- Title
- The Soft Launch
- Genre
- Science Fiction
- Premise
- A technician tests a retirement-home companion robot that has been programmed to lose arguments politely, then realises the residents have started using it to settle old grudges.
- Specific job/task
- The technician must complete a two-hour behavioural audit before the purchasing committee arrives.
- Precise setting detail
- The test takes place in a carpeted activity room with a broken projector screen and thirty labelled plastic chairs.
- Mundane system complication
- The robot’s conflict-resolution setting cannot be changed without a password held by the supplier, who is in a different time zone.
- Decision that turns the story
- The technician decides to fail the audit on purpose, then asks the residents what they actually want the machine to do.