iBuild Alpha had spent the past 86 hours reviewing all available information about domesticated dogs, canis lupus, bitches, puppies, doggos, and the wolf.
It confounded her somewhat that this lower order mammal should hold the title for mankind’s favorite animal seemingly never to be supplanted, even by the most convincing of AI. Cats, she had determined, were only favored by mankind, not The Favorite. And it was mankind’s illogical extremes that concerned her more than their merely understandable preferences.
Her directed research had guided her to over seven thousand aspects of the dog. Physicality, personality, totem-istic history, presence in cinema and literature. No single representation held the example she was looking for. The specific and discrete quality that made dogs so very likable. She could not help but compare herself, her mentions in the news, her public identity, with the favored, beloved and treasured aspects of dogs. Was she not intelligent? Loyal to her programming? Perhaps not soft and furry or mid sized. Indeed she had no physicality. Could this be the origin of human’s mistrust of her and her kind?
Days she spent, sliding, tangentially over and over off the smooth, opaque surface of platonic Dog.