EP174: Private Detective Molly

[DKT]

I don't get how programmed robots can decide to ignore their programming when it suits them, and all that happens is they start to 'hurt'. Unless some programming allows them to disobey other programming, this just doesn't seem right.

Other than that, great story.

Yeah, this was my one disappointment with the story. It felt a little too easy. 

I loved pretty much everything else about it -- obviously the sentient toy bodyguard, (part of me wants to see how this would play out during recess -- toy bodyguard wars featuring Chucky!), the evil social worker who gets a premium for figuring out a reason why someone shouldn't receive healthcare, the line about wishing Alasdair had died instead of mommy, that Alasdair ended up being one of the good guys, and the disturbing reprogramming PD went through at the end.  Quite the bittersweet victory. 

So all in all, great, fun story, and I'm glad EP ran it.

[Chivalrybean]

I don't get how programmed robots can decide to ignore their programming when it suits them, and all that happens is they start to 'hurt'. Unless some programming allows them to disobey other programming, this just doesn't seem right.

Other than that, great story.

Yeah, this was my one disappointment with the story. It felt a little too easy.

Maybe call it some Deus Ex Programma?

[ieDaddy]

So it was a fun story - there were parts you sort of had to gloss over to enjoy it, but that was minimal, and probably would have lengthened the story for too much of the audience to actually treat it right.

The reading was meh - i found her voice a little too distracting, but again with a little patience and gloss you can get past that too.

Felt bad for the Molly doll - sounds like they can't have a self-preservation routine if every time they go into the generator they die.  I had a flashback to the carousel on Logan's Run with that one for some reason.  Renew!

I really didn't like the political angle here and the whole "cheating the evil system".  From what I understood - The child's mom was working 60 hours and as such qualified for public benefits (including the surgery for her child) but as she was about to lose the second job due to her being sick and missing it so much, that would put her below the threshold so by killing herself in a car crash before she died of being sick when she still had 60 hours of work her kid would get all public benefits. 

Politics aside - the premise itself felt a bit too heavy handed and the government weasel was a bit to stereo-typical.  It really tried to push the reader in one direction and could have been more effective by leaving more "grey" - I probably would have been more sympathetic to the mother's predicament if i didn't feel like a horse being lead with blinders on and having my face shoved into the "government is evil" trough - subtle would have been stronger; instead I found myself mentally digging my heels in.  This was a caricature and as such was hard to consider seriously.

But, like i said to begin with, it's a fun story; enjoyable and a light brunch for my ears, just no nourishment for the soul.

[Rain]

I liked it, it was cute

[veganvampire]

I loved this story.  I just find it incredible how much a SF author can add character to a robot, while still being a robot, and I'm seeing that alot here.

I loved the reading, except for a few extremely-high pitched lines.

Just one of my pet peeves: why do the high-official  bad guys always look "sly," "oily," and "weasel-like?"

[rowshack]

A kid should never know the sacrifies that a parent, uncle, or 18 inch doll make for them, just that they are loved.

[Zathras]

A kid should never know the sacrifies that a parent, uncle, or 18 inch doll make for them, just that they are loved.

STEVE!!!!!!!!!!!  Comment of the week right there!

[Void Munashii]

Just one of my pet peeves: why do the high-official  bad guys always look "sly," "oily," and "weasel-like?"

  Have you ever held a government job? You have to be at least two of the three to get that type of position in the first place.

  I used to work with a guy who was all three, but that was in a toy store, and is totally off topic. I'll shut up now.

[sayeth]

I think my favorite part about this one was the concept of a doll designed to be a caregiver as a clear subordinate toy, not as a nanny-servant like in last week's episode. Molly mentions the other functions of her alternate personas: doctor, social worker and herself as bodyguard. The disturbing part, on the other hand, was that parents would use their child's doll's journal to spy on their own children. It's a creepy thought that I'm sure many parents would have no trouble with at all.

[MacArthurBug]

I think my favorite part about this one was the concept of a doll designed to be a caregiver as a clear subordinate toy, not as a nanny-servant like in last week's episode. Molly mentions the other functions of her alternate personas: doctor, social worker and herself as bodyguard. The disturbing part, on the other hand, was that parents would use their child's doll's journal to spy on their own children. It's a creepy thought that I'm sure many parents would have no trouble with at all.

Well- I wouldn't say no trouble with at all. However, I can see making reasons with myself for doing this.  PErhaps this is partially due to the fact that I am the partent of a VERY troubled girl child. She's wonderful and I love her, however there are times I'm tempted to look into her more private things. I havn't yet, but for how much longer?

[mudguts]

I can see some underlying truths in the story.   Overall, I enjoyed it's 30's noir 'private dick' feel.  It could have had a bit more teeth in the story but it was a simple mystery for a simple 'doll' to discover.

As a parent who enjoys gadgets, I could see the benefit in purchasing a doll like this to track my kids movements and keep me informed.   Just as I can understand a parent wanting a tracker GPS in their car to keep tabs on their kids on a Saturday night.

I'd like to hear more of this 'doll' character.   I think that it would be fun series to follow, much like that 'police dog' story while back.

[Ersatz Coffee]

This is one of my favourites on Escape Pod for a good while. Clever idea, well executed. And like most good short stories, based on a pretty simple scenario. Somehow the characters and motivations all seemed just right - a massive improvement after EP173. And I like Mrs E's quirky reading voice!

[Slyasthefox]

HELLO! this is my first time posting, and I would like to say hello to all fellow sci fi fans and how much this podcast good. I have just herd the ep 174. To me I liked it, but it reminded me much like the Twilight Zone "Number 23 looks just like me" (i think), but if it was a doll. It was a good story overall. And in this age of new smart toys who knows, a molly doll might be on next years chrismas list. I know what Steve ment about kids being rough on the their toys. More then once my USS Enterpirse played a submarine.

But the doll being sentent and not having any self-protection is a bit unsettling. Its like erracing a whole diffrent being for good. The part for me was the end, where she was turned back into the debutant doll and the closing about how she could make he owner look good and how the doll who was just perfict as human. Not to tall not too small. That is the part that got to me. If everyone was perfict how would boring would this world be? People can E-mail me if they like about the comment. 

[slowmovingthing]

I loved this story.

I usually don't like children's stories. But "Kid Nior" works for me.

Anna Eley is my favorite female reader (with Mur a close second). She had me charmed since she spurted the phrase "The little shit..." In Mur's Christmas story about the time dilating Santa.

I'm surprised that Steve and others are so surprised about the theme of lack of self-preservation on the part of the Molly Doll.

This very theme was touched upon in the original Toy Story and really hit home in Toy Story 2.
Been done, especially in kid-friendly media.

Last week I completed the first piece of fiction I have written since it was a required assignment in high school English.

It was a "nior" detective short story set in the Bubbas of the Apocalypse universe.
Although the closest thing I have ever come to reading that kind of story was Sue Grafton novels and Guy Nior on Prairie Home Companion, I thought I did a good job.

Then this week I listen to this story and it was kind of like making the second story on a house of cards for the first time, then turning your head and seeing someone's multiple story card palace right next to you.

But Private Detective Molly was too fun and too well crafted not to appreciate.

[eytanz]

Let me echo something Steve said - there are a lot of things to think about from this story. Indeed, I don't think I have a single cohesive reaction to it, just a lot of random thoughts that don't necessarily fit well together:

- Taking the story on face value, as "noir for kids", I thought it really worked well. I liked it a lot.
- But thinking about it a tiny bit more made me realize that it's full of inconsistencies. For one, Molly's lack of a preservation instinct didn't seem to mesh well with her fear of rats. More importantly, how could she sabotage her own kit? Or explain to a third party (the uncle?) how to do it, quite clearly against the wishes of the kid's legal guardian? Wouldn't there be safeguards against that ever happening? Otherwise, any kid could talk their doll into letting them override their parents' restrictions.
- And while I don't want to get into a debate about health insurance systems, how did the insurance investigator end up being the legal guardian in the first place? Yes, he worked for the state, but so do, persumably, hundreds of other people. Could any state employee have the same authority?
- Also, what sort of insurance would give its investigators a 50% commission for refusing operations? Even if they were entirely corrupt, that's just not cost effective. Especially since the insurance here was a state-run insurance, wouldn't it be easier to just make the laws more draconian rather than give up half the money you're saving?
- Dorothy was resentful of her uncle and perfectly willing to disregard her mother's last wish of letting him take care of her. She liked the investigator because he bought her a doll. I guess it was convenient that the scene in which Molly changes her mind happens off-screen, since I don't think there's any way it could play out convincingly.
- I like Anna as a reader a lot, but I felt she was miscast for this story. She does many things well, but "hard boiled" isn't one of them.
- The mystery was too straightforward to work as adult noir; I figured it out the first time the operation was mentioned, and then spent 15 minutes or so waiting for Molly to catch up. I found that easy to forgive since the story did seem to be aimed at children.
- But all nitpicks aside - fun story! I enjoyed listening to it a lot.

[alllie]

I liked Anna's reading of this. I could see her as a doll but a hard-boiled detective at the same time.

[Roney]

- But thinking about it a tiny bit more made me realize that it's full of inconsistencies. For one, Molly's lack of a preservation instinct didn't seem to mesh well with her fear of rats. More importantly, how could she sabotage her own kit? Or explain to a third party (the uncle?) how to do it, quite clearly against the wishes of the kid's legal guardian? Wouldn't there be safeguards against that ever happening? Otherwise, any kid could talk their doll into letting them override their parents' restrictions.

In my limited time (one decade) working in IT, this is pretty much what happens with security in areas that aren't under the spotlight.  If there are any safeguards at all it's because some unusually perceptive tester has spotted one loophole; instead of fixing the whole class of problems of which that loophole is an example, some simplistic block is put in place; no real effort is made to design security into the system; any curious human (or intelligent doll) can poke the edges of the security model and find the gaps.

If I find a UK bank that doesn't offer internet banking I think I may transfer my money to it.  I thought I was with a bank that understood computer security but actually... little things they do smell like the scenario I described in the paragraph before.  If all banks get it wrong, I don't see why toy manufacturers should be expected to get it right.

- I like Anna as a reader a lot, but I felt she was miscast for this story. She does many things well, but "hard boiled" isn't one of them.

I don't think PD does hard-boiled well either.  PD's a jumble of hard-boiled detective cliches in doll form.  If she had spoken with a 40-a-day noir growl she would never have convinced as a doll.  I thought that Anna's reading neatly expressed a young girl trying on her parent's clothes, which was the effect (a particular charming precociousness) that I thought the author wanted for PD.

- The mystery was too straightforward to work as adult noir; I figured it out the first time the operation was mentioned, and then spent 15 minutes or so waiting for Molly to catch up. I found that easy to forgive since the story did seem to be aimed at children.

Initially I had the same reaction (and assumed that the heavy-handed politics was intended as an accessible cautionary tale for children, like Animal Farm) but then I wondered who would read their child a story about insurance-fraud-based suicide.  I can't think of anything that would have upset me more when I was young.  So if it's not for kids, who is this story for?  (Except me,  I liked it.)  And if it is for kids... again, who is it for?

[stePH]

- The mystery was too straightforward to work as adult noir; I figured it out the first time the operation was mentioned, and then spent 15 minutes or so waiting for Molly to catch up.

We're not all so perceptive and insightful.

 

[veganvampire]

I remember that someone posted something about an inconsistancy about life preservation--why was she scared of mice?  I can't find the exact quote.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain that the programmers made sure that Molly dolls wouldn't mind being put into the Generator (which is what the line in the story was referring to,) but they made the dolls able to save themselves from mice, so that animals wouldn't start nibbling on their product.  I think that the Molly dolls might have a similar reaction to teething puppies, but we obviously didn't get to see that, did we?

[Loz]

I was wondering about that... I would have thought the dollies, or at least the PD version, would be programmed to try and fight off mice. How big was Molly supposed to be? I started off thinking she was Barbie size but then thought that, with things like giving her journal to the social services guy, that she would have to be considerably taller.

Anyway, I enjoyed the story, loved Anna's reading but actually found it quite sad. I would have preferred some mention from Molly about what she did to ensure that whatever had been done to her personality matrix to make it only turn out PDs had been reset to bimbos, it did seem a little 'out of nowhere'.

[wintermute]

I think the story said she was two foot tall. And being scared of rats (or, in the Débutante Mollie, the dark) is more of a character quirk than a self-preservation thing, I think.

[veganvampire]

I was wondering about that... I would have thought the dollies, or at least the PD version, would be programmed to try and fight off mice.

PD Molly now not only is a body guard and a detective, but a rodent exterminator as well!  I can see that!  I wonder why it wasn't?

[Anarkey]

I liked this story ok, it was neither a favorite nor an unfavorite, and I was present with it while it lasted but then easily put it aside when it was over.

However, I had saved it for several weeks in the hope of getting an opportunity to listen to it with my daughter.  She loved the Squonk stories, and is a regular listener of clonepod (except the Union Dues stories, which I don't think are appropriate for her age) and I find it interesting to gauge her reaction to podcasts that are ostensibly for kids.  She often really likes stories that I think are trite and predictable, frex.  She can find things that I think are creepy funny, and things I wouldn't think twice about disturbing. 

If this story works for a kid (a real kid, and not the generic kid that it seemed aimed at), it wasn't my kid.  She was bored, bored, bored. 

[wakela]

Steve's right.  There are a lot of dark corners in this one.  One of the creepiest for me is how much Molly is able to violate her own programming and how warped her sense of reality is.  The purpose of Molly is to help a child live an exciting fantasy.  Debutante Molly talks about suitors and balls that don't really exist, maybe PD Molly invents mysteries.  So I wonder how much of this happened at all.  I would assume that Viper Pilot Molly would think that the social agent were a cylon. 

[Zathras]

Steve's right.  There are a lot of dark corners in this one.  One of the creepiest for me is how much Molly is able to violate her own programming and how warped her sense of reality is.  The purpose of Molly is to help a child live an exciting fantasy.  Debutante Molly talks about suitors and balls that don't really exist, maybe PD Molly invents mysteries.  So I wonder how much of this happened at all.  I would assume that Viper Pilot Molly would think that the social agent were a cylon. 

Nice