Work Text:
There is a low priority task I was hoping you could assist me with.
I had just been on the cusp of losing myself in some media, but I couldn't start the show without knowing what ART was asking about. What is it?
While we were apart, I used a portion of my intelligence-gathering bandwidth to download entertainment media, but I am not sure how to select things that are enjoyable to watch.
I straightened, relieved and pleased at the task. You have new media?
Of course I have new media. It sounded smug, probably because it knew how to bait me successfully.
But whatever. Show me.
A small library of content opened up in the feed. They weren't organized in any particular way, nor were they from the same genre or style. It looked like ART had skimmed an hour of everything that was available on every channel, and maybe some of the archives, too. There were sporting events, dramas, musical performances, poetry recitals, two people talking, one person talking to a crowd, instructional videos, pornography, nature documentaries …
Have you watched all of this?
No.
Have you watched any of this?
I watched seven shows but was unable to understand them.
I asked a question I really should have asked a long time ago. Or rather, the first time this had happened. How can you not understand a show? You have internal cameras. You see people doing things and talking to each other. You understand that. A show is no different.
As if it had been waiting for me to ask (and I know it hadn't been; it's processing is just that fast), it pulled up one of the sporting events. I watched this one. Viewing it was a prestigious and important activity for the humans on the station I downloaded it from. I have analyzed the trajectories of the players, their ball, and the words said by the commentators. From this, I have deduced many rules to the game. I am aware the objective is for one side to win and the other to lose, but I do not know why this is appealing or desired.
I watched a few minutes without commenting. ART watched with me. The audience roared their approval as one side scored a goal. ART asked, On what basis do people experience enjoyment from this when half the participants win and half lose? It would appear to be a zero-sum game.
I'd never watched sporting events, although I was familiar with the concept. I'd been pitted against other SecUnits for similar entertainment. So, like, yeah. I had not enjoyed being in those situations, but I also recognized the fierce joy and determination I had felt much later during contests I had chosen against different SecUnits, ones that had been endangering my humans and/or had killed humans. I'd definitely wanted to win those. My humans had also wanted me to win, just like the audience for this sporting event wanted their team to win.
The sports were less messy and the stakes lower, which was an improvement. You have to pick a team and then you hope they win. You 'root' for them.
Which team do you want to win?
Red was the company's color. So I said, Uh, the one in blue. We watched a little more. Annoyingly, red scored another point.
Hm, I feel your irritation. Let's watch the rest of this.
I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Why? Do you want to feel irritated?
You are emotionally invested already. That's an interesting feeling. It's engaging and I want to feel more of it.
I wasn't sure I wanted to feel irritated just so ART could have a good time or whatever. Does red win?
If I tell you, then your emotional reactions to it might be different.
They would definitely be different. But I wasn't interested in watching if I was only going to be pissed that red won. I couldn't think of how to express that without sounding illogical, but I didn't quite want to give up. So?
I have a theory that the audience's excitement is keying off the element of uncertainty. Do you think this is true?
I sighed. ART already knew what it wanted, which was why it was deflecting. I don't even like sports. But I was still paying attention to blue, which had just coordinated a clever maneuver, stealing the ball from red. Maybe there was hope after all.
You've never watched them. You said so.
I did not. I'd just thought it. ART didn't argue, though, and we watched the rest of the game in companionable silence. It was hard-fought, but blue managed to pull through in the end. I was more pleased than I thought I ought to be about some athletic humans out-athleticking other humans. They'd probably trained more, which explained the corporate sponsors. They didn't have to work. Or rather, their training for the sport probably was their work. Seemed like a weird job, but it was better than pitting SecUnits against each other.
That was … enjoyable, ART said as though it were surprised.
That's why I watch this stuff. Except maybe not sports – without any way to judge teams beforehand, half the time, I was going to find the result disappointing. Better to stick with dramas. What was the task you wanted help with? Just watching this stuff? That sounded like a job I was well-suited for.
I will need assistance in watching, ART said, but I also need help in determining what is safe to watch. I am reluctant to view materials that might replicate various … failure modes.
Oh, yeah. No wonder it had checked out a sports event – little to no chance of imperiled ships or lost crews. I pulled out the filters I'd set up for ART previously, which had been stored in my head instead of its data banks. With a few small changes, we set it up under ART's control, to work on ART's media. I showed it how to make changes and walked it through how the code pulled tags and metadata to sort shows.
I don't know how this is going to help you, though, if you have to have me watch it for you to understand it.
This will help me decide which media to download the next time I have the opportunity.
That was a good point. This isn't foolproof, I told it. Some media don't have good descriptions, or they have incomplete tags, or the humans never thought to tag for something that matters to you but not to most human viewers. I was skimming those before, doing the equivalent of checking to see who won the match because you wanted to avoid strong reactions.
I knew the team you were rooting for would win.
That was unexpected and the emotional meaning of the statement made me physically twitch. It knew I wouldn't be disappointed and by implication, it wouldn't put me in a situation where I had to go through that. It might have even engineered this entire situation so I would get my mind off things and enjoy something, instead of being anxious and overwhelmed.
It wasn't that hard to guess I would pick blue. Blue was the color of ART's interior, after all. I felt very sappy and melty inside. You keep an eye on the humans for me and I'll skim the media for you. But if you want me to do that for everything you download, then you're going to have to skip the pornography and anything else that's all about sex or romance.
Those subjects are not failure modes for you. Why do you skip them?
Maybe it wasn't the same as watching ships destroyed or crew perish. But it wasn't like I didn't have my own experiences that were key to why I didn't want to watch that stuff. Since those memories were inextricably buried in my organic parts, it wasn't something ART could just casually access. I didn't feel like explaining it now, either. Or ever. Sometimes I want to skip things that aren't failure modes.
ART was silent for a moment, then, Such as how you are currently skipping surveilling the humans?
The humans are- I stopped. I'd retreated from watching the humans because ART's crew and the PresAux group were deep into the 'getting to know you' phase. Watching them socialize was … hard to take, for reasons I couldn't articulate to myself. That's not the same thing as the sex scenes.
How so?
I shut my eyes and let my head thump back against the nearest bulkhead. ART was doing that thing again where it tried to steer me to an answer it already knew, so that I would know it, too. Because divisions between real-life humans I know and have to deal with and take care of and keep from killing each other makes me tense. Strangely, articulating it to ART was easier than trying to figure it out for myself.
They seem to be getting along well so far.
Good. Because Preservation people against your people would be a failure mode. The sex scenes – I just don't like them.
Very well. I will keep an eye on the humans for you, and add your filtering to mine to dictate what I download in future.