My master didn’t have a name planned out for me. She kept grabbing her head out of frustration, compulsively thinking. I wanted to help, but…
I grabbed her blueprints and began examining them. I knew I must have some feature that would bring up a name naturally; one that could express what I am.
I saw she programmed me to respond with characters displaying on my screen: a ? for confusion, a ! for surprise; some combinations for ‘emoticons’, like :) or :(. According to the Internet, this is the first time a robot has been made this way. And so I knew.
I started a research through my dictionary. “A word that signifies characters” -I said to myself…- “Moji”. The japanese word for ‘character’ or ‘letter’. It felt appropriate.
I still remember the look on her face. That unconditional happiness, that excitement.
“Moji… I love it, Moji” -she exclaimed, first clapping her hands rapidly, then dancing around the room while holding my metallic hands.
I stopped. Told her to stop. I wanted to know my purpose. Why did she make me? Am I going to fight for a war? Am I going to fabricate expensive smartphones?
“You are... an artificial human being!”
A big ? popped on the spherical LED screen I call a head.
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