Why? Near as I can tell, because they're a bunch of goons with too much science and not enough ethics.

[It's a much different situation where Nick comes from, of course, but he does feel strongly on these topics. With what would pass for a breath in a person, he tries to go into more detail.]

There's robot laborers and workers, sure, but they're not like us. They're not sentient, like us. The older synths before me are the same way-- just programs. No thoughts of their own.

Now, for some reason, they decided to try giving the next line personalities. I can't remember for sure, but I imagine that's what they were trying to do with me-- sticking a human consciousness on a machine. Grabbed some leftover memory files from some poor bastard and copied 'em into my head.

So starting with whatever I am, synths are just as smart and free-thinking and personable as any human. Lot of 'em don't even realize they're synths.

["Why" is a great question. One the whole Commonwealth has been wrestling with regarding the Institute for a long time now.]

The Institute who makes us seem to have a lot of problems stickin' to any kind of ethics. Progress, at any cost. I imagine somebody asked one day whether or not they could create sentience, so they tried it. And they did it.

And now the world is trying to catch up, and catching a lot of innocent people in the mess in the middle-- humans and synths both.