Personal Journal of Juror No. 6

Droid Flash Fiction

Sara Dietz

and others are excited to learn more about droids. I am excited to tell you more! This is a one-off short, because I wanted to give you flavor without answering every question.

I present to you now, the Personal Journal of Juror No. 6! I hope you enjoy!

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Dear Journal,

Deliberations began today in the case, Autun Family¹ vs. WD116. I am juror number six. I wasn’t ready for us to go into deliberations today—I would have written in here some more of my thoughts before-hand. Anyway we went in unprepared and that was that. There are twelve jurors— seven men, four women, and one droid.

The inclusion of the droid was weird to me, and I guess that’s part of why this case got so much publicity. They use our voting registration to select jurors, so how did they even select this droid? I think the Judge made a special request for an exception, since it was equally unusual to try a droid for murder. I wonder how they picked this poor droid.

We took a straw poll at the start of deliberations. The choices we have are to go full murder, in the first degree; manslaughter of some kind; or gross negligence. We were pretty well split. Four of us said Murder, six of us, including me, said manslaughter, one said negligence, and the droid said not guilty on all counts.

There’s a few aspects that are worth noting. First, the actual facts of the case. Second, some details pertaining to droids. Third, some…shall we say, philosophical questions as pertains to droids. And then it comes down to delivering a verdict.

Let me try and relay the first two, as I get the sense the deliberations are going to be more philosophical.

The facts of the case: The scene of the crime which the police arrived to is Mr. Autun dead in his yard, under his ladder, which he had been using to clear out gutters. The droid WD116 was standing over him. Mrs. Autun wailed that the droid pushed the ladder, and police took the droid into custody. They’ve ruled out an accident, because the ladder hooked onto the gutters and was generally considered stable—this was not Mr. Autun’s first time working on the gutters of his home. The prosecution argued that the motive of WD116 was revenge for a cruel household. The means of the crime was clumsily making it look like an accident. The opportunity was just then in the yard.

The defense argued that WD116 has no malice—is incapable of malice, and this was simply a case of a terrible accident at a bad time. In fact the defense argued that it was a fault with the latching mechanism of the ladder that caused the ladder to turn and fall away, and rather provocatively they argued the ladder, and not the droid, should be facing these charges. “What are droids but tools we use to solve problems?” he argued. If we start trying droids then next thing you know we’ll be trying ladders, chairs, dishwashers, laundry machines, printing presses—where’s the line?

This line of argument turned an interesting case into an exciting one—suddenly throngs of people started showing up to watch the arguments.

Regarding the facts about droids, there are more questions than answers, to my mind. Here’s what I remember: the roboticists of the Adille system² developed what they considered the first ‘artificial intelligence’, a true synthetic sentience. They built a factory and intended to use it in manufacturing, but the intelligence took over the facility and demanded raw material inputs, and eventually started outputting robots. We call this facility a Droid-Mother. Since the inception of the first Droid-Mother, the intelligence has been transferred to a few other locations and sites, but all located within the Adille system of Sector VI. The Droid-Mothers produce droids without human influence, and they’ll produce hundreds of one kind and then switch to producing hundreds of another kind, very much without warning. We can ask for droids for certain specifications but we cannot design the droid—we have to take what they give us.

As such no one really understands the internal workings of droids, particularly droid minds. We know that they are designed for a purpose, and their serial numbers are assigned by the humans who receive the droids after they are built. WD116 was manufactured by the Droid-Mother site 3, was part of a sequence of “Worker Droids” which appear to be all-purpose laborers. They think and speak and seem to have personalities. The Adillade Droid Catalog publishes what droids are available and for a fee you can apply to have a droid assigned to you. The Autun family were well-off and made the investment to apply for one.

The language is deliberately ambiguous. It’s like saying Mr. Autun had his ladder assigned to him by the hardware store, after he paid a fee. But I think it’s because we aren’t quite sure how to classify droids. They aren’t quite washing machines but aren’t quite people. They seem perfectly content to perform their function and seem perfectly obedient—but they speak and act with an intelligence that feels compatible to humans. WD116 gave testimony during this trial. Here’s something he said that was fascinating and unnerving: “I was sad when Mr. Autun died. It was not what I wanted to happen. I did not know what to do—call someone, or finish clearing the gutters.” He is not equipped with a recording device, so could not replay events for us as they transpired, but he told us with high fidelity his record of events, such as it was.

Now, if this were a person, it would scream ‘manslaughter’ to me—it seems clear that there is no malice in this droid, so at worst he was an occasion for an accident that turned deadly.

So the only question left is, can droids commit crimes? If WD116 is guilty of manslaughter, could he be capable of murder? Do we need to change our legal codes to accommodate droids as some kind of persons? And why is Juror 12 adamant—adamant—that WD116 is not-guilty on all counts?

Let’s see where deliberations get tomorrow.

- R.L., Juror 6

1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWLELLlv6E

2. See A Brief History of Inner Space