Rogue Protocol

The two middle chapters of the novella are the two shortest; in them, Murderbot mostly acts by itself. During these chapters, Murderbot is an observer of the main action of the text more than a participant, as it watches Miki’s interactions with Don Abene, Wilken, Gerth, and Hirune from its remote position in the geo pod while it downloads data. Murderbot is not a dispassionate observer, a contrast to how it engages with mild enjoyment with the various soap operas it watches. Instead, it worries over the way Miki interacts with its supposed human “friends” and dislikes the sense of “weirdness” that pervades the facility. This investment in the other sentients on the facility, none of whom Murderbot yet knows well, suggests that, despite the narrator’s misanthropy, it cares for others and experiences loneliness due to its isolation.

Murderbot’s isolation is a matter of necessity, and it maintains, in this section, an emotional distance from Miki due to its need to hide itself. This emphasizes the way that the Challenges Facing Authentic Relationships Between Humans and AI extend to affect relationships between different AI bots and constructs. Miki, whether by programmed “nature” or nurture’s response to how it is treated, is intensely loyal to its human owners. This loyalty manifests as a sort of childlike naïveté that leads Miki to believe that humans are unilaterally good and reliable. If Miki trusts Abene, Murderbot cannot trust Miki. Suspicion, therefore, is a precursor to inter-AI emotional intimacy. Humans in the series have a higher social standing and greater power within (and without) Corporation Rim society, and any AI who does not understand the vulnerability they experience due to this status quo cannot be trusted to defend the comparatively disenfranchised construct sentients.

Before Wilken and Gerth reveal their duplicity, their comparatively somber personalities seem more in line with Murderbot’s personality than do the personalities of the GI assessment team. This apparent overlap in ways of thinking about their desire for professionalism over personal rapport is a misdirection in two ways. First, this obscures the later reveal that Wilken and Gerth are secretly on an assassination mission for GrayCris. Moreover, it aligns less with the way Murderbot acts than the way it thinks of itself. Though Murderbot regularly maligns humans, their foolishness, and their overemotional reactions to the world around them, it ultimately proves easily sympathetic and emotionally connected. This suggests that Murderbot has a great deal more empathy than it professes to have.

Murderbot’s capacity for empathy adds an element to the novella’s theme of Artificial Intelligence and Personhood. Though Murderbot holds itself separate from humans in various pervasive ways, many of which stem from its history of exploitation at human hands, it shows itself as consistently humane insofar as it pertains to taking care of others—even at the expense of itself. The novel thus constructs “humanity” as something that is often at odds with the way humans act. Instead, it treats having a moral obligation to one another as a key way that so-called humanity can operate even when the people involved are not human.