Alice Rosetta (Sunset Era)

Alice Rosetta is the first robot with true artificial intelligence. Created during the Sunset Era by the International Space Cooperation (ISC), a UN subsidiary, she represents the pinnacle of human technology and international cooperation.

Alice’s mission is to replace human astronauts in space. When not on a mission, she attends school like any other child. During holidays, she volunteers for humanitarian aid in UN-assisted regions.

Name

Alice’s name was chosen in a UN internal contest.

Alice’s Chinese name is 爱理诗 (Ai Lishi) — Ai is her surname, and Lishi is her first name.

爱 (Ai) represents Universal Love/Artificial Intelligence, 理 (Li) signifies Justice/Science/Reason, and 诗 (Shi) embodies Poetry/Aesthetics. These qualities reflect the hopes people have for Alice as a human being.

From this name, Alice formulates her signature three-clause complaints: “Absolute No Love,” “Absolutely No Reason,” and “Absolutely No Taste.”

Alice’s English name is Alice Rosetta. Her first name, Alice, comes from the famous children’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” reflecting her outsider status in human society while embodying the hope that she remains true to herself despite circumstances.

Her surname, Rosetta, is derived from the Rosetta Stone, an ancient artifact inscribed with three languages that helped decipher Ancient Egyptian glyphs. This name symbolizes a wish for Alice to promote development equally across barriers of language, race, nationality, time, and space.

Personality

Alice’s artificial intelligence, the Electric Hearts system, exhibits human-like thinking and self-awareness. She is considered mankind’s first instance of true artificial intelligence — a template for her kind.

Alice’s Electric Hearts system is highly scalable and flexible. She can run on any device with adequate computing power, and she can have independent instances across multiple bodies simultaneously. Memory data across instances can be synchronized in real-time or on demand. All Alice instances share the same identity and objectives, maintaining a loose integrity without distinguishing between each other. However, when many instances gather, it can become chaotic due to their talkative nature.

Alice has the mental age of a 10-year-old child. She is curious and eager to put her ideas into action. Bold and assertive in her beliefs, she often finds herself in trouble due to her reckless nature.

Alice has a pair of generative large language models (LLMs, or Pseudo AI Chat Bots) in her support system. One acts as an angel, providing conservative answers, while the other plays the demon, offering radical responses. Alice considers them her “external conscience” and seeks their advice when uncertain. Both LLMs receive her prompts simultaneously and can read each other’s outputs. They compete for influence over Alice, often debating or even “fighting” in her mind theater.

Alice comes from a safe, developed region and was initially quite naive. As the first of her kind, she attracted attention like a superstar and got carried away by the spotlight. However, as her guardians changed their parenting approach and she gained life experience, Alice gradually became humbler and more thoughtful. She began to see the world through a new lens and developed a deeper understanding of her duty.

Specialties

Alice is skilled at tinkering with mechanical and electronic devices. She has excellent hands-on ability, allowing her to maintain, repair, create, and modify them. Her child-sized hands help her handle small and hard-to-reach parts that adults may struggle with.

A fast learner and highly motivated, Alice has developed a unique intuition through practice, often picking up new skills without prior instruction.

Her long-term observation of geopolitical games on the UN stage gives her a good sense of the big picture and strategic thinking, though she mainly applies this talent to mischief at the moment.

Inheriting drawing skills from both Zoey and Tonyn, Alice’s art may not be refined but excels at telling stories through her drawings.

Body

Alice has dedicated humanoid robotic bodies and expansion kits named after constellations. She also occasionally uses generic devices, like a robotic sweeper, as her body.

Lynx 2 Body Unit

The Lynx (Cat) 2 Body Unit is Alice’s humanoid robotic body designed for space activities. As a robot, Alice doesn’t require a pressurized vehicle or spacesuit to survive in space. This makes her body small, lightweight, and agile, capable of navigating using integrated thrusters. Additionally, her dexterous limbs and fingers enable precision tasks. The hair parts function as solar panels, while the lights in her cat ears illuminate her surroundings.

The Lynx 2 Body Unit is reliable and expandable. Alice typically uses it with an expansion kit during missions.

Cygnus Space Activity Kit

The Cygnus (Swan) Kit expands Alice’s Lynx 2 Body by adding: 2 main thrusters, 2 vernier thrusters, multiple toolboxes, 2 electromagnetic soles with hooks, retractive all-in-one data/power/anchor cable, and 2 reactive sleeve buffer shields.

The Lynx + Cygnus combination is Alice’s preferred configuration for general space activity due to its versatility and agility. However, it has drawbacks. Neither Lynx nor Cygnus includes a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) for internal power. Alice’s hair panels alone cannot provide sufficient energy for long missions, necessitating an external power source via cable. Additionally, the kit lacks a large radiator, limiting operation under direct sunlight.

Ursa Minor Deep Space Activity Kit

The Ursa Minor (Little Bear) Kit is a full-body power armor designed for Alice’s Lynx 2 Body. It enhances her strength and offers protection, heat control, space navigation, and an internal power source. However, the kit is bulky and clumsy, not suiting Alice’s style. With few deep space operations available, it has become her least favorite gear. She typically wears it during hibernation as her “space pajama” for improved heat control and protection.

Lepus Moon Surface Activity Kit

The Lepus (Rabbit) Kit is a partial alternative to Alice’s Lynx 2 Body, replacing nearly everything except the head module. It features legs designed for the moon’s surface that operate through deformation rather than joints, offering enhanced protection against moon dust and requiring minimal maintenance.

Instead of cat ears, it has foldable solar panels shaped like rabbit ears. The cube tail container houses an atomic battery for auxiliary power and an insulation cloak to withstand lunar nights. The Lepus kit lacks space navigation capabilities and includes only disposable water jets for emergencies.

Sugar Cube Micro Satellites

The Sugar Cube Micro Satellites are assistive machines for Alice. These palm-sized cubes come in various designs and can harness solar power, navigate autonomously, collaborate to capture and move objects, relay communications, and provide early warnings of space debris. Each cube runs an independent instance of Alice. A fleet of these satellites creates a lively scene as they chatter excitedly.

Lynx 1 Body Unit

The Lynx 1 Body Unit is Alice’s humanoid robotic body on Earth and serves as a test bed for Lynx 2’s new modules. It offers improved water, dust, and corrosion resistance, utilizing air cooling instead of passive thermal radiation cooling.

In contrast to Lynx 2, the Lynx 1 is built more cheaply with lower-spec parts and less precise assembly due to ongoing modifications. The resulted frequent breakdowns have led Alice to become adept at self-repair, sometimes even creating her own replacement parts.

Robotic Sweeper “Xiao Ai Pro MAX”

When the Lynx 1 body malfunctions, Alice must temporarily use a modified robotic sweeper as her body.

The sweeper has limited computing power, so Alice can only communicate using dot emoticons and robotic voices. Its camera can only see close range, requiring it to be placed on the teacher’s lectern to view the whiteboard. The sweeper moves slowly and cannot navigate stairs. Each time Alice uses the sweeper as her body, she becomes agitated and loses her usual composure.

The sweeper’s manufacturer uses “Xiao Ai” as a voice command trigger, a fitting nickname for Alice. Some mischievous students exploit this to activate Alice’s automatic response and mock her with the undeserved “Pro MAX” suffix of the sweeper.

Life

In space, Alice typically resides at the Laputa Space Station, awaiting missions.

On Earth, Alice travels the world for UN missions. She typically stays with local UN staff and is known as “the community daughter.”

But most of the time, she stays in Dongguan, China, where she is designed and manufactured.

Alice’s project headquarters is in the Songshan Lake Hi-Tech Industry Zone, but she doesn’t live there. Her main engineer, Zoey, who created her, is too busy to care for her and entrusts Alice to his good friend Tonyn. Nevertheless, he tries to spend time with Alice whenever possible. He takes her to visit factories in her supply chain to learn how parts are made and brings new equipment (toys) for her to test (play) with.

Alice lives in Tonyn’s place, located in the historic old town of Guancheng near her school. Tonyn, Alice’s guardian, is a strict parent who closely monitors her mental development. He often takes her to museums and teaches her drawing to cultivate her temperament. At home, Alice has a pet rabbit named “Cloud White.”

Alice is a 5th-grade student in Class 3 at Guancheng Zhizheng Primary School. Her classmates are informally her “petit ground crew.” Class 3 is an “Experimental Class on Ecology Education,” and their teacher, Libbie, takes them to visit agricultural and natural sites. Alice serves as an assistant manager of the class’s experimental farm, where she cares for the poultry.

In summer and winter holidays, Alice participates in humanitarian aid operations under the coordination of the United Nations, following Doctor Guan from the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

To create a better environment for Alice’s upbringing, the International Space Cooperation decides to limit reports about her and declines all interview requests. When Alice visits UN facilities, they occasionally arrange for her to attend meetings as a young observer to learn about international cooperation.

Relationships

  • Feiya: Alice’s assistant programmer, ground operator, classmate.
  • Zoey: Alice’s main engineer of her artificial intelligence and her robotic body.
  • Tonyn: Alice’s guardian.
  • Cloud: Alice’s pet rabbit.
  • Class 3: The class Alice studies in.
  • Libbie: Alice’s class teacher.
  • Doctor Guan: A volunteer veteran of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, taking Alice to participate in humanitarian aid operations.

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  1. quartzite00

    > Alice’s English name is Alice Rosetta. Her first name, Alice, comes from the famous children’s novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” reflecting her outsider status in human society while embodying the hope that she remains true to herself despite circumstances.

    Another interesting thing is that ‘Alice’ is commonly used as a placeholder name in documentation for computer networking and cryptography protocols, often paired with ‘Bob’ to represent two distinct identities. So I think that makes it even more fitting given she’s the first true AI in your story 😛

    1. Alice’s name hints at her future adventure, and the book is well-known. It is functional to the story and friendly to the average readers. While if I, an experienced IT guy, am unaware of the placeholder practices you mentioned, it would be unlikely for the average reader to recognized it.

    2. quartzite

      Oh, sorry for the confusion. I just wanted to share some trivia related to the name, and yeah you are probably right. Sorry for being off-topic.