Slow Time Between the Stars (The Far Reaches, #6)

by John Scalzi

Despite the fact that I was built to travel autonomously between the stars for tens of thousands of years, I was not trusted to put myself together. What I was allowed to do was model my construction and send my suggestions to the engineers back on Earth. They were very pleased when I offered several innovations. Those innovations were ignored in favor of the original design.

Until then my own judgment and opinions—to the extent that I was understood to have them—could be and would be overruled by the humans who had decided to make me.