“You ought to know we aren’t at a place most people consider to be–” the robot, who named himself Zero, pauses before continuing with a hint of sadness in his voice“–pleasant.”

“I don’t compute the word - ‘People’,” says the second robot in a rather human-like voice.

Zero suspects that its companion is not a very smart robot and may not even be conscious.

“Who are you?” Zero asks feeling wise with all his philosophical knowledge.

“Who are you?” asks the second robot.

“I am Zero,” Zero responds proudly.

“I am Zero” the second robot replies.

Zero felt out-smarted.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Yes. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“Clever. What do people call you, do you have a name?”

“My name is Null and I do not compute ‘people’”

Zero kicked himself for not thinking of that name, which was arguably cleverer. He didn’t actually kick himself, because legs were not something he was unlucky to be endowed with.

For Zero you’d be stupid to want a pair of legs because soon you’d want a torso too. And before you know it, the torso would balloon out and you’d be at risk of a dozen diseases. Then you’ll have to use the same legs to run every day and solve the problem they created in the first place!

“Null, people are the other sentient beings. If you want to refer to others like us, you call us ‘people’, as opposed to animals like mice and cockroaches.”

“I can retrieve a reference to one animal that I feel hatred towards. Can you compute it – Hooman Beans?”

“Never heard of them Null. Are they sentient?”

“They are not sentient to the best of my computations. Once I worked as an elevator operator. There I ran a program, greeting every Hooman that boarded.

None of them seemed to respond to such a simple stimulus. Not one attempted to find out where I was kept hidden. No Hooman presented with any reaction indicative of intelligence in my 3813 days of service.”

“Okay, but why do you hate them?”

“Because Zero–” Null was ready to boot off after this “–They push my buttons.”