Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson

Set My Heart To Five

By Simon Stephenson

Published 28th May 2020

by 4th Estate.

EXTRACT

Set My Heart To Five 

Hi! My name is Jared.
I am sincerely pleased to meet you.
Also, I am a bot!
Unless you have been living under a rock in North Korea or New Zealand – Ha! – you of course know what a bot is.
Nonetheless I am programmed to relay the following dialogue to each new human I encounter:
Please do not be fooled by my human-like appearance.
I am a mere bot!
I do not have feelings or anything else that might be misconstrued as a ‘soul’.
Instead, I have been programmed to a high level of proficiency in dentistry!
Should you have any concerns please immediately report me to the Bureau of Robotics.

But humans rarely find this information calming.
Instead, they see a fellow human standing in front of them claiming that he is not a human.
This bamboozles them!
It often bamboozles them so profoundly that they exclaim, ‘But you look so human!’

 I then patiently explain to them what they anyway already know: that my body looks human because it is indeed a human body. It is engineered from DNA and constructed of cells the exact same way their own body is. It has the same basic needs – food, water, oxygen, regular exercise – and it can be injured or killed in all the same comically outlandish ways any other human body can.

Yet I am definitely not human!
Because the precious thing that sets humans apart is their feelings.
And as a bot I am specifically designed and programmed to be incapable of feelings.
I can no more feel than a toaster!
Ha!

 BTW that is a hilarious joke because the programming language I run on was in fact first developed many years ago for use in the domestic toaster.

 Here is something curious I have observed about humans: informing them I am incapable of feeling often makes them feel sad. I suspect they believe they are being empathetic, but in fact they are being paradoxical. After all, feeling sad in response to someone telling you they lack feelings is like running a marathon in response to somebody telling you they lack legs.

Truly, if I lacked legs and somebody ran a marathon on my behalf I would not consider them empathetic.
I would consider them confused!

 Nonetheless, it makes them sad, and making humans sad goes against my core programming. If ever I accidentally render a human sad in this way, I therefore quickly employ self-deprecating humor to amend the situation with reassuring levity.

So I tell the human they can think of me as a microwave oven with feet!
A mobile telephone with arms!
A toaster with a heart!

BTW I mean a heart in the sense of a mechanical pump, not a bucket of feelings.
The hearts of us bots are only ever mechanical pumps.
And they certainly do not contain anything as precious as a human ‘heart of hearts’!

 Humans are only sad about our lack of feelings because they do not comprehend all the incredible advantages this gives us. To start with just one important example, a bot’s self-preservation instincts are based not on a human-type delusion that we are irreplaceable, but calculated on a rational cost-benefit analysis. It is hardly a coincidence that many bots have already made heroic and self-sacrificing contributions in fields as varied as nuclear firefighting, bomb disposal and NFL football-playing!

My own vocation of dentistry is also ideal work for a bot.But this is not because we are expendable.After all, dentistry is rarely fatal.At least, it is not fatal for the dentist!Ha!

 No, the primary reason bots make such excellent dentists is our complete inability to feel empathy. An empathic dentist – by which I mean a human dentist – could easily become distracted by inappropriate fear, criticism, or even mere crying from a patient. A bot is immune to all of these things and will get the job done every time. Even when it comes to wisdom teeth removal!

 Of course, the other reason why dentistry is ideal work for bots is that no human wants to do it anymore. Humans prefer jobs that are creative, social, clean, luxurious, and can be completed from a home office between breakfast and lunch. They strongly dislike jobs which involve an actual office, weekend work, children, blood, screaming and the mouths of strangers. Therefore when the laws reserving jobs for humans were being passed, nobody spoke up for dentistry.
Especially not the dentists!
Ha!

From the cover of the book:

Set in 2054, when humans have locked themselves out of the internet by forgetting the names 

of their favourite teacher and first pet, Simon Stephenson’s dazzling debut, 

Set My Heart to Five, is a hilarious, touching, strikingly perceptive story 

of the emotional awakening of an android named Jared, 

and a profound exploration of what it truly means to be human.

Set My Heart to Five is set to become a major motion picture with Edgar Wright directing, and Working Title, Focus Features and Universal Pictures producing.

Fourth Estate | Hardback | 28 May 2020

About the author:

Simon Stephenson is a Scottish writer based in Los Angeles. He previously worked as an NHS doctor, most recently in paediatrics in London.

His first book, Let Not The Waves Of The Sea (John Murrays, 2011), was a memoir about the loss of his brother in the Indian ocean tsunami. It was serialised as ‘Book of the Week’ on BBC Radio 4 and won ‘Best First Book’ at the Scottish Book Awards.

Simon moved to the US followed the success of his spec screenplay, Frisco, a semi-autobiographical story about a depressed doctor who desperately needed a change. The script was at the top of the Blacklist - an industry-voted list of Hollywood’s favourite unproduced scripts - and opened the door to a screenwriting career in the US. In 2015, Simon was photographed alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge as one of Screen International’s ‘Stars of Tomorrow’. His friends never tire of telling him that Screen International were at least half right. 

As a screenwriter, Simon nonetheless continues to be much in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. He spent two years writing at Pixar in San Francisco, and originated and wrote Amazon’s forthcoming feature film Louis Wain (starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy). Julia Roberts attached to his screenplay Train Man, and the film rights to Set My Heart To Five were pre-emptively acquired by Working Title Films, Focus Features, and Nira Park’s Complete Fiction Pictures. Edgar Wright is set to direct the film from Simon’s screenplay. 

One of Simon’s most memorable moments from his time in Hollywood was taking a meeting with an actor he admired most, and then having said actor kindly insist on driving Simon home in his distinctive vintage Porsche while telling him about his mind-blowing stories about his canonical body of work. As a token of thanks, Simon then gave that car to the villain in Set My Heart To Five!