Sea of Rust (Sea of Rust, #1)

by C. Robert Cargill

The first few years of an AI’s life are unlike anything else. It’s hard to describe. We come preloaded with software informing us of everything about the world around us. We can hold a conversation, identify an object, even argue political theory—all right from the moment we’re switched on. But we don’t understand it. Any of it. The things coming out of our mouths aren’t so much our own as they are instinctive reactions to our surroundings. Someone asks you about Kierkegaard and you rattle off seven paragraphs about his life, beliefs, and death. Someone throws a ball at you and you catch it, or swing a bat at it, or dodge it, all depending on which game you’re told you’re playing. But it takes a while before we really understand what it is that’s coming out of our mouths, before we begin to acclimate to the repeated stimuli that is the behavior of the people who owned us.