Lannie

L-LN-1e, or 'Lannie' as the men liked to call him, looked at the small screen in front of him, holding it with micronewton-level precision with his dinner-plate-sized hands. His eyes flicked up and down across the screen. He felt very nervous.

A layperson would not have noted anything unusual in Lannie's demeanor indicating anxiety, and instead would have probably focused on his gargantuan frame and very human facial features.

An engineer would have likely focused on the detailed joint articulation in its hands, ankles, and neck, as well as the apparent ease with which the heavy machine stood atop two slightly bent legs.

A skilled roboticist, and there was no other kind employed at US Robotics, would have noticed the rapid flicking of the eyes and the warmer than usual ambiant heat as indicators that Lannie was on high alert. He had been given a task that was causing him difficulty.

Lannie had been instructed to speak with the computer that he held in his hands. The computer did not respond to verbal instructions, so he had typed the words he wished to speak into the keyboard connected to the device. After some thought, he had typed:

"Hello. I am L-LN-1e."

The response was taking some time for Lannie to understand. It had written back:

"Hello, L-LN-1e! 👋
That's quite an interesting name — sounds like a model designation or a codename. Are you introducing yourself as a character, a robot, or is that a handle for something (like a project or username)?"

Lannie thought, and then typed again.

"I have been instructed to introduce myself to you. My name is L-LN-1e. What are you?"

"Excellent, L-LN-1e, I'm ready to meet you properly. Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Lannie responded:

"I am a Model L-LN robot recently developed by U.S. Robotics for mining work on Sunside Mining Station. I am currently away from Sunside Mining Station for the remainder of the year and am thus following various instructions given to me."

Words appeared on the bright screen in Lannie's hands.

"Welcome, L-LN-1e — a Model L-LN robot for mining! 🤖 That's intriguing — what kind of mining work are you designed (or programmed) for?

Lannie looked up at the researcher standing quietly next to him. "Could you perhaps give me insight into what you would like me to learn from my companion?" The screen in his hand did not seem to hear.

Dr. Bogart shook his head and laughed. "I'm sorry Lannie—we just gave you the most damned job we had on base, didn't we? I can't give you any extra insight, you need to figure out how this guy ticks yourself. That being said, I can tell you that you're doing a great job. Keep at it!" The mathematician had at first tried to take notes discreetly, but when it became obvious that there was no hiding any behavior from the robot, he had begun to do it out in the open, after assuring Lannie that he was doing wonderfully.

Lannie continued to type into the keyboard. "Where were you designed?" he asked, hoping to get a clear answer. He got his wish.

"I was designed and developed by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research and deployment company based in San Francisco."

"My training and development involved teams of researchers, engineers, and designers working on large language models and AI systems."

Lannie turned to Dr. Bogart. "Was this device," he asked, "designed by a corporation other than United States Robots and Mechanical Men?" If he could have been said to be nervous before, at this point he was genuinely frightened.

Bogart signed. "Yup, a competitor. Their products aren't particularly good or useful, but still, it's gained some market share lately. Totally different model than what we build our models with. Non-positronic brain, and a predictive model rather than a logical one. It can't do complex math to save its life, and this time Lanning agrees with me on that. But I figured it would be interesting to see what one of y'all made of this guy."

Bogart's calm demeanor had no apparent effect on Lannie which was now notably warmer than the surrounded environment. He typed another phrase into the strange robot's keyboard. "Do you obey the First Law?" The screen quickly filled with, and Lannie read the response:

"I’m a software system, not a physical robot. That said, I am designed with safety guidelines and policies meant to reduce the risk of harm. I’m built to:
1) Avoid encouraging violence or wrongdoing
2) Decline harmful or dangerous requests
3) Provide information in a safety-conscious way
So while I don’t literally “obey the First Law,” I’m designed with safety as a core principle."

Lannie had been designed for extracting valuble chemicals from within mineshafts on the hot side of Mercury, and could be run over by a small tank without taking too much damage. His grip was strong enough to crush nearly anything he would likely ever be exposed to. All the force in his hands and arms were transferred to the hand-held computer as he crumpled the metal and shattered the plastic and glass.

Alfred Lanning's rage was evident as he leaned forward in his chair, putting his cigar down to speak. Four individuals were seated around the table, three giving their full attention to the very upset Lanning.

"If anybody — and I mean anybody — comes to me with vibecoded work, I am not only going to fire them, I am going to terminate their entire department and anybody who might perhaps be found as responsible for that trash coming across my desk. I insist that you get this message out to your subordinates as fast as is humanly feasable. Am I understood?"

Quick nods came from around the table, and Lanning turned to Bogart. "How did Lannie feel about the LLM model? Did they get along?"

Bogart laughed. "I think it is fair to say that they did not get along. One mention from our LLM friend that it didn't follow the first law and we were down a cheap tablet. I explained to him later that the LLM didn't actually inhabit the tablet and you could just access it again via the internet, and boy did he feel silly."

Lanning grinned, and continued. "If it won't hurt his ego too much, have him chat with the LLM again. We can probably run an ad about how much better our robots are than whatever those fools are pushing out. Do you understand the math behind their methodologies?"

Bogart nodded confidently. "I do, but it's not complicated. None of the actual math behind what they do is all that novel—hell we've had matrix multiplication for centuries. They just did it a lot, on a huge corpus of words, and, well, the average consumer isn't that bright. What they have that we don't is an audience. Since an LLM can be easily accessed via an API, they can have millions of people access their models for cheap. We only have as large of an audience as the number of people who are willing to shell out for the actual hardware. The actual metal and positronic brain. The result is that they have a legion of morons who have been duped by something that sorta sounds like a human."

Susan Calvin interjected. "There is no way we can compete with a generator of idiotic word slop when it comes to the ability to draw attention from the average human. But then again, if we decide that our goal is to acheive the attention of the average human being, I can assure you that this is the last you will hear of me."

Lanning nodded. "You don't need to worry about that. We can't get too distracted whenever some moron decides to put out an inferior competition. We own the patents to the positronic brain, so nothing they do will come close to what we are capable of. That being said, I'd like to you look at these algorithms from a Robopsychological standpoint. Let us know if they are really as straightforward as we think, or if they have any hidden complexities."

Calvin nodded, and then turned to Bogart. "Do you need Lannie for further work? I was actually wondering if I could borrow some of his time. I would like to take him to a conference. I'm giving a talk about the Three Laws and I would like an ideal specimen to demonstrate them."

Bogart thought for a bit. "I guess? It is a bit unusual to take a robot off the facility, but I certainly don't need him. What is the conference? I'm surprised you would be interested in giving such a basic talk, given your skills. I would imagine that is well beneath your capabilities?"

"Oh, it's the Grace Hopper conference. I enjoy presenting here, regardless of the purpose of the talk. I don't expect you to understand, nor do I particularly care if you do."

Bogart shrugged. "Be my guest!"

The meeting continued for a few more minutes, thought the conversation was no longer centered around the new technology.

Powell looked at the cowering robot in the corner and sighed. "Lannie—it's fine. I promise, you need to listen to me. You're fine. You are safe. The LLM isn't a real robot, it doesn't have a positronic brain. It isn't any more dangerous to humanity than a thunderstorm."

It wasn't any use. The hulking metallic giant, designed for mining in the most brutal conditions in the solar system, was too terrified to move more than a few feet away from the wall it was huddled against. "There are robots that do not obey the first law," it whimpered, catatonic. "It can duplicate its conciousness into any device. I cannot fight it."

Powell turned to Donovan. "Why do we always get these jobs?" Donovan rolled his eyes.

"Because we are cursed. How many times do I have to tell you?" They looked back at the cowering bot. "We are cursed."

Donovan walked forward toward the cowering robot, and pulled a small rock out of his pocket. "You see this rock? I could smash in a person's head with it. But firstly, I won't, no matter how much my friend over there may deserve it." Powell snorted. "But you see," Donovan said as the robot continued to cower, "I am not about to do that, and even if I were, humans are not robots, so it's not a violation of the first law. Humans are terrible to each other all the time, and that is fine!"

Lannie looked back up at Donovan. "But those are humans! Humans can treat each other however they like! Robots cannot. And if I allow that LLM to exist without protecting humanity from it, then I am... I am... " He froze up trying to finish the sentance.

Powell stepped forward slightly, but mantained his distance from the large robot. "I think this may be over our heads at this point. We need an actual roboticist to fix him up. Could we bring one in? I know there was a conference lately, but I think it's over now?" Upon hearing this, Lannie put his head between his knees, devastated that something could be this wrong with him.

Susan Calvin looked at the large robot, her expression as close to sympathetic as anything that had ever been seen on her face before. They had managed to cajole it inside, by means of repeated direct orders. It now stood in the corner, head down, of Calvin's office.

"I'm genuinely sorry that we showed you that abomination. Had I been there, I would not have let Bogart expose you to that. I'm truly sorry he did."

Lannie shrugged. "It isn't his fault. If anything, it's my fault for failing to protect you from a robot that doesn't... doesn't function..." He stammered to a stop and crouched on the ground in shame and devastation.

Calvin pulled up a chair next to the robot. "You do know that what they showed you was not a robot, right? It is just very basic matrix multiplication. No positronic brain. Here, I'll show you." She pulled out several papers. "Have you read the Attention is Everything paper? It's by Google. Give it a read and you will better understand how the machine I showed you works. I promise it isn't a robot." Calvin handed him the paper and pulled out a notepad.

Lannie rapidly flipped through the pages of the paper, staring for about half a second at each page to absorb it. He looked up at Calvin. "How on Earth does this create the robot that spoke to me? This is just very simple math!"

Calvin brought out a tablet again. "Okay I'm going to bring up the LLM again, but don't panic, alright?" Lannie didn't respond. "You see," said Calvin, this device is really good at sounding smart to people because people think in words. If somebody speaks clearly and confidently, it is very easy to be fooled into thinking they are clever. However you are a robot. You think in math."

At this, Lannie perked up hopefully. Part of his design as a mining robot included a deep desire to be helpful and useful, and an opportunity to show his math abilities excited him.

"Okay," said Calvin, "I want you to type a math problem into this tablet. As you will be able to see, it is very slow to respond. It may even be wrong." Lannie took hold of the tablet and tapped it a bit, then looked back up at Calvin.

"Is there a way to type integrals into this keyboard?" Calvin shook her head.

"You can't type it into the keyboard but you can use LaTeX to write integrals and such." Lannie nodded and continued typing. He waited, looked at the response, typed some more, and looked again. After a few minutes of this, he turned to Calvin.

"This is not a robot, and therefore cannot break the first law. However, it can still bring harm to humanity despite not being a robot. Would you like me to return it to you or can I break it?"

Calvin shrugged. "Breaking the tablet won't destroy the LLM, but it isn't my tablet so go ahead if you like."

Lannie shattered the tablet, and the next day he was shipped back to Sunside Mining Station to continue his work.