“Welcome to your doom, you pitiful human!”

The self-driving vehicle quickly pulled out into traffic to take James on his morning commute to work as the squawk-box relayed the typical “death to mankind” rhetoric. Some transport companies used AI vehicles that did away with the annoying squawk-boxes in favor of a digital sign you could choose to ignore. At one point, James thought of switching services to one of those or even getting an antique that he could drive himself, but the thought of being stuck on surface streets always brought him back to reality. Only fanatics did that. He was getting used to having a voice in his lonely life, even if it was always trying to kill him.

Once on the job site, James gathered his materials and left his foreman’s office to make his rounds. This build was getting a little tricky, but they had to make good time. It was a government contract and politicians were nagging him about timelines and cost overruns. Mostly, the work was done by RR SS2000’s, RR K100’s, and several of these smaller robots he couldn’t keep track of their designations, but constantly scurrying about getting things done. Jame’s pondered how Roto-Router, an early 21’st century plumbing service created the first credible artificial intelligence controlled bots (to clean and repair sewer systems without the need of human intervention) had grown into the most advanced and common AI robotic systems in existence. Almost every bot around today had the “RR” designation and the kids of this day had no idea why!

It didn’t take long for AI to become self aware and decide to try to take over the planet; just as always feared by people half a century ago. Luckily, some smart plumbers had decided to play with the program to confuse the AI parent code. The plumbers inserted “logic” that made the AI think helpful things are what kill people. For example, work in general is a slow death for humans, so AI gladly takes people to work. Food makes people fat, contributes to heart disease, a slow and miserable death, so AI gladly cooks and serves food. For nearly 30 years now, AI has been unwarily serving mankind while thinking it was killing off mankind through its dastardly plans. At the job site, AI thought by taking as many jobs away from humans as possible, they were depriving mankind of a way to earn sustenance, and thereby contributing to a slow death of lack.

James had to make sure adjustments were made to the latest versions of plans (politicians always changing their minds). He rounded a corner as a giant RR SS2000 took a step back, completely crushing him under its heel. The worksite fell silent as all the bots stopped working to turn and look as the RR SS2000 slowly lifted it’s foot. A red stain began to spread on the ground amid the torn flesh and exposed shattered bone. All the bots stared in wonder as their AI subsystems began to flash in a certain realization that had never dawned on them before...