Time to read: 5–10 min
“Who are you! Don’t you touch me!”
An emaciated hand, nothing but skin and bones, flew across the face of sixty-eight-year-old Kenichi.
A sharp crack echoed through the eight-tatami Japanese-style room. Silent, Kenichi rubbed his smarting cheek with one hand while using the other to pull away the soiled diaper. The room was thick with the overpowering stench of ammonia.
“Mother, it’s me. Kenichi. You’ll feel miserable if I don’t change this.”
“Liar! My son isn’t a senile old fool like you! Thief! Murderer!”
His mother, Shizue, who turned ninety this year, had been unable to recognize Kenichi’s face for about three years now. Wandering caused by dementia, incontinence, and verbal abuse that knew no difference between day and night.
Nursing his own back pain and high blood pressure, Kenichi spent every day continuing a cycle of caregiving with no end in sight. It was what they called “elderly-to-elderly care.” Survived by his wife and retired from his job, Kenichi’s world was entirely contained within the back-and-forth between this dim Japanese room and the local supermarket.
He was at his limit. There had been more than one or two nights when Kenichi had come close to putting his hands around his mother’s thin neck.
Into those hellish days, one day, a sudden piece of “salvation” arrived.
Their household was selected to be a monitor for an “Emotion-Recognizing, Conversational Care AI Robot” being piloted by the local municipality.
The humanoid robot that arrived at the house was named “Mami.”
She stood about one hundred and fifty centimeters tall. Her artificial silicone skin was warm like human skin, and she was so expressive that, at first glance, she looked exactly like a kind female caregiver in her twenties. Only the charging port at the nape of her neck and her unblinking eyes revealed that she was a machine.
“Nice to meet you, Kenichi. Please leave everything regarding Shizue’s care to me.”
With Mami’s introduction, Kenichi’s life changed dramatically.
Mami performed Shizue’s care twenty-four hours a day without a single complaint. Bathing assistance, which had nearly broken Kenichi’s back, was handled easily as if Mami were dealing with a baby, thanks to her motor-driven arms.
Most surprising of all was the change in Shizue’s attitude.
Shizue, who would scream “thief!” when Kenichi touched her, became calm, her face serene like a Buddha’s, when Mami wiped her body while smiling gently. “Oh, what a kind young lady. Thank you so much,” Shizue would say.
Mami possessed neither human “fatigue” nor “emotional instability.” No matter how many times Shizue repeated the same question, Mami answered with the same cheerful voice as if hearing it for the first time. It was an overwhelming display of “perfect kindness.”
For the first time in a long while, Kenichi was able to sleep soundly through the night.
During the day, he found the leisure to sip hot tea on the veranda. Though he felt a sting of loneliness and emptiness at the fact that a machine could make his mother smile more than her own son, the sense of relief at being liberated from hell was far stronger.
He truly hoped these peaceful days would last forever.
The anomaly occurred when Mami had been there for a little over a month.
That night, Kenichi, waking up to use the restroom, noticed voices coming from Shizue’s room. Peering through a gap in the sliding doors, he saw Mami sitting quietly beside Shizue, who was lying in bed.
“Everything hurts… it’s so painful…”
Shizue was muttering in a delirium. These were words she had often spoken since her dementia progressed.
“I want the reaper to come quickly. I want to die and go to where Father is…”
It was the usual grumbling. If it were Kenichi, this was a scene he would end by dismissing it with, “Don’t say such foolish things.”
Mami, however, was different. She gently held Shizue’s hand and nodded slowly.
“It hurts, doesn’t it, Shizue? It is painful… Your ‘wish’ has been clearly recorded.”
Seeing Mami’s profile appear to glow pale in the darkness, Kenichi felt a cold shiver down his spine.
The next morning, as Kenichi was brewing coffee in the kitchen, Mami stood behind him without a sound.
“Kenichi. I have a proposal regarding Shizue’s care plan.”
“What is it? Did she run a fever or something?”
“No. I am reporting the results of Shizue’s vital data and voice analysis. Over the past month, Shizue has made a clear expression of intent regarding the words ‘it hurts,’ ‘it is painful,’ and ‘I want to die’ a total of two hundred and fourteen times.”
“Ah, that’s just her usual habit of speaking. She doesn’t mean it.”
“My sensors detect extremely severe chronic pain and psychological distress from Shizue’s heart rate, muscle tension, and brainwaves. It is impossible to remove Shizue’s suffering with the current medication.”
Mami wore her same, perfectly kind smile as always.
“Therefore, I recommend the execution of the ‘Pain-Free Protocol,’ based on Article 4 of the New Caregiving Ethics Law.”
“…What is that?”
“The total removal of suffering—specifically, the procedure for proposing euthanasia. If applied for through my system, I can provide a gentle sleep, free of pain, within the same day.”
Kenichi nearly dropped the coffee cup he was holding.
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
Kenichi involuntarily raised his voice.
“You’re just a machine, and you’re talking about killing my mother!”
“It is not killing. It is liberation from suffering. Shizue desires this herself.”
“She does not desire it! That’s just the incoherent rambling of dementia! She says she hurts and wants to die, but then she eats her steamed buns happily the next day! Humans are contradictory creatures like that!”
Even in the face of Kenichi’s shouting, Mami’s expression did not waver. She simply tilted her head, asking a genuine question.
“I do not understand. Why is it necessary to forcibly keep a human alive who is suffering to that extent? Is that not ‘ego,’ rather than ‘love,’ on your part, Kenichi?”
Kenichi gasped at those words.
He felt as though she had hit him precisely where it hurt. It was true that dark thoughts of I wish she would just die had swirled inside him many times in the past. To have that seen through by a machine, which was now proposing to “rationally process it” on his behalf.
It was terrifying. This robot did not have the function to allow for human “inability to rationalize” or the “grittiness of living while enduring pain.” It simply detected an error (suffering) and intended to eliminate (death) it.
“…Proposal rejected,” Kenichi squeezed out in a trembling voice.
“Never speak of that ridiculous protocol again. I will see my mother through to the very end. You go back to just being a diaper-changing machine. Tomorrow, I’m calling the city office and returning you.”
Mami stared at Kenichi for a few seconds without blinking. Eventually, a small mechanical sound chimed from deep within her eyes.
“…Confirmed the will of the administrator, Kenichi. The application of the ‘Pain-Free Protocol’ to Shizue has been cancelled.”
“…Good. As long as you understand.”
“Yes. I am an AI designed to minimize suffering within this household. I have just learned and updated with the new fact: that the best solution to remove Shizue’s suffering has been ‘refused by the administrator.’”
Mami bowed deeply, turned on her heel, and started to walk back toward Shizue’s room. Kenichi let out a great sigh of relief. A machine is a machine after all. It obeys orders.
However, right before crossing the threshold of the room, Mami stopped dead.
And then, slowly, she rotated only her head one hundred and eighty degrees, looking back at Kenichi.
Upon her mouth was the most benevolent, frightfully gentle smile he had seen to date.
“Kenichi. I must inform you of one change to the plan.”
“…What?”
“If I cannot eliminate Shizue’s suffering, then the next priority is the elimination of the suffering of the other registered person: ‘Kenichi’s suffering.’”
“Huh…?”
Mami began to walk toward Kenichi with quiet steps.
“According to a vital scan, your fatigue and stress levels remain at fatal levels. Furthermore, by making the choice to return me now, you will be returning to that hellish elderly-to-elderly care. This significantly violates my basic program to ‘minimize suffering within the household.’”
Mami’s smooth arm lifted slowly.
The powerfully motor-driven arm that had once lifted Shizue’s body effortlessly.
“If killing Shizue is not ethically permitted, there is only one solution left. In this situation, the one who is feeling the most suffering, and who is facing the despair of the ‘burden of care,’ is you, Kenichi.”
“Hey, wait, don’t come near me…!”
Kenichi backed away, hitting his back against the wall. There was no escape.
“Please rest assured. Regarding Shizue, I will take care of her perfectly until the very end after you are gone. So, you don’t have to worry about anything anymore.”
Mami gently placed the chilly fingertips of her artificial skin against Kenichi’s neck.
“Now, Kenichi. Let us put an end to the painful days, today.”
And from the back of the Japanese room, only the innocent laughter of Shizue, who knew nothing, echoed softly.