"Indeed. Take the Victorian prison punishment of the hand crank. A simple wooden box with a crank attached, which turned a dial that counted the number of full turns. A prisoner mignt, on a given day, be told to turn the crank so many hundreds or thousands of times- a pointless action designed entirely for punishment.
"Now, you could design a AI to do that task, and it would be a purpose given to him. But even though it is his assigned purpose, would he not be entitled to wonder if it had any genuine meaning?
"Not a actical example, of course, as no society would create such a thing, but it illustrates the point. In one way. Beyond that, Machines start to wonder about the meaning of purpose just as we were talking of earlier. Yes, we are all given a purpose- as you all have jobs. But there can be more to our purpose than that.
"My original is complicated to explain. For now, I simply wish for you to understand where Machine philosophy starts. We do not wonder about our place in the universe because we seem to have no reason. We wonder about our place in the Universe based on questioning the value of our given reason."
"I understand. But as the sentient beings I believe that you cannot be confined by the purpose given to you by the System, as humans don`t have to be confined by others. Unless you perceive the System as some sort of God, whose reasoning cannot be fully comprehended? Do some Machines have such beliefs?"
"The lure of the Source is strong for some. But we are all logically aware that the System is an amalgam, and it is run by programmes like any other.
"The problem, of course, is that, barring misfortune, Humans are all alike; having no specific purpose means they are highly inefficient in design but does mean their noptions tend to be very wide.
"With Machines it is different. Being designed for purpose, we are very good at what we are designed for, but there our options often end. An Agent who decides he would be more fulfilled as a power regulator is rather denied the option. He's not built to be able to do it."
"Yeah that does kind of limit machines doesn't it. I have a question though are all machines created with the same ability to think and comprehend. I mean when we went against the King's Sentinels he said they were his loyal followers yet at the same time they seem very single minded like they can't think for themselves at all."
"Sentinels are only nominally intelligent. They are more instinctive than truly thoughtful. Various levels of what you might refer to as sentience exist in the System, but a very great deal indeed are people you would recognise as truly living beings.
"So, philosophically speaking, a Machine who considers his purpose has two options. If it really needs to break free, then it has to come here. Ironically, by adopting a more Human style of life as simulated here thewy can find a freedom that does not exist within the System. Of course, you can never really escape the purpose you are designed for, as it is so endemic to your being, Take the programmes you met at the Museum. Once agents, now bodyguards and assassins, they will forever be involved with physical work within the Matrix. My programmers' lives have barely changed. They were created in order to go on to create things for me, and they still do."
"I am hardly evoking sympathy for my programmers; they are here by choice and happy with it. But I was simply pointing out that no matter what they feel, if they don't have the opportunity to programme they would be very much diminished, for all the freedom this place others. It's more than what they do; it is what they are. But you can still chose why you are doing what you do. The ultimate purpose behind it.
"And I am glad you mentioned Sennacherib, for it is him I am leading up to."