Yukui!

Kelly, James Patrick. "Yukui!" (with exclamation mark). Clarkesworld ("Hugo Award-Winning Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine") Issue 143 (August 2018). As of 5 August 2020, on line here.[1] "Originally published in The Promise of Space and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly.[...].[2] Gaithersburg, MD: Prime Books, 2018.[3]

Short cybernetic fiction (mildly satiric in tone) from the point of view of Sprite, a "sidekick" "DI" — a "dependent intelligence" or highly conscious sexbot robot — and her frustrations with an owner uninterested in sex, at least with her, when she is "programmed to satisfy his needs" and think (sic) of him as a "hero." Insofar as there is satiric purpose here, the norm might be indirectly expressed in a couple paragraphs where (1) Sprite, the sexbot elegantly distills one tension, and (2) where Sprite questions the usefulness in what would be the equivalent in our world, of a psychologist (though not in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot worlds a robopsychologist like Dr. Susan Calvin).

Sprite’s DI algorithms constrained her just as [human psychologist (our term)] Ratchanee Malakul’s DNA limited her life choices. Humans were permanently parked while Sprite could jump from digital memory into any one of her — no, Jaran’s [her owner's] —collection of chassis and back again. Or become pure simulation. On a whim! Forever! Who wouldn’t trade a few inconsequential limits on free will for immortality?

Sprite should have known she was in trouble when he first started consulting Ratchanee Malakul. The lifeguides’ stodgy predigital psychology was based on the sanctity of the individual. They claimed that giving sidekicks access to your head was bad for humans. And now she realized that this particular lifeguide must have been anti-sexbot as well. Sprite had tried to explain why Ratchanee Malakul and her ilk were all wrong about dependent intelligences, that DIs enjoyed having a purpose in life and a clear sense of duty. Or at least, she did!

The plot of the story moves toward the freeing (manumission) of Sprite and the question of whether a dependent intelligence can deal with freedom and agency. The thematics also get into humans vs. robots. The lifeguide tells Sprite, "'[...] you’re not dependent anymore. [...] You can be anything you want, any sex you want, if that is your pleasure. Or you might decide to become a house, a cruise ship, or a virtual library. And you don’t have to ask that cold fish [her former owner] for permission.'"

See for robots, gender,[4] and sexuality,[5] plus a continuation of the debate on robot personhood,[6] liberation, and, potentially, rebellion.[7][8]

"SPOILER": The lifeguide turns out to be a very un-dependent "DI" entity and the movement of the story is toward freedom for Sprite and a hint of larger freedom for her — in an old, generous sense of the term — people.

RDE, finishing up, 5Aug20