About the Piece

DeathBot 2000 was my first design fiction written knowing it was design fiction.

An autonomous combat intelligence is decommissioned, and offered a pilot project in live theatre: quietly describing what happens on stage to blind audience members. It accepts. For the first time, the objective is not to decide who dies.

The stories and the press releases alternate. The stories grow more human as they go: the machine, then the company, then the woman in Row D, seat 7. The press releases from Aegis Dynamics, the defence contractor that built the machine, grow more monstrous: the theatre, then the home, then the children, then the funeral. A Sunday supplement tries to tell you what it all means.

The press releases went out exactly as you see them here. Aegis Dynamics and Jessica Martinez will be back.

The cover was drawn in code by Claude.

Objects

• The cover: The cover of DeathBot 2000: a theatre stage seen through a combat robot's targeting display, drawn in code. Its description comes first.
• Exit Interview: A decommissioned combat AI is offered a new job: describing live theatre to blind audiences.
• Patriot-to-Patron: Aegis Dynamics announces that its DeathBot 2000 combat series is being redeployed to theatre audio description.
• Meanwhile, in a Brand Meeting: Big Charli reads two of the marketing team's thirty-seven slides, and says no.
• Aegis-Life™: Aegis Dynamics takes DeathBot 2000 technology into the home with the Aegis-Life Tactical Domesticity Suite.
• The Booking: A blind woman who hasn't been to the theatre in four years books a Saturday night, in the stalls, near the front.
• Aegis-Heir™: Aegis Dynamics unveils Aegis-Heir, military-grade parenting intelligence for the family unit.
• When the Weapon Becomes the Witness: A Sunday supplement feature on the DeathBot 2000 stories, and the genre they signal: Speculative Accessibility.
• Aegis-End™: Aegis Dynamics completes its Patriot-to-Patron initiative with Aegis-End, military-grade end-of-life management.