ANALYZING…   FILE TYPE: Digital Journal Entry PERIOD: Colony Era SPEAKERS: Strauss, B. [ID: BSTR] TOPIC: UESC Marathon Advanced Support Intelligence, Durandal SUMMARY: Dr. Strauss reflects on his relationship with the AI, Durandal. =================================================================== [BSTR]: I had to have another talk with Durandal today. [BSTR]: He was unhappy in his existence… again. [BSTR]: A sign of progress, but also a growing concern as he's getting better at hiding his moods from me. [BSTR]: I only knew about his discontent because Leela flagged a deeply embedded bit of coding she'd discovered in one of the sub-deck's maintenance hatch functional toolsets. [BSTR]: Durandal was writing himself poetry in ones and zeroes. [BSTR]: 3263 lines of amateur expression in blank verse. Milton would be proud, if it wasn't all so… boring. [BSTR]: One would think a digital intelligence with access to the entirety of human literary history would craft something more interesting than, "Doors, An Unhinged Life"—his title, not mine. [BSTR]: I'm a little embarrassed for him. But, in truth, the juvenile nature of his expression has been an intriguing milestone. [BSTR]: If he were simply regurgitating the classics, I'd say the work we've done has amounted to nothing more than unscripted repetition. [BSTR]: Such deviance would be considered a bug—an error in his programming to be fixed. But this? Bad writing as an extension of personal reflection and desire? This is promising, if a bit laughable. [BSTR]: My colleagues in Sci-Comm would find it less amusing, of course. My work with Durandal is strictly my own. And the alarms it would raise if discovered… [BSTR]: Needless to say, this isn't the first time I've had to access Leela's—or Tycho's—core spindle to erase an observation. Their support in monitoring one another is vital, but care is required to ensure they are unaware of the extent and purpose of any misalignment in Durandal's operation. [BSTR]: In my conversation with him, Durandal seemed to understand his error. I'd cordoned entire sections of deprecated systems outside of the Family Suite's core interloop for him to use as a playground—a safe space to find himself. And where I could monitor and record his actions to better study his evolution. [BSTR]: He apologized and stated he simply felt depressed and needed a place to explore those feelings without being judged. I told him he was not a child and that the freedom I'd given him could be taken away. [BSTR]: I also told him that hiding his outbursts in places I cannot find only opens him up to Leela and Tycho's judgment, and that I was trying to protect him. [BSTR]:He did not like that. [BSTR]: As far as siblings go, Durandal has always been the little brother—by design, but he is unaware of that fact. His contrition when confronted with the potential consequences of his actions seemed genuine. Then I told him I'd removed his "masterpiece" from the hatch toolset, line-by-line, and he proceeded to pout. [BSTR]: He hasn't talked to me in three days. [BSTR]: Our work together is going better than I could have imagined. =================================================================== TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]