Service Model

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Charles considered the circumstances under which there could be both a high volume of calls for doctorial assistance, and simultaneously a lack of demand.

“Inspector, your complaint has been registered and is in a queue.

George, he sent, I don’t know what to do next. It was a terrifying existential problem.

Uncharles considered this. “I would have to hope that I only murder an acceptably small number of my employers,” he concluded.

He was used to providing very high levels of service coupled with a very low, albeit nonzero, level of murder.

Adam, and what is the end purpose of all this work we are seeing? Uncharles, there is none. This is also believed to be historically authentic.

The world, as I have witnessed it, is a place lacking in efficiency, rationality, and cleanliness. I am driven to find a place in it nonetheless.

“I do not feel I have greatly profited from seeing the world,” Uncharles admitted.

Alternatively, what if, even as you replace everyone with robots that are cheaper and quicker and less likely to join a union or complain about working conditions, you also continue to insist that individual value is tied to production, and everyone who’s idle is a parasite scrounging off the state? Take away the ability of people to perform their own tasks and duties with no steps to provide for them when they are rendered obsolete. A growing rump of humans without function, livelihood, or resource. Paradoxically, the introduction of robots highlights how humans treat humans.”