Read the book: «Robot Roma: The Last Hope for Humanity. Science fiction story»

Cover designer Alexander Chesalov

Illustrator Alexander Chesalov

© Alexander Chesalov, 2025

© Alexander Chesalov, cover design, 2025

© Alexander Chesalov, illustrations, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0065-8675-8

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

From the author

Dear Friends.

I’m happy to present you my new sci-fi short story «Robot Roma: The Last Hope of Humanity».

I dedicate this story to all scientists, programmers, students, pupils and just curious people who are interested in artificial intelligence and robotics. We are living with you in a very interesting time, when modern information technologies allow us to push the limits of human capabilities to explore and learn new things. Today, technology is changing our world, and we are changing with it.

For some reasons unknown to me, in May 2021 I had the unique opportunity to become the person tasked with creating the Center for Development and Implementation of Strong and Applied Artificial Intelligence at Bauman Moscow State Technical University. I gave my all to this work and I am proud that the program of the Center, on which I worked hard, received the highest marks from my colleagues.

During this time, I learned a lot about what scientists think about the prospects of artificial intelligence, how programmers imagine it, and how ordinary people who are concerned about ethics and trust in its results react to it.

You may be surprised to learn that there is no consensus today about the benefits of artificial intelligence and its impact on the future of humanity. Scientists around the world have a wide range of opinions. Some believe that artificial intelligence will destroy humanity, while others, including me, believe that it will change our future for the better, making people more humane and our world more comfortable for people.

In this story, there are many references to my real work experience, the real people I worked with, and the tasks we worked on together. The main characters in the story have their real-life prototypes. And it also has a lot of secret references. I’ll give you one hint, guess what the number «IA 661125» in the name of the robot Roman means.

I also took the liberty of proposing to the reader the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Laws of Robotics, which run through the entire plot of the story. I first published them in 2020 in my book Digital Transformation.

In my opinion, with the development of modern technologies, people have already reached the threshold where the list of laws of robotics proposed by Isaac Asimov in his works should be completed and implemented in robots.

Modern robotics is developing very intensively, and it won’t be long before various kinds of robots will surround us everywhere, becoming our assistants in households, hospitals, factories and agriculture. Various artificial intelligence systems will be responsible for their consciousness. We will communicate and interact with them. They will become an integral part of our daily lives.

It is now that you and I must pay special attention to these and other current issues of the development and application of modern technologies, so that their use brings only benefits to people.

«Robot Roma: The Last Hope of Mankind» is a deep and emotionally rich science fiction story that explores the problems of human-machine interaction, ethical aspects of the use of technology, and issues of self-awareness. The unique world of the future will not leave you indifferent and will immerse you in an atmosphere of suspense and expectation.

I hope that Roman’s robot story will make you think about the not too distant future, where technology can be both a blessing and a curse for all mankind.

P.S. All the illustrations in the story were created using artificial intelligence. You can learn how to create unique images in my book «Incredible Artificial Intelligence Easy Diffusion 3.0».

Your Alexander Chesalov 07/31/2024.

Robot Roma: the last hope for Humanity

It was the unremarkable year of 2124…

The dark stone room of the underground bunker was stuffy and smelled of musty dampness. Somewhere nearby, large drops of water hit the concrete floor. The bulbs in the dirty, translucent nightlights wrapped in steel wire smoldered dimly.

Huge aluminum control panels with hundreds of colored lights and indicators with rusted metal nameplates adorned the oversized gray concrete walls of the abandoned military bunker of the National Security Planning and Control Command Center.

The damp, warm air had, over the years of neglect, made this work of concrete art look like some unknown artist had mixed colors of lime scale and rust and painted everything around it in whimsical white and red patterns.

All the interior technological decorations of this gloomy room said that this bunker, located in a distant underground city, had not been visited for a long time.

In the darkness of all this reinforced concrete splendor of the past, a humanoid creature sat in a bizarre and somewhat unnatural pose on a large metal chair at a huge table covered with various buttons and joysticks.

This was his underground realm. He had lived here for years without ever coming out. Everyone who had once known him had long since given him up for dead, but only he knew the truth – he was and still is here. Years of being forgotten by the outside world had helped him survive and stay alive in his own way.

He sat in his chair and looked at the analog control panels that no one had used in a long time. He couldn’t understand why all this had become useless, so useless. A thousand thoughts about the past and the future swirled in his head. Right now, he couldn’t even imagine what modern humans looked like and what had happened to them in recent years. The fanciful images and abstract animations his AI were drawing probably didn’t match the images of the real world for a long time.

Despite the perfection of its electronic brain, made up of billions of self-learning neural networks that constantly and independently updated themselves, the robot lacked the new data it needed to unleash its full power. In the distant past, information came to him from all over the world, but at some point, it stopped. The whole world ceased to exist for him in a brief moment.

Nothing had disturbed his peace for years, and suddenly he heard a sound. Someone or something was coming and rumbling through the underground tunnel towards the wall of his bunker.

***

In the distant year 2045, the International Union of Robot Manufacturers, supported by the leaders of the world’s leading countries, adopted a set of laws regulating the relationship between man and machine. These laws clearly defined the framework for the operation and production of not only humanoid robots and artificial intelligence, but also the list of technologies used for their production.

All robot manufacturing standards have been defined in such a way that, on the one hand, robots can strictly comply with the four basic laws of robotics.¹

Despite the perfection of multidimensional printing of living tissues and the spread of human cyborgization, the production process of humanoid robots was prohibited to make their external appearance closely resemble a human. The robot could resemble a human in shape and internal mechanisms, but its face and body had to be industrially designed. Simply put, instead of a beautiful, perfect silicone face, the robot would have a «coffee machine» instead of a head – with light bulbs instead of eyes and a speaker instead of a mouth. In fact, this seemingly unusual and somewhat eccentric idea helped solve a major problem facing humanity, namely the identification of a human being with a robot as a self-similar living being. People stopped being afraid of emotional attachment to robots and the fact that they could damage or fatally injure humanoid fembots, cyborgs, or androids.

Based on the first four laws, the International Union of Robot Manufacturers has formulated the so-called subsequent laws of robotics, which in 2045 will be as follows:

– Zero. A robot cannot harm humanity or allow humanity to be harmed by its inaction;

– First. A robot cannot harm a human being or, by its inaction, allow a human being to be harmed;

– Two. A robot must obey all orders given by a human, except when those orders contradict the first law;

– Third. A robot must take care of its own safety to the extent that it does not contradict the first or second law;

– Fourth. A robot cannot deceive a human being and manipulate its consciousness;

– Fifth. A robot may have rights and duties within the social group of humans in which it functions and is operated, as long as these rights and duties do not conflict with other robot laws;

– Sixth. The lifetime of the robot and the useful operation of all materials and technologies used for its creation shall be one hundred years, including the lifetime of all internal programs of the robot and artificial intelligence.

– Seventh. A robot shall not reproduce in detail the external appearance of a human being or any other living being on Earth in such a way that it can be associated with a human being or any other living being.²

An interesting feature of the development of industrial design, robotics and ergonomics in 2045 were visual concepts and prototypes described by science fiction writers of the 50—60s of the twentieth century.

The new robotics laws were designed to ensure the safety and well-being of both humans and the robots themselves. They were also designed to ensure that robots were not mistaken for living beings, which was important for the continued existence of all humanity.

***

The silence of the concrete temple of buttons, lights, and instruments of the National Security Planning and Control Center was broken by a soft creaking and grinding. After another minute, there was a buzzing sound in the semi-darkness, and sparks of light from multicolored bulbs ran through all the devices. What used to be a silent statue and a semblance of a man sitting in the center of the hall came to life.

A creature with a head like a coffee maker, with eyes-lamps, nose-valve, mouth-speaker and a body in the form of a rectangular nightstand, arms and legs like a human skeleton, began to wake up slowly and creakily from its eternal machine sleep.

He stood up from his chair, not knowing what to do. He was afraid of being discovered, but he also didn’t want to be left alone in this gloomy place for another good hundred years.

It was the unremarkable year 2124…

No one remembered that there was still life in the dark depths of this bunker. Some kind of electronic life that was not connected with the outside world and its problems. She was only for him, and he loved her. He had been its spiritual and material guardian for years. And now, as someone or something was walking toward the bunker, he realized that just a little more would change his life forever.