what is 'professional relationships' about?
This one is is a story about an inventor, Draven, who builds a robot that learns how to talk to him. I started writing this quite a bit before LLM/AI was a big capital-D deal (roughly 2018?), so idk where I'm going with this anymore. It's not particularly poignant anymore, given the state of things. The idea of it was Draven and TAIM, his robot, fall in love lol. This story in particular is early on in Taim's life, where he first is learning how to talk from a collection of records that Draven is playing on him. I should note, early!Taim is a record player.
[...] He was pulling the cardboard sleeve off the latter when Taim wheezed a note through his speakers. The note sounded hesitant, and frankly a little sad. As if surprised by his new found ability to sing, Taim whistled a chord, something happier. The record slipped from Draven’s fingers as he scrambled for his pliers, turning the volume knob up a bit. “Hello, Taim,” he said in a measured voice, directly to the machine. It seemed to contemplate this with a humming crackle before squawking out a reply. “Ti-Do,” was his best approximation of a greeting. “I’m Draven. Can you repeat your name?” These questions were likely too hard for something that only knew Beethoven. “Ti-Do,” Taim repeated. “Ti-Do. Ti-Do. Ti-Do.” The record wound itself forward and backwards a moment in silence. “La-Ti?” It lilted on the edge of the word, as if asking a question. A grin broke out across Draven’s face, and he leaned back on his heels, running his fingers through his hair and gripping his head. He blew out the breath he had held while waiting for Taim to go up in flames any second. “La-Ti?” Taim repeated urgently this time, winding the record back and forth pointedly. Did… he want to listen to more? Gently, Draven lifted the needle (earning a delighted squeak from the machine before him) and replaced the classical music with the A side of Tennyson’s poetry. The Lotos-Eaters.
