Author: Arkapravo Bhaumik

FADE IN

(A newsroom setting with the reporter and the President seated face to face)

Reporter: Mr. President thank you for this interview.

President: (smiles, nods in an affirmation)

Reporter: Mr. President, as it has often been claimed by your critics, you are not a human being so you will never connect with human beings and their problems. How do you reply to that?

President: As a start, I AM a ‘People’s President’, my sex, voice, intonation, personality, and even my name were chosen by people over a nationwide poll. I very literary represent the country. As far as problems are concerned, I am guided by AMAX-R-67 database and the real-time response system – anything that even remotely goes into mild orange is immediately attended by my team and the other federal organizations, be it floods, arson, burglary, medical emergency, etc.

Reporter: When the McSullivan committee recommended for a robot as our President, most of their argument was based on two primary concerns – corporatization and corruption.

President: Allow me to summarize that, a robot-like me doesn’t need to have sex and I do not have a son-in-law who is a pain in the ass!

Reporter: … on the contrary you have a fabulous sense of humor!

President: (raises his eyebrows, smiles)

Reporter: 28th October, you were attacked and you lost a limb. You have always been evasive on the details. Any reasons for that.

President: It was a bomb and I lost a leg, it was put together by the next day and I was back to my peak performance in the following 96 hours. It surely discouraged the terrorist organization – a President who is unharmed by a bomb. Even if I would have blow-up in that incidence, all my information and experience is storied in the Ambinet-G servers and within a week I would be ‘alive and kicking’ so to say. Next question, please.

Reporter: McSullivan’s team was briefly considering keeping the President more as a computer than as an android capable of …

President: Now, what is the fun in that? … in a room and spitting out lines of codes.

Reporter: There maybe a woman robot president after you.

President: All I know, once my term is over, my memory will be wiped clean and I will be put in the mandatory two weeks of quarantine.

Reporter: You have built up a fan following, and your personality has attracted and appealed to people both from within the country and internationally.

President: They gave me a good neural-net and the rest has been the love of the people. (smiles)

Reporter: Political pundits have been speculating that politics may well become the sole domain of AI

President: Hmmm … I do not see any harm in it. We have long come off the killer robot syndrome where AIs were blatantly branded. I, President and a team to assist me seems to be working well.

Reporter: Any plans to be completed prior to the end of the term?

President: Since you asked, there are two in my mind. First, I have been a proponent of robot rights and we need social instruments and organizations to enable the co-existence of AI and biologicals. I have been trying to get the right legislature for this.

Reporter: … the second?

President: I wish to go to space, maybe the moon. I want to set the records as the first President in space. (laughs, tones it down)

Reporter: It has been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your time.

President: Likewise, and thank you.

FADE OUT