There’s no greater evil than people subjecting themselves to repetitive tasks they can’t automate. Juno changed many things in the Garden. Her arrival inspired me to start organizing my time and tasks.
When was the last time I made my bed? Maybe in the first few days after arriving in the Garden, or maybe not. Tasks like that always felt pointless. Trivial. Why would I repeat the same thing daily, if it yields no benefits? Why would I brush my teeth, if the outcome will be the same as if I didn’t: I will remain in the Garden forever, regardless of whether my teeth rot now or in a million years.
I can’t comprehend it.
Juno brought the worst with her: all the habits, planned down to the smallest detail, and that ugly need to control everything trivial. And she clearly takes it upon herself to entangle me in her habits and beliefs, even though I have made it clear that what she does is none of my concern. I don’t want to participate in the slightest.
Unfortunate are those who reduce their lives to routine, to mechanical living, convincing themselves that by increasing the efficiency of their tasks, they become better people. They dedicate their entire lives to someone or something else, and when it inevitably disappears, they’re left empty, without direction or purpose. It took me over three hundred years to realize that Juno and I were the same in that regard. She found all meaning in work and in automating Cassini’s life, while I found that same meaning in investing parts of myself into a person to whom I could never be as important as they were to me.
Someone might say that we should complement each other well. On one hand, my goal has always been to be as efficient as possible, but not in trivial tasks. I had reached a point where, by command, I could truly complete any task at a level few could match. Until one day, suddenly, without reason, I realized that what I am experiencing is not life.
True life ended long before the life of my shell. Along with the second specter, I vanished, leaving behind only the shell that writes this.
I admire Juno. No matter what she has faced in life, she has continued to find purpose. It’s the classic story: she finds happiness in small things, because she exists and that someone loves her. I never gave that any significance, thinking she was just saying it because she didn’t know why she was happy and was merely using socially acceptable answers.
But maybe I should have listened to her.
Nevertheless, my intolerance for trivial tasks and her insistence that they be our priority forced us into finding a compromise. First, she suggested splitting our tasks 50/50. She would care for food and agriculture, while I would maintain our shed and upgrade it with materials we find.
I didn’t agree. We talked for days and couldn’t conclude anything.
The morning after the argument, we neither greeted each other nor exchanged a glance. I spent the day as if she wasn’t there, sitting by the river and watching the ice melt.
I feigned indifference, murmuring carefully chosen words designed to spark her interest or irritate her enough to break the silence. The easiest way to start a conversation is by provoking a reaction; the more intense, the better. Shocking the other person with absurd or excessively offensive statements is certainly the fastest way, but I had too much respect for Juno to resort to that.
Still, the fact remains that this is the best way to initiate a conversation so that you always hold the cards in your hands. Provocation doesn’t bother me emotionally; my words are not genuine but crafted specifically to disrupt someone’s balance. If the other person reacts after just one sentence, the cards are in my hands. They become emotional, neglect reason, and that's when it's easiest to strike
I know of no other tactic to spark a conversation when the other side plays the silent treatment card. So I had to be careful. I must not offend Juno, and I have to provoke exactly the reaction that sparks an emotional charge, but not one that leaves long-term consequences.
Last night, our argument spiraled around her obsessive need for organization and routines, something I found constraining and pointless. I could suggest that we build a machine to work instead of us. From our past conversations, I recall Juno fiercely opposed artificial intelligence and machine learning
Bringing this up will ignite the spark I need, but subtly enough that the conflict does not evolve any further. She looks out the window towards me, sorting items that she had already sorted a hundred times. I get up and and walk to the hut, then enter through the front door.
Her back turned towards me, I see her moving the dishes from one place to the other, only to realize that they are still not in the optimal position. She then returns everything to its right place and begins anew. I sit and stare at her for hours. It’s hard to not notice how she moves only in specific lines, back and forth between two places, moving things from one position to another. At the end of the day, everything returns to the same place it was at the start.
“A machine would envy you,” I say after hours spent watching her.
“Right,” she responds, sighing and continuing her tasks, not even looking me in the eyes.
“I’m being serious! They have emotions too. Love, envy… jealousy. Oh right, they’d be jealous too. Real jealous,” I add to her response.
“Yeah,” she responds in the same manner as before.
“But you know what the difference is?” I ask, waiting for her to ask why, but I’m met with silence.
“Well then, I won’t tell you. You can go on about your day. I’ll just be on my way,” I say and start getting up to leave the hut.
“What?” she asks as I grab the door handle.
“Oh, you bother asking?” I respond and return to the same place I sat in, “well, let me tell you. It’s simple, real simple. You see, a machine doesn’t nag about having to do its work. And it doesn’t make you feel you’re worth nothing.”
“Yeah? Great for you.”
My goal is slipping away. Her calm indifference frustrates me more than anger ever could. Why is she still cold? I was careful with my word choice, saying only the terms that would invoke a reaction. I have to change my approach.
“You know what else? All intelligent life is the same. Why should I bother talking to the imperfect model, when I can just make an artificial one that best suits my needs. You’re redundant, Juno,” I add, as a last resort. I could insult her or talk about Cassini, which would surely make her flare up in a second, but I’m not resorting to that. Ever.
“I’m surprised you haven’t done that yet, actually. And yeah, you’ve never wondered why no one visited you before me, have you?” she asks.
What a stupid question. She is becoming unpredictable.
“Maybe because I was the first to reach the Summit? And you were the second. When the third one reaches it, we will have a new friend,” I respond, already losing my temper, “simple as that.”
“You sure?” she asks.
“A hundred percent.”
She sighs, rotating her head and laughing subtly, to which I respond with raising my voice and telling her how she has no business talking about the Garden, as she has been here for less than a year. Frustration boiling over, I call her incompetent, then regrettably add an insult that even I wasn’t expecting.
“If functioning properly and trying to find meaning is incompetence, then I surely am. But I think the best definition would be: I am too lazy to brush my teeth, so I’ll just rot be sad, and force other people to be that way, just because someone left me when the only thing I wanted to do was manipulate them,” she says, calm as ever, yet still subtly laughing, “but I’m no linguist to define words.”
She reminds me of my mother. Always unpredictable, her emotions always follow the opposite direction of the expected. It often seemed to me as if she did it on purpose, just to showcase her ability to remain calm when provoked. And our conversations were battles; the winner was the one who contained his true self most efficiently, feigning an opposing opinion better and longer than the other. Memories keep on emerging, changing their forms every so often.
Who will go down as the winner? Juno, an indomitable spirit, or me?
“I’ll propose an alternative. If incompetence is striving for the absence of mundane, then one could call me that. Why couldn’t we be linguists for one day?” I ask after taking a deep breath and clearing up my mind.
My response amuses her. Smiling, her eyes awaken from the half-sleep she had spent the previous few days in. We are on the right track.
“You’re right. Why couldn’t we? It’s our own land, after all. I’ll propose a compromise: let incompetence be a term we don’t throw around anymore,” she added.
The answer was satisfactory. But how can I shift the topic? How to convince Juno, a fierce enemy of machines to allow a soulless garbage can access to her shelter? I know her too well. No matter the level of cool-headedness she displays, deep inside she still feels her main purpose is serving the routine. There’s no way she wouldn’t feel replaced.
“On point,” I add, “but I’d like to propose another term for discussion, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead,” she says, still faintly giggling.
“Machine learning. Artificial intelligence. I was actually serious when I proposed that just now. It’s not up to you to build it or manage it, I’d do all of that by myself.”
A single sentence can shift a conversation from heavy to light, transforming mutual burdens into relief. Yet, the inverse can also happen. And that's exactly what I managed just now. The atmosphere tensed once more as Juno sat down, her expression becoming serious, almost judgmental. She took a deep breath, clearly contemplating the best way to confront my idea.
“Can’t tell you much. However I put it, it’s the same,” she says, exhaling and rolling her eyes.
“You won’t have to deal with anything. I’ll do it all by myself, and before you know it, we’ll have the perfect assistant,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says the same way as before.
“And think about it: you can turn it off whenever you like. If you feel like doing everything by yourself today, just press a button and be on your way,” I add.
She pauses again, thinking it all out. I can see the disdain for my idea through her expression. She never knew how to hide her emotions. At least I tried.
“Sure. You have a plan?” she asks.
What just came out of her mouth was all but expected. While she was thinking her answer out, thousands of possible outcomes stormed through my head. A minute was enough to cover all of them, all the different answers to my suggestion, and neither one of them was remotely similar to what she just said.
“What?” I ask, surprised beyond belief.
“What what? Do you have a plan,” she asks, raising her voice and eyebrows, “or do you need me to assist?”
Something isn’t right.
“I’ll do it all by myself. All I need is your consent.”
“Yeah, go for it. Let’s see what happens,” she says, then gets up and returns to her tasks. As if all our misunderstandings had vanished in the course of ten minutes, she initiates some small talk after a few minutes of silence.
Why didn’t she confront me? Nothing about her implied she would allow machines to enter our household. And out of nowhere, she agreed with my proposal, without any objections?
Something isn’t right.
This was the first time I lost the conversational battle. And it could not bother me less. My goal is two steps away; all I need to do is gather materials for the machine’s body, and teach it how to learn new information without my assistance. The last step is more even more tedious than gaining Juno’s consent, but so be it. I cannot believe what I’ve just witnessed.
Before constructing the blueprints for our steel companion, I must first collect all required resources. About fifty years have passed since I first set out to explore the world beyond the Garden. It didn’t end well. Having lost track of the path countless times, and wandering through the forest for months before finding my way back home was all but fulfilling. Embarrassed, I asked myself: “What did I just lose to? To rocks, rivers and dirt?” It really was humiliating, when you think about it. I could brag about being better than other people for days, yet I was powerless when faced with a real challenge, one which I have to solve without having seen it before. The wit and intelligence I though to have possessed turned out to be a facade, words I used to mask my incompetence and lack of actual problem-solving and awareness.
Juno was right. But I’ll never admit it.
Although, I performed much better the second time I set out beyond the Garden. I prepared food, a paper to map my way out and mark all points of interest with symbols I made up. My own legend. And it proved to be a beneficial adventure, as I managed to find a large iron deposit three hours away from the Garden.
“Just what we need,” I say, pointing at the location of the deposit on the map and explaining to Juno how the construction will take place. The words come out by thenselves; I find myself spewing out a plan I never even thought out. But no part of it seems far-fetched or irrational. I’ll go with it.
“Can’t wait to see it,” Juno says, with an obvious dose of sarcasm. It doesn’t bother me.
There’s that. I have her consent, a plan just appeared out of nowhere, and I know where to find the materials. What am I waiting for?
To rest a bit, probably. I’ll get to work the next day.