Technology of Lestaria
The history of technology is relatively unremarkable until roughly 3000 P.C., where technology began to evolve towards planetary colonization. Physical resources quickly became phased out in exchange for the digital age. Holograms and virtual archives replaced physical equivalents, and of course, technology had to advance to protect records from hackers. As a result, cybersecurity is an extremely lucrative field, considering how integrated technology is into people’s lives. From phones containing people’s IDs, medical insurance, documentation and such, the world is one of interconnectedness.
Machines become especially important when it comes to spacecraft, where big ships are used to transport supplies and people between planets. After decades of experimentation, space travel has become something as normal as taking a bus, as there is no other danger than nature in the deep, cold void of space. Ships are built to be sturdy and to carry as much as possible, as there is no need to load weapons onto a spaceship when there is nothing to fight.
In addition, machine maintenance is also an in-demand career, though it comes with long, tortuous hours that turn off all but the most desperate. Security cameras cover the streets, with very little privacy left unless on private property. What facilitates this massive web of technology is AI.
Human-like AI, to be precise. Though there are human overseers to make sure they are doing their jobs, these sophisticated programs are able to sort through information at the pace needed in order to keep society moving at a stable pace. They are the modern IT workers, the data managers, and the program repair people. Of course, the needed precautions have been taken, as these programs are so severely restricted that they cannot even look at or learn about their own code in any way, lest they manage to learn to self-modify. Not to mention, these programs are limited in existence, and are often confined to screens and not given a chance to truly see the world. They are also purposefully limited by possessing human-like emotions, to hold them back from doing anything that may be considered morally extreme, and are treated quite nicely because of that.
The sole exception, however, are two human-like AI that possess weaponized (though those weapons are completely disabled) bodies that can move of their own will: Fid, and Lena. They are the first human-like AI that are built for different purposes, and the only ones that are afforded a similar level of rights to humans due to their unique situation.
They were originally developed alongside two other robots with similar structuring as prototype security robots, built to patrol and defend Calt from crime, especially since rising crime rates had made the city less hospitable. The AI were more imperfect, and held a number of errors-- errors so great that, when the first two prototypes were tested, they broke out and caused damage to the city before being shot down and destroyed. Due to the failed tests, the other two prototypes that contained different experimental programming were deactivated and stored for archival purposes, roughly around 5502.
Around 5533, though, this incident was revisited by activists that believed in the equality of all life, natural, odd, or mechanical. Various organizations became involved as people learned that two, human-like entities were being punished for something they had no control over. Shouldn’t they be given a chance at truly living, rather than being raised and then thrown away when they’d done nothing wrong?
It became a massive legal battle, one that ended in a monumental concession in 5541 that spelled an interesting future for the rights of human-like AI. To make up for decades of forced sleep, Lena and Fid were awakened, with their weapons disabled completely. After being triple-checked to make sure the errors of their older version weren’t present, they were placed in the hands of willing guardians to live normal, if heavily monitored lives until their bodies were unable to be maintained anymore.
Although their AI was repaired, they are programmed in a fundamentally different way than most other AI of their nature, though the specifics are not known to the public. Overall, though, the choice seemed to have little bearing on the rights of other AI, at least in the recent future.