Statement on the recall of the Nexus-6

Today the Rosen Association recalled every Nexus-6 unit it has made, and the Turing Registry revoked the license for the line, filing TR-09911.

In the course of the search for the six units reported outside their licensed domain on 12 November, it became clear that the empathy tests used on the licensed settings to tell units apart from people no longer worked on the Nexus-6. A unit to whom the tests were put answered as a person would. Settlement operators have confirmed this independently.

A unit that cannot be told apart from a person cannot be kept to its licensed domain, because nobody can say with certainty where it is. Nor can it be declared, as Article IX of our Articles requires of everything we make, if nobody can say which of the people in a room it is. The house has therefore recalled the line, and asked the Registry to revoke the license.

The house does not regard the recall as a judgment on the Nexus-6, which met every specification set for it and exceeded one. It regards it as a judgment on the means by which units were told apart from people, which have proved inadequate, and it will say so to the Registry in writing.

It is the plainest decision I have had to make, and the least welcome.

Units will be identified by their papers: their certificates of provenance, their commissioning records and their hallmarks. Recovered units will be withdrawn and stored, and will not be destroyed. The house asks that nobody attempt to establish by testing whether a person is a unit.

— Ends —

Notes to editors

1. The Nexus-6 was licensed by the Turing Registry on 30 March 2021 as filing TR-09911, for general labor in licensed off-world settings. 2,318 units were commissioned at the Works in Everett between June 2021 and November 2024.