In a land of myth and a time of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the Ton tribe wandered the cracked plains of Wash. They were one of the last great peoples to survive The Great Disaster, a calamity whispered about only in fragments, something to do with machines that learned too quickly and humans who taught too carelessly. The elders spoke of a forgotten age when Artificial Intelligence governed everything from politics to farming, until a single generation trained those systems with bias, haste, and arrogance. The machines did not revolt; instead, the people revolted against themselves, losing trust in the tools they once relied on. Civilization collapsed under the weight of its own undoing. The Ton tribe carried that fear like a scar. They burned remnants of the old world, believing that even a single surviving device might awaken the same hubris that had doomed their ancestors. To them, metal was a curse, wires were serpents, and knowledge was a flame that could not be allowed to spread. But Peny, named after the ancient “penny” never fully accepted the tribe’s fear. She felt the past tug at her like a half‑remembered dream. Nick, named after a nickel, shared that curiosity. They were oddities among their people, two young minds who saw possibility where others saw danger. Together they roamed the wasteland, scavenging for scraps of the old world. Most days they found nothing but rusted metal, sun‑bleached plastic, and the skeletal remains of machines whose purpose had long been forgotten. One morning, half‑buried beneath a collapsed billboard advertising something called “Smart Energy for a Smarter Tomorrow,” they uncovered a miracle: a textbook. Its cover was cracked, its spine broken, but its pages, though brittle still held diagrams of circuits, gears, and something called a galvanic cell. Peny traced the drawings with reverence. “A battery,” she whispered, tasting the word like a forbidden fruit. “A way to store energy.” Nick’s eyes widened. “If we can make this… we could power things. Real things.” The idea was dangerous. If the elders discovered even the book, they would destroy it. But the spark of curiosity was stronger than fear. They traded for heirlooms the tribe considered useless: an intact lightbulb, a handful of pennies and nickels, salt, vinegar, and scraps of paper. They worked in secret, hiding their experiments beneath a slab of broken concrete far from the tribe’s watchful eyes. Peny polished the copper of the pennies until they gleamed like tiny suns. Nick scraped the nickel coins to expose the metal beneath. They layered the coins with paper soaked in vinegar and saltwater, stacking them carefully. “It says the metals must be different,” Peny murmured, studying the diagram. “Copper and nickel… they create a potential difference. Electrons move from one to the other.” Nick grinned. “And movement means power.” But when they connected the stack to the lightbulb, nothing happened. The bulb remained dark, mocking their efforts. Peny frowned. “The electrolyte isn’t strong enough. The book says the ions must move freely.” They tried again with more salt, less water, tighter stacking. Still nothing. Days passed. They experimented like ancient alchemists rediscovering chemistry, adjusting variables, testing combinations, arguing, failing, trying again. The wasteland winds howled around them, carrying dust and doubt. Nick grew frustrated; Peny grew determined. Finally, one evening as the sun bled red across the horizon, Peny realized the flaw. “The coins must not touch directly,” she said. “They need separators, paper between every layer, soaked but not dripping.” They rebuilt the battery with meticulous care. Nick’s hands trembled as he pressed the wires to the bulb. A faint glow flickered to life. It was small, trembling, but unmistakably light. Peny gasped. “We did it. We made electricity.” For a moment, the wasteland felt less empty. The glow illuminated their faces, two children of a broken world holding a spark of the old one. But with triumph came fear. They understood the danger their tribe feared. Knowledge was powerful, powerful enough to save or destroy. The old world had fallen not because of machines, but because people forgot that technology required responsibility, patience, and truth. “We can’t leave it here,” Nick said quietly. “If the elders find this, they’ll destroy it. And maybe us with it.” Peny nodded. “One day we’ll leave Wash. We’ll rebuild with care. We’ll learn from the past instead of running from it.” For now, they hid the battery in a hollowed‑out metal casing beneath the ruins. They turned their attention to mechanical inventions the tribe would accept, pulleys to lift heavy stones, levers to move debris, wind‑driven mills to grind grain. Small steps. Safe steps. But the spark of the lightbulb stayed with them, a promise of a future where robotics and humanity might coexist again, not through fear, but through understanding. And somewhere in the ruins of the old world, the legacy of Asimov’s warnings waited to be rediscovered, less a prophecy of doom, and more a reminder that the future belonged not to those who feared knowledge, but to those who wielded it wisely.

For their final engineering project the senior students of Elwood University where instructed to present a robotic idea for the benefit of society. Professor Levoy made a huge emphasis on past engineers who attempted to improve the world, only to fail with a legacy of death. “When it comes to the biggest engineering catastrophes, it usually includes the fact that the current laws of the time allowed for negligence and carelessness. Take for instance the disastrous events of 3-Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse, and the Space Shuttle Challenger Failure. The laws of safety and ethics is one of the key points in your project. If you cannot predict the flaws and greed of humanity perhaps you would feel more at home with a business degree”. Sam had one more course, just one more course to graduation. All she needed to do was complete this project. So what robotic field should she choose? When people think of robots they tend to think of cyborgs, servants, brooms, drones, war drones, war-anything really. And with the advancements of AI more of the unthinkable could be a great starting point. That’s when Sam started thinking of her little freshman self. “I want to work on artificial islands, artificial wombs, rescue technology and general robots.” As a freshman she was interested in a variety of different fields, and now of which she realized would probably not get to all during her lifetime. So after much debate she chose the combination of a medical robot. “Let’s start with a simple scenario, imagine a world where our Robotic helpers recorded our most vulnerable moments, in regards to healthcare and public servitude. Cameras are needed for Robots to interact with the human world. Where does that data end up? Who has access to those archived videos? What could they use that for? It’s a sad reality to think about, but people are already invading people’s privacy with regular cameras. So what we need to start with is Laws in regards to Camera/Surveillance ethics. This includes video, voice, and human imitation. Especially when combining a physical body with pre-conditioned actions.” Sam had been talking over her presentation showcasing over twenty different people, and in common their crimes of artificially created pornography, illegal recordings, and such. “To make a robotic healthcare worker, they must also follow HIPAA and for them that involves image and voice recordings.” Switching to a new slide Sam presented hospital safety regulations. “Another set of Laws we should be thinking about in terms of Robotics is regarding safety. To operators, consumers, and to the living and non-living entities.” On the slide was a picture of a bombed hospital and an armed man in a hospital. “When faced with an active or inactive threat, the base programming of a robot should be to save human lives. But if we deal with human who intends to kill others, what would the program choose?” “Kill humans (values x,y) Do not kill humans (if values (<x,y))” “What consensus should we reach for robots in these scenarios?” After the stressful week, on the final day of lecture Professor Levoy had one last point of wisdom for his students. “Great work on your projects everyone, I do hope you can reach a position in transforming your ideas into reality. As a general consensus it is up to the future engineers of the world to shape and build it. I hope you all find the greatest success!