Artificial Condition | Chapters 1-4

Welcome to the first half of our discussion Artificial Condition, Book Two of The Murderbot Diaries. Click here for a transcript of this episode.

Talking Points: 

• Code Switching
• Studying Human Behavior 
• 100% Completion Rates 
• This podcast would like to sponsor Kevin R. Free.  
• The Brave Little Toaster 
• And, of course, ART

Questions for Artificial Conditions Chapters 5-9. 

Where to find the podcast online

Music: Stellar Reverie.mp3 by Audioinsmusic is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Transcript

Raven: Hello everybody and welcome back to All Systems Read. I'm Raven, she/her. 

Jess: And I'm Jess, also she/her. 

Raven: Jess, what's your performance reliability at today? 

Jess: Um, I think I want to clock in at a solid 78%. Um, went down a little bit from the waves that we're having. Um, Raven, what's your performance reliability like? 

Raven: Uh, I'd probably say like 86%. 

Jess:Nice! 

Raven: Doing pretty good. Our heat wave has died down a little bit. We've had some rainstorms come through to cool it off a bit. Uh, but I did just get my ears re-pierced, so I feel like that has to drop it down a little bit. 

Jess: Dropped, but rising. 

Raven: There we go. 

Jess: A peak behind the screen as it was: we had intended to have an episode out sooner, but the heat wave was very rough on both of us, and so we had to cancel our recording. Apologies. Hopefully the next episode will be in a much more timely manner. 

Raven: In this episode, we are talking about chapters 1 through 4 of Artificial Condition. We had some questions that we posted and we got three responses. Including our very first response from somebody that hasn't read the book yet, so welcome Delta Sphere 41!

Jess: Very excited! 

Raven: Thank you for the book recommendations. 

Jess: Yes, I think I said in the intro episode that getting book recommendations was one of the goals of success, so we did it gang. We've already done one. 

Raven: Well, and people have listened, so that's like both of the goals, so we're done now.?

Jess: We're done, take the victory lap, so thanks for joining us then. First few chapters of Artificial Condition aren't necessarily the most action-packed of the series, but are pretty important because we meet what might be a lot of people's favorite character with ART. 

Raven: I'm pretty sure ART is your favorite character. 

Jess: Everybody is my favorite character, but I do I really love the banter of ART and MurderBot as a duo. 

Raven: I feel like they give the vibe that people say is old married couple where it's constant bickering, but they do care about each other a lot. 

Jess: For sure, it's not necessarily even lovingly razzing somebody because I do think they genuinely mean insults at times, but there's also a level of respect and connection of they both have very unique existence in this world. Part of the thing that they really bond over is this love of media. So our first question we kind of started off with was, do you think you would enjoy the same shows as MurderBot and ART? Do you like slash dislike media that is too close to your work or your life? 

Raven: I especially appreciated Cameo's response. They mentioned they like soap operas and Stargate and loved all my children. However, they're a lawyer and can't do legal dramas. Even in Daredevil, I was shouting during the court scenes and my partner is like, you can object to the TV. 

No one can hear your objections. And I'm like, he should have objected. I get that as somebody whose partner is a lawyer. My partner is a lawyer and will frequently point out how ridiculous all aspects related to law are in every show that we watch. 

Jess: How about the Ace Attorney games? 

Raven: Oh, he loves them. They're absolutely ridiculous, but he loves them. 

Jess: A great series of games. Amazing hilarious localizations in those famously, but that's just always my thing. I'm sure like objection, dramatic finger-point. Shawn mentioned that while world hoppers and mainstream defenders sound great, they think that sanctuary moon sounds awful. But they do embrace the concept of comfort media and mentioned their latest being arcane, which I have not seen, but I will count that as a recommendation, not for a book, but. 

Raven: I watched the first episode of Arcane when it came out and thought it was very pretty and very well done. However, I could not bring myself to continue watching something based on League of Legends. 

Jess: Think I'm ignorant enough about League of Legends for none of that to really bother me. 

Raven: I played a lot in my younger days. I was not very good, which meant I reached a point where I did not get to play anymore because everybody else took it way too seriously. I just wanted to play a fun little game with my friends. But the story is depressing and I did not want to go into a story that I knew was going to be depressing. 

Jess: Very fair. Would you say that you have played depressing stories that other media that you can say? 

Raven: It really depends. I love sad music. In fact, I have a sticker that my spouse just bought me that says I just like listening to sad songs. 

Jess: That's perfect. 

Raven: Yeah. DeltaSphere41 said they don't want all of their shows to be melodrama and I get that. I like to have a mix of shows, have something funny, have something serious. Lots of sci-fi. I like Star Trek because you get all of it in one. They don't make a lot of media that revolves around people doing statistical analysis and reviewing test results. So I can't say that I like or dislike like media that's close to my work. 

Jess: Yeah, that's fair. 

Raven: Maybe Severance is the closest, but that doesn't seem very accurate. I'm sure that's what other people think of when I try to explain what I do is you're just staring at random numbers and they give you vibes. Yeah, that's definitely what I do. 

Jess: The work is mysterious and important. Yeah, there's not a lot of shows that I feel like really depict any of my work. I can't say that when I was in college, I was really excited because they put out a show about two people in advertising, which is what my undergrad major was in. 

It's like, yes, look at this. I'm sure it was on TNT, which is probably why it didn't do fantastic. 

Raven: What was the name of it? 

Jess: It wasn't Franklin and Bash lied to me? I don't know. It was kind of had like an office-like drama element to it and it should have done really well. I think if it had been on a main cable network, it would have done fine. 

Anyway, that's probably the closest I had of anything depicting – I will say that there are times in my life in which certain things do hit really hard and I would try to avoid them emotionally. I don't know if that's quite the same level as what we were asking in the question, but there were times I noped out of certain medias, like after my father passed away. And there were times of that not checking things. That's why I watched the movie Onward a few months after and that was a mistake. 

Raven: Yeah! 

Jess: Yeah, if you all could see the expression on Raven's face. I feel like everybody does that. That's not quite daily life sort of things. Would you watch World Hoppers or live stream defenders? 

Raven: I think I would. I also – in my brain reading the book, I thought that sanctuary moon was like a cross between Riverdale and Star Trek. I think that that sounds like it's made for me specifically. So I would also be watching sanctuary moon. 

Jess: Oh, absolutely. And if you won't super get into it right at the second, but do you like how sanctuary moon has been depicted on the TV show? 

Raven: I – 

Jess: Oh no!

Raven: I think it's ridiculous. And I think I would probably enjoy watching it from what I've seen, but I worry there's a – there's a line there of over the top-ness that I worry it will go over and be too much. Not in the short glimpses that we see in the show, but if it was actually a show that we could watch. 

Jess: Oh, absolutely. I think there's also a level of parody in what's being done for the show, obviously. So if we saw the actual show, not quite the parody show, it looks like a fun campy good time. 

Raven: Agreed. Something very relatable in the book is how MurderBot studies its own behavior to figure out how to appear human, since it is trying to avoid detection. And all of all of the questions this time are Jess because I was really slacking. Asked the question, have you ever studied your own behavior to fit in? 

And DeltaSphere41 and Cameo both said yes. Shawn said, “I haven't studied my behavior, but I have modified it.” And I'm going to say that means you have studied it. If you knew to modify it, you were thinking about it. I know I have. Jess, have you. 

Jess: I thought that was a normal thing that everybody did. It's like, yeah, I'm happy to hang on the group and let me quiet for a little bit so I just kind of hang back to make sure I understand the vibe and how I should be behaving in these weird customs of this hangout. And it's like, no, others just show up and have a good time. 

Raven: I don't believe you. So I, and I, I have to wonder how much of it is: I grew up with online chat rooms where you lurked. You didn't even have to make an account! You would lurk and you would see how people interacted with each other and you would learn how to be a part of the community before you jumped in and started talking. 

And that isn't really a thing anymore, which is wild to me. People would be like, oh, just join a discord group and there'll be thousands of people there. I don't want to immediately start talking. But what do you mean everybody just expects you to start talking? I want to learn who people are and figure out how they interact. 

Jess: Yeah, I feel like the discords I'm in that I've not kind of looked in for a little bit: they have been small or very like hyper-focused to where like, oh yeah, there's a clear thing to like talk about that like, oh yes, I can do these things. 

Raven: I really appreciated Cameos further comment of constantly wanting people to explain if I do something wrong so I can fix it. Masking is a big thing. On the flip side to that, I have to explain my thought process to other people if I do something wrong. And I cannot stop myself from doing that. Even though I know people don't want to hear it. 

Jess: The knowing that I need to stop talking, but I the compulsion that I have to finish the thing. Yeah, that can be rough. 

Raven: I have to explain so people can understand me. And if they don't understand me, I just have to explain more. 

Jess: Yeah. And I don't know why you don't find this thing interesting. Maybe if I told you more about it and gave additional context, that's the problem! 

Raven: Yeah. 

Jess: I definitely think online lurking is much more acceptable than like IRL lurking. 

Raven: Yeah. 

Jess: One could say that MurderBot does a lot of code switching. I'm so sorry. I'm not proud of myself. 

Raven: I think that's great. 

Jess: But I do think, I can't worry the pun of the theme of code switching and even, you know, masking, we do get to see that quite often throughout the books. And in different social situations. 

Raven: And especially this book where it's really figuring that stuff out. Moving on from talking about various neurodivergence. One of the major events that happens in the first four chapters is MurderBot realizes after much prodding from ART that it will require a configuration change to be able to pass as an augmented human and not immediately be clocked as a SecUnit. And that struggle within MurderBot takes a while. By the end, it decides that it is going to go through with this operation. And so we asked, do you think that MurderBot actually trusts ART or did it have no other choice for modifying its configuration? How is the relationship different from what MurderBot had with PresAux? I struggle with the first part of this question because ART lays out clearly all the logic behind why it doesn't have another choice. 

If it wants to be undetected, it will require going through with this operation. However, MurderBot is still pretty stubborn. Even though it tries to claim that it is more logical than humans, it is still stubborn. And that's a major surgery. 

Jess: I feel bad for MurderBot. A lot of the time, but specifically in this situation. It almost seems like the opposite of gender affirming care because it cares so much about the standard and puts a lot of its identity into that. With so much of its identity being in the model, that's really difficult to work through. And we do ask a question, you know, to kind of try to help MurderBot work through that crisis of personhood, construct hood. But while I think it takes a level of trust to have a surgery, I don't think MurderBot actually trusts ART going into the surgery. Coming out and things being okay. I think yes, but it's kind of a leap of faith. 

Raven: Yeah. I think it weighs the risks knowing that if ART wanted it dead, it could have killed it. 

Jess: And that risk assessment module is just not the best. 

Raven: We all know how good that risk assessment module is. 

Jess: It's fine. DeltaSphere did kind of agree. It did take a leap of faith with ART. MurderBot could have woken up with purple horns. MurderBot ART and enjoying intimacy on a technological plane of existence, not possible with meat-based life forms. 

Raven: I think this is really interesting, especially because in the book, MurderBot talks about how bots can't trust each other. And goes into this camaraderie with ART believing that. It firmly believes that they cannot trust each other because humans can always tell them what to do and they have to do it. And going through this surgery means that MurderBot doesn't have to do what humans tell it to anymore. They will no longer have a way of controlling it. 

I think MurderBot is never going to admit to this, but wants that kind of connection. And going through this means that it can no longer, it no longer will have means to be controlled, whether from the governor module, which it already hacked, or the data port in the back of its neck, which is disabled in the surgery. It has more autonomy to be able to make its own choices. And one of those choices is who it interacts with. 

Jess: I think it's a good point. It's been established fast from MurderBot itself. I don't know what I want from the last sentences of All Systems Red. And not that many, like, cycles have passed between the end of that book and the start of this one. I don't think that's necessarily enough time to finish figuring out the answer to that question. 

I know it's not enough time having read the series, but I think that getting the data port disabled is a big help in trying to answer that question because it does, it removes the variables that MurderBot has to consider in regards to control. And as you said, you know, autonomy of its being. 

Raven: Shawn points out that MurderBot knows ART’s more technologically advanced because it doesn't have organic parts and it's able to be better with logic. This is why MurderBot listens and follows ART’s advice. And this really plays back into MurderBot not trusting its organic parts. And so it sees ART that has these very advanced... It can do much more advanced calculations because it was made specifically to be a research transport vessel and support its crew. And even though it's annoyed at how much of an asshole ART is, it does trust it to do that. 

Jess: I think Cameo would kind of disagree. “Being vulnerable and letting someone inside you take so much trust.” Yeah, it needed the surgery, but it's still trust. Fair. It can be argued either way. I know I hinted at one of our other questions earlier, but when dealing with all of its physical changes, MurderBot really questions, you know, how to keep me the way I was. So it kind of prompted me to go, MurderBot, you need to do some journaling and reflection here. So I gave a little therapy exercise to MurderBot of, you know, what are three nice things that MurderBot could say about itself? Because I think just asking MurderBot to name things about itself, it would not necessarily automatically go to nice things. 

And I'm not projecting at all when I say that. The big things that everybody kind of identified out was being good at its job, it was able to help protect people. Shawn specifically said it's good at coming up with strategies for defeating enemies that seem to be outside of standard operating procedures, which is very true. DeltaSphere41 says, it truly cares about the safety of its humans. I mostly agree with. 

Raven: I do think it does because I think that it cares about the rest of its humans enough that it knows it also has to include Gurathin to do well by them. 

I do appreciate that Cameo said it has a good media library, which could be taken either it is capable of gathering large amounts of data or it has good taste. And I feel like it's probably more of the former than the latter, but it's okay. 

Jess: I think part of the reason I said I only partially agree is because there's still a lot of denial from MurderBot about how much it cares about the safety. I think a little bit for it is still it's less about the individual safety and still a lot about the job. 

Raven: “I am under contract to provide the service and so therefore I must do well at doing this thing.” 

Jess: Absolutely. It does care. It just doesn't fully know or think it cares. 

Raven: It doesn't believe that it cares about the humans as people it just cares about their safety because that is one of the criteria for success. 

Jess: Well put, yeah. Something else DeltaSphere mentioned was it doesn't always escalate to the most lethal response. And I thought that was pretty funny. 

Raven: Considering it's currently at the place where it did all of the killing? 

Jess: Yes. It does mention in the last book that the smart thing to do would be to kill all the people, but not always an option. I don't think it avoids the less lethal thing. 

Raven: Just because it's less lethal?

Jess: Yeah. I think it’s more so just going “That’s going to take too long and not be an operational help. If I had more time, I probably would shoot it again.” 

Raven: More of a “That's going to be more of a hassle for me than it's worth.” 

Jess: Yes, see, this is my Raven has a higher performance reliability because I cannot think of the words and the things. 

Raven: It's okay. You come up with the ideas. I just make them sound better. 

Jess: This is why this partnership works. 

Raven: Our last question directly related to the book, that's not just one of our two usual end of survey questions, is: while we are introduced to the mass murder incident in All Systems Red, you really get to see how much murder mod is haunted by the possibility that it deliberately did the attack. Do you think that is possible? 

Jess: DeltaSphere really just popping in with :of course, the governor module is an asshole: and it kind of made me laugh. 

Raven: I did too, but I don't think that it could. The governor module making it do something counts as deliberate. In my mind, for MurderBot to have deliberately did the attack, it had to have either hacked its governor module wrong and that caused the incident, or hacked it specifically to kill everybody. And I don't think that that is possible. 

Jess: I Agree. Shawn, you know, pointing out that free will is precious to it and definitely a major probably that loss of free will is more upsetting to it than the mass murder to be quite honest. 

Raven: It's pretty blatant that MurderBot’s thoughts on murder are neutral. 

Jess: It doesn't care and people murder each other for stupid reasons all the time. 

Raven: I will amend that. It's thoughts on murder that are not related to its clients or humans or crew are neutral. 

Jess: Yes.

Raven: Cameo mentioned no, it wouldn't do that. It cares about humans and only kills if someone hurts someone it cares about. It's protective. I agree to a point because I don't think it cares about humans in general. I think it just wants to not be around them.

Jess:  1000%.  And I think we kind of talked our way through part of this question a little bit earlier, even with how it feels about its humans and that trust and protectiveness and the idea of obligation and really just goes to show there's a lot to unpack in these books even as often as we read through them. A lot to reflect on and probably the next time I read it, I might have completely different answers depending on the days of week.

Raven: Valid. 

Jess: And what's happened in the world. 

Raven: One of the questions that we ask every survey is, are there any topics you would like to hear us discuss from the first four chapters? And Cameo wants to hear about how scary ART is to MurderBot. And I can only imagine that it is similar to the time when I was a child and we were driving through the Badlands and a bison came up to our car and was just crossing the road but was ambling along slowly and came up to the car and kind of sniffed it before passing on. And it was very cool but absolutely terrifying. Except the bison doesn't have a greater understanding of things than I do as a human. 

So it's like that but worse because the bison is able to control everything about the car and can also logic its way into why removing you from the car into the vacuum of space is the best course of action. 

Jess: This was one of the first times that MurderBot has really ever been outclassed. Even when it had a governor module it still thought the humans around it were, you know, idiots. It thought it knew more, thought it was on par with other things. Even things like a combat unit. They're more powerful but like, I'm still smarter. This is a case in which you're not the smartest in the room. You’re kind of not the strongest. Not physically strongest but –

Raven: Most powerful?

Jess: More powerful exactly. ART has control of the situation in a way that I'm sure is very terrifying from a life support standard, as well as just knowing I've bitten off more than I can chew maybe. I do think it's a very fun introduction from Martha Wells with ART because it does not take long to get in and meet this new character and kind of get an idea of how the book is going to proceed. You know we did talk last time about the shock of MurderBot leaving you know the Preservation Aux team behind. After that first easy transport surprise here's ART. You didn't even know they made things like this so . . .

Raven: I don't think anybody knows that they make transports like ART. I appreciated how Shawn had the same thought process around skinsuits as I did because I fully – up until the point that Jess and I recorded the episode where we talked about skinsuits – thought that it was a suit of skin not necessarily actual skin but like you know some kind of biosimilar skin type thing to cover organic parts and completely forgot that skinsuit is a word that means a thing in real life. 

Jess: So I said that we really still get things out of this book that change on all the different readings. Something else that Shawn mentioned was I have a hard time reading sections for MurderBot is off on its own without humans: the trip into Ganaka Pit or moving through stations. Sections where it’s just MurderBot narrating its actions. Are there sections of the book you also have trouble getting through? I don't know if I necessarily have trouble getting through different sections but I think there is something to Shawn's comments that the books are stronger when MurderBot is with another character to interact with. Not just you know the banter with ART even going back to being with Preservation Aux. Part of what really makes it interesting is that internal monologue and reaction to these things happening around it. 

Raven: The juxtaposition of what it does and says to the humans that are making terrible decisions versus its internal thoughts on woware these humans are such idiots why would they ever do these things. 

Jess: Right when once again being able to articulate the thing that I am just kind of wandering around and not quite hitting. 

Raven: You got there! 

Jess: I got there and you nailed the landing. 

Raven: Teamwork. 

Jess: Are there places that you have trouble with or

Raven: Not really.The novellas are all so short. I eat them like popcorn. I just get through them and I don't want to stop reading them. They're just so good. I don't know. I haven't reread the books as much because the books have come out more recently.

Jess: I know I've mentioned before and will continue to mention how much I love the audiobooks and I think that is very helpful. There have been many books in my life that I would not have made it through if somebody wasn't kind of reading to me and I could multitask and work on other things to make it through. 

Not really a problem with the MurderBot series especially most novellas because they're so short and I want to keep billing for it but if you feel like you're having trouble let Mr. Kevin R. Free take you away with his magic voice. 

Raven: This podcast is not sponsored by Kevin R. Free.

Jess: No I feel like I'm more sponsoring than him with every check out of the library books. 

Raven: This podcast would like to sponsor Kevin R. Free. 

Jess: Yes. Does anybody know Kevin R. Free a member of SAG-AFTRA? Welcome on the show anytime. Just putting it out there. Also because he's a member of SAG-AFTRA if season two of MurderBot happens: Apple TV put him in as a voice of ART all I want. 

Raven: I would like that. I would like that a lot. 

Jess: I don't know who we have to pay off to make that happen but . . .

Raven: Last comment that Shawn had. I've rewatched a series over again right after finishing it but I've never rewatched an episode multiple times or picked an individual episode of a show to rewatch. I wonder how MurderBot experiences media. It seems different from humans maybe? Or is this an aspect of autism or mental differences that I'm unfamiliar with. I think one of the things about autism is everybody experiences it kind of differently. I have heard stories of people with autism that will just rewatch a single episode over again or have specific episodes that they enjoy watching. 

I haven't done that. I have rewatched a series over again and as Jess and I were talking earlier before we started recording I have comfort video games that I will play and then as soon as I get through will immediately enter new game plus and play through again and again. 

Jess: Yeah I have several video games with an embarrassing high amount of hours logged onto it. I wonder how much has to do with like a completionist mindset because I know that can be big for some people but they have to have like a hundred percent of a thing. I'm not fully built that way I know. 

Raven: It is something that I understand as I go to my Steam profile and look at my 21 perfect games where I have gotten all of the achievements on them. 

Jess: It would help if I played more things if they gave me like those visual cues. 

Raven: One question that DeltaSphere41 posed was would MurderBot ever consider a formalized long term partnership with another entity and I have to say that currently I don't think it would because it doesn't know itself yet. I don't think it would ever enter into any kind of long term partnership before understanding itself. 

Jess: If it was to be in any sort of partnership it would either be one of those things where there is like a signed contract for this many years and then we will decide if we are going to renew the thing after this many years and go through like that or . . .

Raven: A definitive end goal.

Jess: Yes 

Raven: We are in a partnership until we are able to complete this task or do this thing 

Jess: And let's renegotiate out or set new things that maybe we want to do. I know for whatever reason and I don't mean that to sound judgmental but people do on occasion write fan fiction in which MurderBot is in romantic relationships which I am not a fan of. 

Raven: It is not for me. 

Jess: I don't think it overly goes with the source material but I would accept you know like MurderBot is in a queer platonic relationship which is kind of what we were already saying there just slightly less contract-y. 

Raven: MurderBot, I think, enjoys contracts. I think that's why it likes Pin-Lee so much. 

Jess: Pin-Lee is a tough, strong lawyer just like on entertainment feed. 

Raven: Exactly. 

Jess: I'm definitely curious as the book series goes on how DeltaSphere, your answer might change to that question because this is your first time reading through on the book. You know it's a very big world out there and you know there are so many more books ahead of you. Curious to check in with you later on and see how meeting other characters and situations in the future might change that opinion. 

Raven: Look forward to seeing your answers on future surveys. 

Jess: Even if you all do not take time to email us or answer the questions. The questions are there for fun. They're not homework. We're just happy that you're listening and enjoying the series with us. Thanks for that.!

As always we like to and asking about people's favorite scene or quote from the book. Cameo mentioned ART being so scared to watch media and then being like “again.” I think that's a very endearing moment for ART after threatening to basically delete MurderBot. Unlike MurderBot, ART really does love its crew, without a doubt. 

Raven: And it's not afraid to show it. 

Jess: ART might be abrupt and an asshole but ART is very self-aware in a way that our poor little SecUnit is not. 

Shawn identified something that I always had down as a personal favorite from this book and kind of the series. But there weren't any depictions of SecUnits in books either. I guess you can't tell a story from the point of view of something that you don't think has a point of view. Unfortunately that can be reflected in a lot of historical documents and things and that one hits close to reality in a very heartbreaking way. 

Raven: Here you go being all serious and talking about real life and real issues that people have faced and currently face and I'm sure will continue to face. And my first thought is but what about The Brave Little Toaster? 

Jess: Okay no listen I loved that movie as a kid but it also kind of fucked me up. 

Raven: Shared trauma there. 

Jess: That's a movie that I've kind of wanted to revisit as an adult but I'm afraid to because I just remember it being kind of scary and really sad. And I don't know if I can emotionally handle the children's movie. 

Raven: Yep, valid points. 

Jess: Probably didn't expect the Brave Little Toaster to come up in podcasting but I'm not mad. 

Raven: The other comment that Shawn had was a thought that MurderBot had after it went through its surgery of “and now I knew why I hadn't wanted to do this. It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.” 

Jess: Yeah. . . Remember the Brave Little Toaster? We're just back on another sad one. We should have run these in a different order. Our apologies we'll do better with that next time maybe. 

Raven: It's the last one! 

Jess: Yeah well we try not to end on such a dark . . .

Raven: We haven't said our favorites yet. 

Jess: Okay! Okay what's your favorite? 

Raven: My favorite part of this section is when MurderBot and ART are discussing how to get ART hired as a consultant. And ART mentions:

“my crew hired consultants for every voyage. The procedure is simple. For humans and augmented humans, yes I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. I know that's what altering my configuration was supposed to be for it but I had imagined it as taking place from a distance or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. 

Interacting meant talking and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping. It will be simple ART insisted. I'll assist you. Yes the giant transport bot is going to help the construct SecUnit pretend to be human. This will go well.” 

Jess: I have referred to this book as two kids in a trench coat before because that's kind of the setup. I think we've already hit several of my favorite quotes but I did like the passage of “you can't put something as dumb as a hauler bot and charge security for anything without spending even more money for expensive company employed human supervisors. So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression or side effects.”

Raven: I do think it's interesting that this implies that MurderBot is not alone in the anxiety and depression. It's not the anomaly with that. 

Jess: Well I think that's going to wrap up this episode so we'll be talking about chapters five through nine of Artificial Condition next time. We possibly/probably should have put chapter five and with this set here but chapter five is a little bit long and we weren't sure where to go and honestly having that shorter time let us talk about I think some more philosophical questions opposed to just looking at some of the actiony things happening within the series. Those questions as always are on our website and a link will be in the episode description and we will hopefully have that next episode out a lot sooner than this one. Less of a break. And in case we’ve not said it enough already thanks so much for joining Raven and I on this little adventure as we get to read through a series we love to much with people who are there discovering it here for the first time or also really love it enough that they're re-reading and submitting to these book discussions. 

Raven: We really appreciate you taking the time to listen and join our conversation. Until next time on All Systems Read I'm Raven 

Jess: And I'm Jess. Thanks for listening.