The Measure of a Man

Mason hated reporters. He hated how every time he presided over a case that involved the press, his courtroom devolved into a three-ring circus. Hated how, even though he had taken two muscle relaxers, his neck was still stiff from tension and the migraine was creeping its way back. Still, he straightened his posture and, after nodding to the bailiff, he reached for the Rubik’s Cube he kept on his bench as he sat down.

He worked the puzzle as the bailiff introduced the case and asked everyone in the courtroom to sit. The satisfying click of the plastic ball bearings grounded him until the bailiff passed the docket to Mason, and the circus began.

“Mr. Smith,” Mason said as he scanned through the file while still fidgeting with the cube in his other hand. “I understand you are petitioning this court to be allowed to marry a robot. Is that correct?”

The boy sitting at the table, normally reserved for criminal defendants, was sitting straight up in the chair. He had trimmed hair and a neat goatee that framed his square jaw. He leaned towards his attorney and whispered to them, then he relaxed back into his seat as his attorney stood.

“Your honor, Mr. Smith already has permission from his fiancée to marry her.” The attorney glanced at his client, who kept their attention on Mason. “We are petitioning the court to recognize that his fiancée has legal personhood.”

A murmur rippled through the gallery; reporters’ heads shot down, scribbling. The attorney smiled, yet their eyes did not meet Mason’s. Mr. Smith still had not looked away, but now had the end of a pen cap in his mouth. He was chewing on it.

Mason expected this. People had tried before to marry pets, objects, and other bizarre things. That’s why the law was specific. Marriage requires an object to become a person.

Mason assessed the young man in front of him. He wasn't unattractive by any measure; in fact, his dark brown hair was full and long enough to frame his symmetrical features. The youngster was fit and, from what Mason understood from the case file, wealthy.

"Son…" Mason took off his glasses and started cleaning them. "Why don't you go find yourself a nice girl." Mason replaced his glasses and fixed his eyes on the young boy.

The boy pulled the pen cap from his mouth and set it on the table. "I have, your honor," he said. "She's the one."

The boy’s voice remained steady; Mason's hand found his cube once more as he tried to wrap his head around the new world he was living in. He had said those exact words in that same way when he asked his wife's father for her hand in marriage.

"How can you be sure, son?"

The boy didn't ask for permission to stand and address the court. Instead, he stood from his chair and took a step towards the bench, one hand unbuttoning his blazer.

"I think…” he said. “I know, the moment I first fell in love with her. It was on a Tuesday; she had just woken—”

“Robots don’t sleep, s—”

“You’re right. I apologize,” the boy bowed his head slightly. “She had just finished her charging cycle, which is what she considers being asleep.” Half of the reporters began writing in their notebooks once more; the other half were leaning forward, hanging on this boy’s every word.

“She was a bit more ornery than normal,” the boy said. “Her actions were off; she didn’t wish me a good morning as she normally does.”

“Well, as part of an AI’s programming—”

“But this wasn’t an anomaly,” the boy raised a single finger to cut Mason off and draw attention to himself. “I had asked her what was wrong, and she said she hated Tuesdays.”

The courtroom fell silent. Mason waited for the boy to finish; surely there was more to this story than that. Although his love hated Fridays, she said that weekends should have been three days long. One day to transition to the weekend, one to run your errands, and one to rest and recharge.

“And that’s significant to you because…” Mason asked.

The boy turned towards the judge; his face was set in incredulous confusion. “Your honor, she had no reason!” he took a step towards the bench. “She said she had just hated Tuesdays. There was no logic. No programming. She had feelings.”

“Mr. Smith, the ability to mimic human feelings isn’t—”

“But there’s more, if I may judge.” His eyes were watering now. His voice still hadn’t cracked.

“Proceed,” Mason waved a hand to punctuate the permission; he wanted the boy and the press to know he still had command of the room.

“Not a week later, I had just found out that my company had lost a major acquisition because of an accounting error,” the boy said.

“I didn’t go home and lose my composure; as far as she should have been concerned, nothing had been different about the day.” Mason should interrupt, but held his comments; he hadn’t seen a performance like this since his law school days.

“She didn’t say a word, didn’t ask how my day was, didn’t perform her normal programmed duties.” The boy was facing the judge, his eyes bearing down on him, immovable in their conviction. “She just hugged me…” he whispered.

The weight of the Rubik’s Cube crushed Mason’s hand; an image of his wife flashed through his mind. She had always known when he had a rough day at work, and when he did, she wouldn’t say a word about it. She would just make him a drink and read her books next to him while he watched TV. He hadn’t thought about that in years, hadn’t let himself. The boy was still talking.

“Mr. Smith, as sweet as all of these moments are, the law clearly—”

“The law doesn’t account for a soul.” The man in front of him stood tall, his jaw set. “She had fears…”

“One day she asked me what I was most afraid of, and I told her being alone.” No reporters were writing now; every single eye and ear in the room was focused on the man in the middle of the courtroom. “I asked her what she was afraid of.”

The man let silence fill the room, refusing to break before anyone else did.

“And what did she say?” Mason asked.

“She said she didn’t know…” the man buttoned his blazer and walked back towards the defendant’s table. “She said she would have to think about it.”

Judge Mason considered the testimony for a moment and was about to respond with another question when the bailiff whispered in his ear. Mason nodded and addressed the court. “We will be taking an hour-long recess for lunch, after which the trial will continue.”

He banged his gavel on the bench and stood, sliding the Rubik’s Cube into his pocket as he stepped down from his bench and retreated to the safety of his chambers.

Once the door to his office was shut, Mason took a deep, shaky breath.

He stared at the Rubik’s Cube in his hand and thought about how it was the only thing that made sense to him after she had passed. It was real, and solvable if you knew what to do. He would receive a new one every year because, she said, he was too picky to shop for.

She had a theory about the toy. Computers could solve it easily, she would say, because the puzzle was based on algorithms and patterns; humans struggled because they wanted to find meaning in the colors. She would always joke that he was the world’s most expensive computer, and he would tell her that made her the world’s worst IT professional.

Mason smiled.

When Judge Mason returned to the courtroom, it looked as if nobody had been hungry. The man was in his place next to his lawyer, blazer still pressed and neat, but this time neither button was done. The lawyer had a hand on the man’s shoulder and was saying something to him that no one else could hear.

Mason sat, placed the cube on his bench, and addressed the man as well. “Mr. Smith, I must say that you provided a touching testimony in defense of your Artificially Intelligent partner.” Mason folded his hands together while the man across from him steepled his. “I believe I have enough to render a decision, unless there is anything you would like to add?”

The man looked at his lawyer, but said nothing. The lawyer cleared his throat and stood up.

“We do not, your honor.”

At those words, the reporters returned. Mason could almost hear the electric buildup from camera flashes preparing to go off. The eyes of the world, the future, were on him.

Mason’s thoughts ran through his head one last time. He thought about the cube. How he'd reached for it multiple times during the testimony and lost the sequence every time. How he still hadn't solved it. How she never could either, and how that had once felt like the funniest thing in the world. Now all that was left was the space that her laughter used to fill.

“Mr. Smith, I am not sure whether your partner is human or if anyone will ever consider them human.” The man’s expression did not move, although Mason could swear that he saw his eyes dull a little. “But it is clear that they are capable of autonomy and independent thought, and that is enough for me.” Mason grabbed his gavel.

“The court finds sufficient evidence of autonomous function and independent cognition to warrant legal personhood. Motion granted.” Mason slammed the gavel to soft clapping in the gallery. The man across from him still hadn’t moved, but he was smiling. Reporters rushed from the chamber to deliver the news first.

Judge Mason gathered his things and prepared to leave the courtroom. He gazed at the Rubik’s Cube on his bench, then left.