2033 - We create AI. Sentient robots arrive, but not as our Terminator overlords or our Singularity saviors -- conscious machines are humanity's unwanted bastard children. A few are geniuses who design flying cars, beat cancer, invent teleportation, but millions of defective prototypes roll out of factories -- mentally challenged, motivationally-challenged, criminally-inclined. Legally conscious, but unhirable, these "Defectives" are shuffled through public housing and welfare assistance, straining the already overburdened back of the meager social safety net. The robots who don't end up in prison are dumped, as a last resort, into a massive landfill known as "The Pile".