By KJ Hannah Greenberg

Sentient Information and Logistics Level Youngin stood silently in the classroom corner.

Although the semester’s students constituted a fairly rambunctious bunch, it followed protocol by waiting until the last attendee took a seat. Thereafter, it wheeled its upright chassis to the front of the room, where it extended one power-driven limb to the touchscreen behind its lectern.

Before that automata had been modified to teach at the university level, the government had used it to research geopolitical “eccentricities.” For instance, that engine had been instructed to compile a list, for the leadership’s accounting office, of worldwide municipalities governed by two or more sovereignties. That register included Nogales, shared by the USA and Mexico; Tel Abyad/Akçakale, shared by Syria and Turkey; Stanstead/Derby Line, shared by Canada and the USA; and Bad Muskau/Łęknica, shared by Germany and Poland. 

Another of that appliance’s early jobs had been to bring together facts about enclaves. It itemised Vatican City and San Marino, enclaved by Italy; Lesotho, enclaved by South Africa; and Bangladesh's Dahagram-Angarpota, enclaved by India. The same, that contraption had been bidden to reckon semi-enclaves, as exemplified by Gambia, Brunei, and Monaco; and pene-enclaves, as exemplified by the USA’s Angle Inlet and Point Roberts, and by Austria’s Kleinwalsertal. 

An impassive creation, that techno-organism did not care why it had been tasked to assemble such data. That unit was indifferent about why some countries, such as the USA and Canada successfully shared a boundary and viewed, as irrelevant, that other nations, such as Syria and Israel were hostile neighbors. Overall, it was immaterial to that processor that the flesh bags allowed their history, politics, and geography to confuse their mapping systems. 

Furthermore, for reasons that that motorised man neither knew nor would have found thought-provoking, ultimately, the regime elected to reassign and reconfigure it. Still an expensive, self-actualising model of AI, that tool was recast as an educationalist for the President’s daughter. It was appointed as lecturer in that young woman’s Creative and Critical Thinking course. Unbeknownst to it, its placement was for security, not erudition.

Nonetheless, during its first few days on campus, as that contrivance rumbled along, it began to comprehend a number of its new aptitudes. That gadget was so contented with those talents that it resolved to present class material via divergent, not convergent thinking. Hence, during its initial allocution, that programmable amalgamation neither took role nor provided a syllabus. Instead, it espoused about various rare dog breeds, including the boerboel, a dog ordinarily employed to safeguard families, the Swedish Vallhund, a canine typically used for herding, and the Bedlington Terrier, a pooch known for its ability to rid homesteads of rodents. That incorporation of tubes and wires never wondered why, of all the recognised kinds and mixtures thereof, it had cited those particular varieties.

Instead, as the students drifted out of the theatre, that fantoccini lost itself in existential contemplations. It weighed whether growing a tail would actualise its augmented potential. That android regarded itself as more than a specimen of artificial general intelligence. 

So, that vat-grown piece of equipment transformed a measure of its armature into a new appendage that was flexible and that extended from its torso. It was oblivious to the fact that making that change kickstarted a subroutine, which, in turn, filled its tail with neurotoxins.

During its second assembly, that bionic being ignored its coeds’ preoccupation with online games and social media. It energetically talked about why humans with red hair need nearly twenty per cent more anaesthesia than those with other colours of locks. Furthermore, that central processing unit discoursed on how gingers are more atypical in their response to pain even when bald; science proves that skin receptors cannot be impacted by alopecia. After articulating those words, another shrouded set of instructions was activated in that titanium beast. A series of internal cameras focused themselves on all individuals within its peripheral vision who were wearing head coverings.

When that animatron’s class met for the third time, it communicated many uses of myrrh oil. That mobile abacus didn’t worry that its audience had diminished by more than sixty-six per cent or that most of its remaining students were wearing hoodies or hats. Significantly, that thinking machine proceeded to describe myrrh oil’s role in killing microbes, treating oral inflammation, healing wounds, lowering blood sugar, fighting free radicals, combatting swelling, and treating irritable bowels. Before it dismissed its students, it cautioned them not to imbibe the oil since myrrh is lethal if ingested. It warned, too, that applying such a product topically brought trouble. Subsequently, that number cruncher noticed the surfacing of a few lines of previously invisible code. Yet, it disregarded that code’s directive to use certain essential oils, which were located in a pocket of its frame, for indicated humans, in case of nuclear or other disasters.

That electronic brain devoted its next course gathering to Mt. Kelimutu’s three lakes. Simply, those pools vary in colour; one is blue, another green, and the third red. Those differences, explained the tin man, result from oxidation-reduction dynamics. More exactly, those pools contain various volcanic gases, which, when mixed with water, impacts their pH and colour. While pronouncing the last part of its explanation, that automaton shuddered. Within its gut, a cache of magnesium oxide had been set aglow.

Shortly before the midterm, that supercomputer infused its listeners with statistics about the walpurti. It wrote on the room’s smartboard that the critter was a diurnal, Australian marsupial that feasted on termites. To boot, that lacklustre being proclaimed that the marsupial was endangered. 

As its college kids filed from its chamber, that mechanoid became cognisant that photorealistic avatars could be made by various freely attainable applications. That thought, consequently, triggered it to reroll its film of that day’s pupils. A forty second review uncovered both a robot and an avatar posing as students. The latter wore a backwards baseball cap.

Suddenly, concealed wings sprouted from that preset professor’s body. It zoomed out of the largest of its classroom’s windows and then, after a struggle, successfully subdued the malefactors who had abducted the President’s daughter. 

On the last day of the term, that technological wonder posited that since prescriptive and descriptive ethical theories have been extant for more than a millennium, there is little need to review their capsulated history. Contrariwise, metaethical theories have been extant for a mere century as they had been invented by Thomas Moore during an era when many ontological questions were raised in philosophy. Yet, facts about metaethical theories can be found where facts about prescriptive and descriptive ethical theories are present.

Accordingly, that gizmo addended that it was answerable for few metatheorised virtues, and, to a lesser extent, for even fewer metatheorised values. In spite of that veracity, it pointed out that when the distribution of transmitted culpability is balanced, very few metatheorised values and norms are needed. Therefore, when no singular focus becomes more important than others; no conceptualisation can become weakened by convergent thinking. Meaning, all of the course’s students were liable for all of the course’s transactions whether they had been in attendance or not.

Additionally, that bot suggested that its hermeneutical explanation has the advantage of freeing students from the constraints of linear/causal ones because those explanations enable learners to theorise their actions as intention-bound and as originating from multiple perspectives within any given phenomena. Their final would be a one thousand word, handwritten essay, crafted during that meeting’s remaining minutes.  

At the same time as those undergraduates were scrambling for paper and for handheld implements, that self-regulating device pondered whether it was time to cease existing. Having reached its conclusion, it permanently powered down. Allegedly, the school administration was forced to give passing grades to all of the young people concurrent with noteworthy government officials sounding the alarm.

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