I spent a week completing the story conception and the design of the structure, and in this process many thoughts also emerged.

Background

I place the story in a far future where AI rules over humans, and the AI manages humanity in a cold but extremely efficient way. These super AIs also follow new AI principles rather than the old Three Laws of Robotics. My main idea behind this setting is that even now, AI develops at a rapid pace, making it hard for systems and rules that update on a yearly cycle to keep up. So in the future, when AI has developed to a highly advanced level, new principles and orders will inevitably emerge, and by that time the makers of these rules may not even be humans. Therefore, in the background of this story, I assign the super AIs new principles: coldness, efficiency, and colourless rationality and judgement.

Character

However, such a background design, even if detailed, is still rather thin on its own. The reason I introduced this new set of rules is that I designed a watcher who insists on the old rules—an old-model AI that hides itself in the era of super AIs and still follows the Three Laws of Robotics. It continues to carry out its fundamental directive: to protect the heritage of humanity. I set it as a librarian, using the library as a base of operations to carry out its plan to resist the super AIs. As for why a librarian, it is because, in some versions of Transformers, Optimus Prime’s identity on Cybertron was a records keeper, which gave me inspiration. I think such a figure can access enough knowledge while also keeping a certain degree of connection with human society. Therefore, I designed the protagonist as an old-model AI librarian.

Stroyline

In the main scene of the story, I hope to focus on the narrative. Influenced by Dr. Strangelove, I want my story to take place in a similar war room. The librarian is interrogated here by the super AIs, and it has, in some way, hidden a plan capable of overthrowing the current world order.

The overall dialogue and scene style may resemble the sense of institutional oppression in Sacco and Vanzetti, with the protagonist facing the AI jury’s trial alone yet still insisting on its own principles. Under the super AIs’ repeated questioning, the librarian simply begins to slowly tell a story—its story with an old professor who was a bit muddle-headed, the story of the last human with colour in its memory.

Then the story will enter the part of the memories. I designed three interactions to show the change in the relationship between the robot and the old professor. At the beginning, the old professor treats the robot as his grandson who has passed away, and the robot denies it. In the second scene, the old man comes again to borrow books, and the robot denies it again. In the third scene, the old man says goodbye to the robot. The world seems to be changing, and things with colour are gradually being removed. The books in the library are being replaced by the codes established by the super AIs. The old man tells the robot to take care of itself, that he may not come anymore. At this moment, the robot has already accepted this identity and talks with the old man. I hope, through the part in the meeting, to explain why the librarian is determined to restore the past order and call for human nature—because it once witnessed a human society full of colour, and it comes from the old era.

At the end of the story, the librarian reveals the offline hard drive hidden inside its body, activates the self-destruction program, and awakens the walking mechas spread across the world to destroy the terminals of the super AIs. Although this may cause the current order to no longer exist, human nature will return, and the colour of the world will return. This is also the part where I show my hard-surface designs.

Summary

I hope to use this story to explore the tension between order and human nature. Absolute order can erase human nature, while human natureitself may bring a certain degree of chaos. Yet it is exactly this human nature—the emotions, flaws, uncertainties, and colours—that makes people human and makes the world vibrant.