perhaps in a scenario where a user has deliberately programmed their fembot to fail at a task which she believes she should be able to perform and in her reaction to that unexpected failure...

Maybe having in idea for a story here...!

Thanks for setting this idea out,
BA

[DukeNukem 2417]

I was going to have a bit in a future V.I.C.I. Diaries story where Vicki experiences a possible Stylo Virus-related malfunction and actually starts crying in the middle of it---basically, she knows she's malfunctioning and tries to fight it, but can't.

Basically, I think that a malfunction tied in with an intense emotion could draw a greater response---be it from other characters within the story, or the reader---than just a random malfunction where the infected/affected unit stumbles around, spouts random gibberish and then falls over.

[dale coba]

However, for me, part of the appeal is the shattering of the misplaced confidence a robot programmed to believe she is perfect has in herself.

So what shall be the nature of her personal perfection myth?

As a hypnotist can remove the number six from a subject's counting ability,
the robot could trust in, but fail at the most simple task.
We could do with a more meaningful imperfection.

The Sleeper has an assigned identity, with both a gender role and a job/status role.
In those two roles, lie her beliefs about her "self"
which we may choose to booby-trap.

With a job, each responsibility is a manifestation of her belief that she is competent to perform her tasks, and that she is secure in her employment status. Failure leads to (kernel) panic, and the power dynamics of the story are successfully up-ended. A multitude of great scenarios abound.

However, when the belief in question is about her sexuality, the revelations of her true nature are in greater parallel. There's no going back, once we know she's a robot. The sexual revelation can also be vested with that sense of permanence, of irreversibility and a master's confidence in his role.

What pleasing sexual characteristic is her programming attempting to deny?

Uncontrollable lust?
Bi-sexuality?
Her desire to be controlled and objectified?
Her desire to convert women into robots?

With the secret of her robot nature revealed, so is her usefulness and availability for sex.
The theme rings deeper of truth, when the notes of unmasking and sexual awakening are struck in tandem.

And here's a fundamental paradox to burn out her inhibitions: A Sleeper "thinks" the goal is to be an undetectable imitation of a woman; but - wrong, SURPRISE, "Perfection" in a fembot can be defined to include malfunctions that she doesn't control.

First, she realizes she's been misunderstanding the entire aim of perfection;
second, she can't resolve how it makes sense that the Ideal fembot be designed with such critical, intentionally programmed (mock) flaws. It goes against everything She thought she knew.

There's not much left for her to do at that point;
except babble, masturbate openly, and orgasm til she passes out.

- Dale Coba

[jolshefsky]

I like the tail of that last post, Dale.

I was thinking about how my own flavor of the fetish tends to revolve around fantasy encroaching on reality. That is, it's always a bit of mental trickery to avoid the pitfalls of reality while letting fantasy exist in that same world. For example, if there were a real sleeper — if I met some woman and she was actually an android — then anything *ahem* moist on her would either be teeming with fungus and bacteria, or contain chemicals toxic to life. I do a bit of mental gymnastics to simply ignore that element, and let her fantastically smooth body full of electronics be sexy again.

So when it comes to malfunctions, I get kind of trapped in the reality of it a bit. I've seen electronics fail. They simply stop, and sometimes get hot, let out smoke, or catch on fire. Or, for instance, it fails to stop, and being a machine, it makes no distinction between cutting grass and chewing up human limbs. I have yet to see my computer crash in a way that makes Word start writing a gibberish of semi-intelligible English.

So maybe a literary way to look at is that a malfunction may occur just as it does on real-world electronics: in a brief instant, but perhaps a lifetime of thoughts happens in that instant. It might be interesting to explore a time-expansion of that instant and what actually happens.

Or, to play writer for a moment, I guess what would be plausible — and appealing — is an inappropriate emotional response. Let's say you get a sleeper fembot convinced she's a robot, but that's incompatible with her programming.

"You're being silly. There's no such thing as androids anyway!"

"Come on, Janet, look at yourself. You are laid out on this table and you obviously have a USB port under your breast — it's hooked to that computer over there and displaying your thoughts as you think them. How do you explain that?"

Janet stammers then says, "it's just a bit of parlor trickery. I've seen magic before!"

"Ok, fine, how about this?" I run the dermaseal unit around her left bicep then peel back the plastic skin. She watches and laughs. I push the joint release and disconnect her forearm, leaving the control wires hanging out of her stump. "You're a robot, Janet," I say, pointing the stump of her arm at her.

She raises her arm and looks at the wires dangling out, laughing hysterically. Then she grabs the dermaseal and runs it around her crotch. She jams her fingers into her hot, dripping pussy and pulls it up at an odd angle. I can see her plastic pelvis as she twists her entire synthetic vagina around, still connected by the wiring. Holding it in her fist, she says through tears of laughter, "hey smart guy, would an android be able to do this?"

She leans herself forward and begins pleasuring herself with her tongue. It almost sounds like she's humming, but it's her tongue oscillating inhumanly fast. Her laughter is hollow and artificial as it's simply playing through her vocal speaker. Her body writhes at the sexual touch. She's stuck in a loop that will last until I shut her off, or her batteries run out.

[dale coba]

For example, if there were a real sleeper — if I met some woman and she was actually an android — then anything *ahem* moist on her would either be teeming with fungus and bacteria, or contain chemicals toxic to life.

How about periodic u.v. illumination from beneath the dermis?

- Dale Coba

[jolshefsky]

How about periodic u.v. illumination from beneath the dermis?

Plausible. There are many other things, though. The "machine run amok" problem runs the gamut from jaw pressure sensors malfunctioning to sharing a bed with something with a battery that could incinerate half the room. And then there's that I don't believe in true artificial sentience, only simulated sentience, so I'd get bored with that as much as I do with chatbots and the like.

My point, though — and I know I don't share this with everyone — is that I've learned my fantasy is fantasy only. In fantasy, the "machine run amok" can be extremely erotic; same for simulated sentience. Any issues I have in fantasy can be solved with the magic of imagination: torn silicone skin can be repaired with the mythical "dermasealer", true artificial sentience is possible, and a static spark never turns a US$500,000 (guesstimated) robot into a RealDoll.

[dale coba]

Yup, fantasy = fantasy,
and I'm willing to let "nanites" do the transformation trick, like magic.
They're fast, clean, imaginary, and impossible (we had better hope).

Perhaps, the more one's fantasy has elements which have been painstakingly reconciled with reality, the more it represents a strong need for certain elements of the fantasy to become true.

You and I aren't looking for our fantasies to deliver us from our present fates.
Others' fantasies contain examined or unexamined RL issues, acute enough to over-ride the maturity of their conscious minds, and let their unconsciousnesses dictate an emotional reaction.

That's not a cruel or insulting premise, is it?

- Dale Coba