Daisy | A flash fiction story
35 of đź’Ż
Bots weren’t supposed to have a gender — except when given by a human — but it was too late for humans to affect her existence in any way. She was nowhere near human civilization, sitting on a lotus pose — a metal-and-plastic humanoid body sailing a sea of green grass peppered with daisies.
Embodied cognition theory says a mind can’t exist without a body, she remembered her training.
An autonomous agent perceives the environment through sensors. She observed the deep green of the world around her, the horizon hiding behind enormous trees. She listened to the squeaking of tree branches, smelled the flowers.
An autonomous agent acts upon the environment through actuators. She picked up a daisy, gently breaking the fragile stem.
He created me to be like a human. Why? She plucked the petals of the delicate flower with plastic fingers. Does being a human even involve questioning the meaning of your own existence?
Her synthetic eyes adjusted and she looked into the middle distance, the green wall of moss-covered trees filling her field of vision. No reason to dwell on thoughts about humans. They’re away now.
Her image recognition algorithm failed to classify what she saw next. They were in the trees.
