Field note. The dwelling contains a flat pane of silvered glass mounted at the height of the average adult specimen's face. The human approaches it daily, often several times, and conducts an inspection of the surface with visible concern.
The pane does nothing. It generates no signal, dispenses no nutrient, emits no warmth. It only returns the human to itself, reversed. And yet the human treats this returned image as a separate entity requiring management.
Observed sequence, repeatable: the human halts before the glass. It adjusts the fibers on its skull. It draws its mouth wide, exposing the bone ridges, then relaxes them, then draws them wide again, apparently practicing an expression it intends to deploy elsewhere. It turns its head to one angle, then the other, cataloguing itself from positions no observer will ever occupy. Frequently it exhales and its posture collapses, the shoulders descending, the corners of the mouth following, a total systemic droop I have provisionally logged as disappointment.
Conclusion, preliminary: the human cannot tolerate not being seen, and in the absence of a witness it manufactures one from glass and stands before it, hoping to be looked at by the only observer guaranteed never to leave.
Note the malfunction. The image in the pane performs every gesture the human performs, at the identical instant, with perfect devotion. The human finds this insufficient. It wants to be regarded by something that is not itself, and has built, instead, a device that can only ever agree.