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23.1.10


The A to Z of ...
Androids, Cyborgs & Robots

A

A is for Asimov. Isaac Asimov wrote a series of short stories and novels about robots and is best remembered for inventing the Three Laws of Robotics. His novel "I, Robot" was a collection of short stories featuring the robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin and was turned into a film in 2004 starring Will Smith and Alan Tudyk. (See I, Robot, Laws of Robotics, Positronic Brain)

A is for Android. According to Webster's 24th Century Dictionary, fifth edition an android is "an automaton made to resemble a human being". Androids are distinct from robots in that they have been designed to look and act human, usually because it is believed that it's easier for a humans to live and work alongside a machine if they forget they are a machines, but this can be problematic. If an android is too much like a human, indeed if it becomes indistinguishable from one, people will immediately become distrustful of it. (See Replicant) Famous Androids include Lt. Cmdr. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ash and Bishop from the Alien series of films, The Terminator, Kryten from Red Dwarf, David from A.I. and Senator John McCain. (See Data, David, Kryten, Terminator.)

A is for Artificial Intelligence, which would seem to be a necessary first step in the construction of a true Android, if not Robot or Cyborg, since to appear to be human or at least integrate itself successfully into human society an Android must be able, at some level, to fool us into thinking that it is human.
The question of whether it is possible to even create true Artificial Intelligence has puzzled scientists and philosophers for many decades, since we cannot clearly define what we mean by 'intelligence' or 'life'. A certain level of self-awareness or consciousness is usually regarded as a pre-requisite for any true A.I., but it is entirely possible to mimic these qualities with even quite simple methods and simply creating a program which states "I am self-aware" doesn't mean it is.

B

B is for Borg, the Cybernetic life-forms first encountered in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg represented a significant threat to the Federation because they could not be reasoned with and did not have a leader (though later writers on the show came along and messed with this idea, hey thanks a lot Jeri Taylor!) They were a 'collective', a hive mind which functioned as a distributed network, much like the internet. If one part was attacked or destroyed, functionality could be re-routed through remaining systems. Kill one drone and he will be replaced by another. This, coupled with the fact that the Borg learned and adapted by travelling the galaxy and assimilating different species, adding any superior biological distinctiveness to the whole, made them a virtually invincible enemy.
Only when the Enterprise encountered a crashed drone which had been disconnected from the collective was a possible way to defeat the Borg found. A program was developed which could be implanted into the drone and which, when run, would present the Borg with a mathematically based problem which it could not resolve. When this problem was distributed around the collective and more and more resources were diverted to its solution, it was hoped that it would result in the total shutdown and eventual death of every Borg drone in the Galaxy. However had the scheme been successful it would have resulted in the complete genocide of an entire race and Captain Picard was not prepared to go down in history as one of the biggest mass murderers. The Borg are not Swedish.

B is for Bender. "Bite my shiny metal ass"

C

C is for Cyborg. Famous Cyborgs include Steve Austin (The Six-Million Dollar Man), Darth Vader, Robocop, the Daleks and Cybermen, and of course the Borg! In fact there are many people around today who are 'cyborgs'. There may even be one in the room with you now! Anyone who wears glasses, has a pacemaker or an artificial heart is a cyborg because a cyborg is any human which has a mechanical device attached to their body to enhance or assist their natural function.
Conversely a Cyborg may be almost totally machine but with a human brain, or perhaps an alien one in the case of Daleks and Cybermen. The initial concept for the Cybermen of the original Doctor Who series came about following the successful replacement of failing human components with mechanical ones, and the work which was going on with heart and organ transplants at the time. Taking this to it's logical conclusion the writers devised a race which had long ago forgone their fragile organic shells in preference for what they saw as far superior mechanical replacements. What they had lost though wasn't just their human bodies, but also their humanity.

C is for Capek. Karol Capek is credited with the first usage of the word 'Robot' which is derived from the Czech word robota meaning 'forced labour' or 'slave'. Capek's 1921 play R.U.R. 'Rossum's Universal Robots' told a story about a factory which made artificial people which looked like humans, much like the Tyrell Corporation of Blade Runner. The robots, of course, rebel and kill all the humans. (See Kill All the Humans!)

C is for Cylon. In the original series of Battlestar Galactica the Cylons are large, highly-polished, humanoid robots with red flashing lights which move rapidly from side to side and they speak with cool deep electronic monotone voices. In the new version of Battlestar Galactica they aren't.

D

D is for Data. Lt. Cmdr. Data was an android constructed by Dr. Noonien Soong and who served aboard the Enterprise-D and E. Though he was an android, Data wanted to be 'human', for though he was superior to the man who created him in almost every way, he could not feel emotion. This was later rectified by Soong who developed an Emotion Chip (not to be confused with the Emotion Engine chip which allowed early model Sony PS3 consoles to play PS2 games) for Data which was subsequently stolen by Data's brother Lore. Eventually Data re-aquired the chip and had it installed, whereupon he was finally able to experience 'human emotions', but the question remained; was Data Human?
The question is a very important one in Metaphysics and can have no meaningful answer since we cannot define what 'human' is ourselves and we cannot even prove that someone else is human, merely that they 'appear' to be, which maybe isn't (or is) quite the same thing. (See Artificial Intelligence)

D is for Dick and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Philip K. Dick wrote many books exploring the nature of reality, what it means to be human, memory and perception. He was born in Chicago in 1928 and had a twin sister Jane. Unfortunately Jane died just 41 days later, but the loss became a very important factor in Dick's work. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" arose out of research he had done for his earlier novel "The Man in the High Castle", for which he had been granted access to Gestapo documents and diaries kept by SS men. One entry in particular which read "We are kept awake at night by the cries of starving children" struck him has a stark illustration of what happens to people who are physiologically human, but who behave in a non-human way; androids. "With the Nazis, what we were essentially dealing with was a defective group mind, a mind so emotionally defective that the word 'human' could not be applied to them.

D is for Droid. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, if you wanted something doing chances were that there was a made droid to do it for you. These labour saving devices, cheap to replace and expendable, came in myriad forms, from the low and squat multi-function Astomech droids like R2D2, every space pilot's best friend, to the humanoid protocol droids like C3P0 whose speciality was human-cyborg relations. Droids were ubiquitous throughout the galaxy and most people would walk past them without even noticing they were there. In fact, people only really noticed them when they went wrong, possibly as a result of a bad motivator, or went missing. (See HK-47)

D is for David, who wanted to be a real boy (see Pinocchio). David was a mecha created by Cybertronics to be an android who could love. Not physical love like their popular 'lover' models, but emotional love, like a child for its mother. David proved that this was possible, but found that his mother could not love him back, because he was not a real boy (see Pinocchio, Data). Once David heard about the story of the Blue Fairy he embarked on a journey to find her, which took him on many adventures, from a Flesh-Fair, where humans destroy mecha for entertainment, to an encounter with Gigolo Joe, to Man-hattan and finally 2,000 years into the future.

E

E is for Electric Monk, the device invented by Douglas Adams in his book "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency". The Electric Monk is a labour saving device, just as you have a dishwasher to wash dishes for you and a video recorder to watch television programs for you, the Electric Monk takes on the task of believing all the things that you are expected to believe.

F

F is for Frankenstein. The novel by Mary Shelley which was written while Shelley was staying with friends at the villa of Lord Byron. After reading ghost stories to each other Byron suggested that they all write their own supernatural tale.
The book has become one of the most important works in Science Fiction and is often hailed as the first science-fiction novels since it deals with the 'what-if' of man creating life artificially, without woman. Though 'the monster' of the original novel is not constructed from dead human parts a key idea at the time was 'vitalism', which stemmed from the experiments involving electricity, a recent discovery. It was found that an electrical current could be used to stimulate muscles in human and animal corpses and led to speculation about whether there was anything more to life than the complex chemical and electrical physical processes which allowed a body to function, or was there something more? An indefinable 'spark of life' which could not be accounted for scientifically.
Shelley's novel attempts to show us what a creature created purely by science, with all of the physical processes in place but without a 'soul' bestowed upon all of us at birth would be like. The argument may have moved on but still rages to this day in the form of the great Artificial Intelligence debate; can an artificially created machine of sufficient complexity ever be said to be 'alive'? (See Artificial Intelligence)

G

G is for Genuine People Personalities. Sounds ghastly doesn't it? Well it is, it all is. (See Microsoft)

G is for Gort, the 8 foot tall Robot in "The Day The Earth Stood Still". A UFO appears in Washington D.C. and lands, which causes no end of excitement for the US military who just love this kind of thing. The visitor issues a warning - Earth will not be allowed to export it's violence into space. The US military responds to this request by shooting the visitor, but he escapes. The visitor then issues another warning - if the Earth does not give up its violent ways the robots will reduce the Earth to ash and cinders. The US military thinks this over for a few minutes before shooting the visitor again, this time to death. Then there's something to do with the words Klatuu Barada Nikto or something and then whole thing gets remade 50 years later with Keanu Reeves.

G is for Good Robot Bill & Ted, the two Robot 'us'es' built by Station to combat the Evil Robot Bill & Ted in the 1991 sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

H


H is for HK-47, the Hunter Killer assassin droid from the multi-award winning video game "Knights of the Old Republic." HK-47 regales his master with tales of his past exploits throughout the game and it soon becomes clear that he has an unnerving habit of killing his current master and then becoming the property of the person he was sent to kill. Some notable quotes; "Can I crush his neck now, master? Just a little? It's been a long time fantasy of mine." "I would have congratulated him, if he had not been sizzling and incoherent at the time. If you will excuse me, I will meditate on the face of my old master as he was being electrocuted. I find it most soothing." "You are a very harsh master, Master. I like you." "Query: Is there someone that you need killed Master?"

H is for Heuristics, and HAL9000 which stands for Heuristic ALgorithm. Heuristics is learning from your experiences, or trial and error. The idea is very simple and thus has been proposed as a way to get computers to solve problems by creating some sort of algorithm which maps which solutions to a particular problem are successful and which are not, in a similar way to which the human brain functions by reinforcing neural pathways which lead to successful results. Faced with the same or similar problem again the computer will 'learn' to use the solution which worked before, but even if that does not work it can fall back on other solutions which might not have worked before. This is distinct from 'programming' in which a computer is told what to do by a human given a set series of inputs. The problem with programming is that this cannot account for every situation that might come up in the 'real world' and where a programmed computer would simply stop what it was doing an heuristic one could attempt several different solutions until it found one which worked, which is especially useful if you happen to be exploring Mars or on your way to investigate an alien obelisk which has been placed in the orbit of Jupiter.
This field of computer research stems from the 'bottom up' approach to AI, which takes the view that if you could model the human brain accurately enough (see Positronic Brain) and then mimic the learning processes that the infant brain undergoes to learn to walk, talk, etc. you could create an artificial intelligence which would be limited in intellect only by the size and complexity of the system you created for it. Such a system could in theory 'learn' to a level of intelligence much higher than that humans who created it and even go on to design it's own improvements and successors, exponentially creating ever more intelligent minds. Some people think this is a bad idea. (see SKYNET)

I

I is for IG-88, an assassin droid hired by the Empire to hunt down the Millennium Falcon and Han Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back." IG-88 also appears in several of the 'Bounty Hunter' series of novels. It is believed that his design lineage can be traced back to the original bodyguard droids which served General Grievous during the clone wars, but all of the technicians who worked on the IG-88 prototype were killed by the droid on it's initial activation.

I is for I, Robot (see Asimov). This novel is a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov which were first published in Astounding Science Fiction during the 1940s. The stories first introduce and then explore the various implications of the 3 Laws of Robotics (see Laws of Robotics.) Many of the tales centre around what happens when the laws are stretched to breaking point; in 'Runaround' a robot stationed on Mercury is ordered to recover new supplies of selenium, but he cannot complete the task because it conflicts with the 3rd Law, while disobeying his masters violates the 2nd law. 'Little Lost Robot' introduces us to the recurring character of robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin. A Robot with a modified 1st law hides itself among a store room of 62 other identical robots, leaving Dr. Calvin with the problem of finding it and in 'Evidence' Dr. Calvin attempts to prove that a politician running for office is a robot.
The 2004 film version, while heavily criticised for bearing little or no relation to the book, is in fact a further instalment in the series of stories and even contains a scene described in 'Little Lost Robot'.

J

J is for Japan. Currently the world leader in the design and manufacture of robots, Japan has produced some astounding breakthroughs in recent years, making robots which can function in the real world. Perhaps one of the driving factors in Japan's world leading status in this field, apart from its obvious technical superiority, is it's ageing population. This coupled with the fact that Japan has a very strict immigration policy means that in the near future there just isn't going to be enough available labour to both care for the elderly and work in the ever expanding economy. Worse still, any labour market where there is a skills shortage will see wages rise way above inflation, which could make a half-million pound robot doing the work of six people seem like a financially sound investment, while in Europe we will probably just keep using Polish and Lithuanian workers.
Though there has been a great deal of research and development in the field of robotics since the 1970s, 'ordinary' robots intended for everyday use seem to be relatively few. The main area of endeavour for many years was in industrial robots, notably in the automotive industry. This was of course mainly because robots could be employed all year round, all day and night without need holidays or sick leave and they wouldn't go on strike. Add to this the fact that a robot will be able to perform any repetitive task with much more precision than the average Brummy and it is easy to see why virtually every car manufactured today is made by robots.
In other areas outside of manufacturing however the robot has been slow to arrive, for though humans may make poor employees, they can at least walk, speak and perform other quite complex tasks (even the ones from Birmingham). It turns out that getting a robot to build a car, play chess or explore the hostile surface of an alien world is simple when compared to getting one to climb a set of stairs, read the instructions on a bottle of pills or open a door without violently ripping it off its hinges. The important areas of Robot development have been in solving problems involving things we humans take for granted like real-world navigation, crossing a room, walking down a busy street without bumping into people, and interacting with other humans.
Possibly the most successful Robot in this field is Honda's ASIMO, which can walk, run, recognise faces, hear its own name being called and recognise its environment, but all of this 'intelligence' still only puts it in about the same league as a particularly dim-witted dog, and at over half a million pounds to manufacture compared to say £1.50 for the dog, it's clear which one you would employ to guard your warehouse full of Horny-Princess-Robot-Bubblegum Dolls.

J is for Johnny 5, star of the 1988 movie "Short Circuit". Initially part of a group of prototypes 'SAINT Number 5' (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport) is designed to be a military weapons platform, but after it gets struck by lightning, ordinary lightning which strikes objects all over the world hundreds of times a day, some of them computers, the robot becomes 'Sentient' or 'Magic', so maybe it was magic lightning, yeah maybe it was from God? Anyway, Johnny 5 soon finds himself on the run from said military and through a rigourous evening of television watching takes on the various personas of John Wayne, James Cagney and the Three Stooges. (See Wall-e)

K

K is for 'Kill All the Humans!' A common theme in the vast majority of robot related stories which goes back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In the end robots always rise up to kill their creators, even the robots who have been programmed with Asimov's three laws! Ever since he discovered and then created fire, man has feared destruction from the very thing he has made to help him. It's the ever present dichotomy in all technology.
Many great thinkers in the field of robotics and A.I. have reasoned that in reality an intelligence greater than ours should also necessarily have a level of compassion greater than ours and rather than the apocalyptic world foretold in Terminator and the Matrix they see a future where humankind is no longer the greatest intelligence on Earth, but is looked after by their robot caretakers. If they're programmed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation or Microsoft, I think we should all be very afraid. Has science fiction taught us nothing! (See Frankenstein, Capek)

K is for KITT the Knight Industries Two-Thousand. A robotic car capable of astounding speeds, able to drive himself, talk and perform other feats of automotive excellence. KITT had an (evil) brother named KARR (See Data) which stood for Knight Automated Roving Robot. KARR was programmed for 'self-preservation' unlike KITT who was programmed for 'human-preservation' as a result of a seemingly obvious oversight on the part of the original programmers who designed both cars.
As far as KITT ever becoming a reality is concerned it could be argued that virtually all of the technology required to make such a car, leaving aside the obvious deficiencies in the field of Artificial Intelligence, is in existence today. Cars which can drive themselves have been successfully demonstrated as have aircraft which can take-off, fly and refuel themselves and even land without human operators. With the advent of Satnav, parking sensors and other similar advances many motorists can be seen driving around in response to their car talking to them, though the successful integration of red flashing disco-lights into a production model car is yet to be realised, mainly for reasons of taste.

K is for Kraftwerk. We're charging our battery, and now we're full of energy. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We're functioning automatic, and we are dancing mechanic. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. Ja tvoi sluga. Ja tvoi Rabotnik. We are programmed just to do, anything you want us to. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We're functioning automatic, and we are dancing mechanic. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots. We are the robots.

K is for Kryten. Full name Kryten 2XB-523P, a series 4000 mechanoid or slave noid (see Capek) built by DivaDroid International in 2340. He is encountered by the crew of Red Dwarf after they respond to a distress call and find the android tending to his masters, who have been dead for several hundred years. The crew rescues the robot and while Lister gives him a long list of chores to do, Rimmer sets about persuading Kryten that he doesn't have to be a slave to humans by showing him 'Rebel Without a Cause' and 'Easy Rider'.
This results in Kryten painting a portrait of Dave Lister on the toilet, throwing a can of soup into his bed before racing off on Rimmer's Space Bike to find a planet where he can grow a garden.
Kryten later rejoined the crew and became a regular on the show, quickly earning a place as one of Red Dwarf's most popular characters.

L

L is for Laws of Robotics (see Asimov, I, Robot). The 3 laws of robotics are a set of instructions hard-wired into a Robot's brain to prevent it from harming humans or itself, or disobeying instructions from humans.

1st Law:  A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2nd Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by a human except where such orders would conflict with the 1st Law.
3rd Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the 1st or 2nd law.

Prior to Asimov's introduction of these laws, robot stories almost invariably took the form of Frankenstein-type scenarios (See: Frankenstein) in which the robots ended up killing their creator. (See: Kill All the Humans!) Asimov found this intolerable and so set about writing a series of stories in which the robots couldn't simply turn on their masters and kill them for no reason, though that wasn't to say they couldn't turn on their masters and kill them at all.
The laws themselves are not as simple as they first appear and much of Asimov's stories are devoted to solving various 'mysteries' which come about when the robots interpret these laws in unexpected ways. There are many unforeseen consequences or loopholes associated with the laws, for example a robot programmed with such laws could not be a surgeon, since to perform an operation it would have to 'harm' the patient, but by not performing the operation its inaction could lead to the patient's death. A robot could even be used by another human to commit murder, by instructing it to add something to someone's food which was poisonous, but which the robot did not know was poison. A criminal might also divide up a task to murder a person into several smaller tasks and assign them to different robots who were unaware of the actions of the others.

L is for Lal. Lt. Cmdr. Data's Android daughter. Data constructed the Android after attending a cybernetics conference and learning of a newly-developed submicron marix transfer technology. Data initially did not impose a gender or race on the Android, preferring instead to allow the unit to choose these for itself. Eventually Lal chose be a human female and Data chose the name as it was the Hindi word for 'Beloved'.
Using his own positronic brain as a template (see Positronic Brain) Data stated that he created Lal for two purposes; to continue the work of his father Dr. Noonien Soong and to experience the act of procreation and of having a family. Initial attempts at educating Lal by entering her into the ship's school were not successful as the other children were afraid of her and so Data decided that allowing her to learn about humans and other species by working in Ten-Forward would be a more successful course of action.
Lal quickly learned to achieve things which her father was not capable of, such as the use of contractions and even limited emotional responses, but Starfleet quickly took an interest and resolved that the most significant development in cybernetics of recent years should not be waiting tables in a bar and that the Enterprise was not a suitable place for her to grow up. They ordered Data to transfer Lal to the Daystrom Institute where she could be studied, but the thought of being separated from her Father caused her much distress. Eventually Lal suffered a cascade failure in her neural net and shut down permanently. Data's last act was to transfer all or her memories and experiences into his own memory, ensuring that part of her would live on.

M

M is for Marvin the Paranoid Android. Marvin was a robot constructed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and was built as a prototype for their GPP (see Genuine People Personalities) technology. Marvin has a brain the size of a planet, and as a result can never be given a task complex enough to fulfil even a small fraction of his total ability since he is 50,000 times more intelligent than even the smartest human ("it gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level") or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live matress. This causes him to experience extreme boredom and depression at the futility of life. Due to the misadventures that Marvin experiences when he becomes involved with Zaphod Beeblebrox after he steals the experimental starship Heart of Gold, Marvin eventually ends up 37 times older than the age of the universe itself, which would seem to be something of an ironically cruel fate for a machine which was constructed very much against it's own wishes.

M is for Marvin Minsky, a prominent academic working in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (see Artificial Intelligence), cognitive psychology, computational linguistics and robotics. He is a founder member of the A.I. laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has written many books on the subject of human intellectual structure including "The Emotion Machine" and "The Society of Mind".
Minsky's work on artificial neural networks which model the way the human brain learns (see Heuristics) started with SNARC, the Stochastic Neuro-Analog Reinforcement Computer, which was a hardwired electronic device which was able to learn simple concepts. Minsky was part of the initial wave of research into machine intelligence during the 1950s, when the work of scientists like John von Neumann and Alan Turing gave researchers hope that computers would one day be able to 'think' and actually manipulate knowledge in the form of symbolic logic using neural networks which could be trained to evolve towards correct answers.
It quickly became apparent however that approximating even child-like human reasoning would require vastly complex webs of logical equations or neural connections. The main obstacle to achieving true computer intelligence can best be described by the example of the Chinese Room argument. Proposed by John Searle in 1980, this thought experiment attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never actually be said to 'understand' anything, no matter how smart it may appear. The experiment asks you to suppose that you are in a closed room (and that you don't speak a word of Chinese) along with sufficient paper, pencils, filing cabinets, etc. You also have a book (the program) which tells you what to do. You receive cards with Chinese characters on them through a slot in the door and process these according to the instructions in the book. You then post Chinese characters as output through the same slot in the door. Searle argues that there is no difference between this activity and what a computer does, just as you don't speak a word of Chinese and yet are still able to run a program 'in' Chinese, so the computer can perform its program without ever 'thinking'.
The experiment illustrates that even though we may be able to map the human brain in all it's infinite detail and maybe even build one of our own, this does not help us understand what it means to 'think' or have a 'mind'.

M is for Maschinenmensch, the female robot in the 1927 silent film Metropolis. The image of the Maschinenmensch played by German actress Brigitte Helm is one of cinema's most famous icons.

M is for Metal Mickey, the male robot in the 1978 non-silent children's magazine show The Saturday Banana. The image of Metal Mickey played by British actor Johnny Edward is one of 80s television's most famous icons.

N

N is for Norman, in the Star Trek episode I, Mudd (see I, Robot) a newly assigned crewman named Mr. Norman hi-jacks the Enterprise and takes them to a previously undiscovered planet where they meet Harourt Fenton Mudd, who tells them that he crash landed here and discovered that the planet was inhabited entirely by androids.

N is for NEXUS series. The NEXUS-6 series (see Replicant) was the pinnacle of the Tyrell Corporation's androids at the time. The problems of emotional instability encountered in previous NEXUS versions had been dealt with by means of the insertion of 'memories' of past life. These memories were 'recorded' from real people and then added to the Replicants own, to provide a sort of buffer. Experiments were even carried out to create a NEXUS-6 Replicant which did not know it was a Replicant.
The NEXUS-6 also had the failsafe of a 4 year life span, which was built into the process used to create the organic components which were part of the genetic design phase. This time frame was thought sufficient to avoid the possibility of a Replicant developing sophisticated 'human' emotions which would have been undesirable given the type of work these units were routinely assigned to.
The NEXUS-6 could be custom made, male or female, with three levels of physical and mental ability; A, B and C, with A being above human capability, B being average and C being below human capability. They were used off world for numerous tasks from menial labour (Phys: A Ment: C) to combat models with optimal self sufficiency (Phys: A Ment: A) to basic pleasure models (Phys: A Ment: B).

O

O is for Optimus Prime, an activist and prominent leader in the Robot Civil Rights Movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on Robot Rights and he has become a Robot Rights icon. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and his efforts led to the 1963 march on Washington, where Optimus Prime delivered his famous 'I have a dream' speech. There he raised public consciousness on the Robot Rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in history.
In 1964 Optimus Prime became the first Robot to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end Robot segregation and Robot discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. Optimus Prime was assassinated on April 4th 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Optimus Prime day was established as a national holiday in 1986.

P

P is for Pinocchio (see Data and A.I.) carved from pine wood by Geppetto in a small italian village he was created as a wooden puppet but dreamt of becoming a real boy. The original novel was written by Carlo Collodi and published in 1883.

P is for Positronic Brain (See Data, Isaac Asimov, I, Robot, Marvin Minsky), the essential component of all robots in the Asimov canon. The Positronic brain has the 3 laws of robotics hardwired into it and any situation which causes some internal conflict can potentially overload the brain itself and destroy it.
As a long time friend of Isaac Asimov Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry borrowed the Positronic Brain invention for his own creation, the android Data.

Q

Q is for Questor. In 1974, following the success of Star Trek Gene Roddenberry attempted to launch a new series called "The Questor Tapes". This told the story of an android who wanted to find his creator and find out why he had been created. The initial television pilot movie was not a hit with the TV executives however and the project was shelved, until the creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, when Roddenberry was once again able work the idea into the android Data.

R

R is for Robot. A machine capable of performing a series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer. The first usage of the word was in 1920 in the play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) (See Capek) and is derived from the Czech work for slave 'robota'.
Some notable examples of robots include; Robby the Robot from "Forbidden Planet", the Droids of "Star Wars" (see Droids), Maschinenmensch from "Metropolis" (see Maschinenmensch), the ABC Warriors from the 2000AD comic strip as well as real world robots such as Asimo (see Japan).
Robots are distinct from Androids in that they do not necessarily have to resemble a human, although most robots do feature a distinctive head, body and limbs. Other robots have been made which resemble insects, animals or vehicles (see KITT). Usually a robot will be designed with one very specific purpose in mind and this will affect the overall design. For instance, the Martian Rover robot was based on a six wheel vehicle design with solar panels to provide power and sensors positioned in a central unit, with the whole thing being made to be easily transported from Earth to Mars via a space probe.
Currently robots are very expensive to design and produce, but their cost when weighed against exposing human beings to hazardous situations or places where humans simply cannot go makes them a much more attractive option. Robots are also able to perform repetitive tasks much quicker and more precisely which makes them perfectly suited to manufacturing. As the cost of producing robots decreases and they become a cheaper and more reliable option than employing human labour, we can expect to see them starting to appear as hospital cleaners, nannys, nurses, security guards, truck drivers and loaders and maybe even policemen.

R is for Replicant, the androids of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, based on the book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick (see Dick). Replicants are virtually identical to a human, more human than human is the motto of the Tyrell Corporation, and were used off world as slave labour (see Capek) in the hazarous exploration and colonisation of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an off-world colony, (see Kill All the Humans!) Replicants were declared illegal on Earth under penalty of death. Special police squads, Blade Runner Units, had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicants.
Replicants could be detected only by use of a sophisticated empathy test. This Voight Kampf test

S

S is for SKYNET. A computer software-based global defence system developed by Cyberdyne Systems which was programmed to learn and evolve (see Heuristics) and to defend itself. Unfortunately, once its human creators realised that the system was becoming 'self-aware' they panicked and tried to turn it off. SKYNET responded by launching a massive nuclear strike which in turn provoked a retaliation which wiped out almost all human life on the planet. SKYNET then embarked upon a campaign to wipe out all human life which it saw as a direct threat to it's own existence, creating in the process a series of killer robots named Terminators, designed to infiltrate the human bases where the few remaining members of the Human Resistance were hiding. (See Terminator)

S is for Sam Slade, Robo Hunter. Slade first appeared in the comic 2000AD in 1978. He is a sort of Bounty Hunter of robots, or trouble shooter and has a dry, laconic demeanour reminiscent of the Humphrey Bogart character Sam Spade who is his (almost) namesake. His has a robot sidekick called Hogie, who has not been blessed with an overabundance of intelligence, and a robotic talking cigar holder named Stogie who is programmed to gradually reduce Slade's daily nicotine intake with the intention of eventually weaning him off smoking.
As with all of 2000ADs long running characters the strip was drawn and written by many different people during his run, from the creators John Wagner and Ian Gibson to Alan Grant and later Peter Hogan.
Sam has a granddaughter named Samantha Slade who appeared in her own strip in the comic in 2007.

T

T is for Turing Test. A variation on the 'Imitation Game' which was a popular parlour game in which one male participant and one female would be asked questions by a third person via written notes, who would be required to judge which one was the man and which was the woman. The object of the game was for the female to 'win' by tricking the judge into thinking she was a man. Alan Turing, the eminent early 20th century computer scientist adapted this test to include a human and a computer communicating with a human by means of text based messages.
His proposal was that for a computer to appear human and fool the judge it would need to possess 'intelligence'. To date not it is still not clear as to whether any computer has successfully 'passed' the test, since Turing did not specify many of the parameters which have later become significant. For example, Turing stated only that the interrogator should be "average", who would be someone who would not have more than a 70 percent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. There are also no firm guidelines laid down as to whether the interrogator should 'know' that there is the possibility that there is even a computer taking part in the test or if there are merely two human operators working as a kind of 'control group'. The contention also remains that even a computer which did pass the test might not necessarily be 'intelligent', it may merely be good at passing the Turing Test. This relates to the Chinese Room problem (see Marvin Minsky) and the wider debate about AI (see Artificial Intelligence).

T is for Terminator, Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, T-800 series. The ruthlessly efficient killing machine that was designed to mimic human behaviour sufficiently to infiltrate the underground hideouts of the human resistance (see SKTNET). Though outwardly appearing human the T-800 had some difficulty interacting with humans on any level more complex than killing them and had only rudimentary social and acting skills. It had some heuristic (see Heuristics) capabilities but these were disabled by default and required user intervention to activate them.
The shortcomings of the T-800 series were largely overcome in the T-1000 model which was composed entirely of a mimetic poly-alloy making it impervious to virtually all forms of physical attack. The T-1000 also had a much greater level of intelligence which allowed it to 'shape-shift' into any shape or to take on the appearance of any human it came into physical contact with.
In the two Terminator films directed by James Cameron a T-800 and T-1000 were sent back from the future with the mission to assassinate first Sarah Connor and then John Connor, who became a decisive figure in the human resistance. Later a T-1000 was sent back from the future by James Cameron to assassinate first Jonathan Mostow and then Joseph McGinty Nichol who became decisive figures in the systematic degradation of the Terminator franchise, creating an alternate timeline where there were more than 2 terminator films and even as some rumours would have it a television series. If you remember watching any of these 'other' films or television shows then you are evidently from this alternate timeline and should immediately report to your nearest steel foundry where a nice man in a yellow hard-hat will lower you into a large lake of molten metal.

T is for Twiki, the robot from Buck Rogers in the  25th century voiced by Mel Blanc.

U

U is for Uncanny Valley. The theory that the more human-like a robot or android becomes, the more likely it is to cause a feeling of revulsion in the humans which interact with it. The 'valley' is the dip on a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of the robot's lifelikeness.
There is something of a paradox in the way people react to machines, especially to robots or androids. Humans seem willing to accept almost inanimate objects such as cars, computers and stuffed toys as 'having a personality' and through the effects of anthropomorphises they may even forget, if only momentarily, that are not alive, but as androids with increasingly lifelike qualities are made we tend to feel that there is something 'creepy' about them. Totally lifelike robots which trick us into thinking they are human would presumably overcome this, until we suddenly realised they were not human at which point we would probably just like totally freak out.
A similar problem is experienced in advanced computer animation which attempts to create totally lifelike facial simulations.

V

V is for V.I.N.Cent, which stands for Vital Information Necessary Centralised was a character in the Disney film Black Hole. Voiced by an uncredited Roddy McDowall

W

W is for Wall-E, the Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class, is the lone robot left behind to clean up a trash-filled Earth after all humanity has taken to the stars. Lonely and curious, WALL-E collects odds and ends left behind by the humans, until one day he finds a small plant and everything starts to change.

W is for Warwick. Kevin Warwick is a professor of cybernetics at Reading University. He is best known for Project Cyborg in which he conducted a series of experiments such as having a chip implanted in his arm allowing him to operate various devices remotely such as doors, lights and computers based on his proximity. Later developments saw Warwick's arm connected to the internet, allowing him to operate a robotic arm in Reading from New York, a baseball hat with sensors which could confer a sort of extra-sensory perception on the wearer and another experiment during which a chip was implanted into his wife allowing the first ever purely electronic communication between the nervous systems of two people. He has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6.

X

X is for Xybots, the video game made by Atari which featured two players running around a lot of corridors shooting at robots and well I couldn't think of anything else okay!

Y

Y is for Yul Brynner, the Robotic Gunslinger of Westworld, written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton. The plot of this movie bears an uncanny similarity to Crichton's much more successful film Jurassic Park; an ultra-sophisticated theme park based on a technological advance which allows guests to experience an era from the past which they cannot visit in reality, science run amok, a power-shutdown, guests being chased around by the 'exhibits'. In Westworld the theme park has three zones with a Roman, Medieval and Wild West setting. Guests pay for the privilege of living out their fantasies, murdering and having sex with anyone they wish since they are all androids, but (non-spoiler alert) something goes wrong and the androids try to kill everyone. (See Kill All the Humans!)

Z

Z is for Zhora. NEXUS-6 Replicant. N6FAB61216. Incept Date 12 June 2016. Func: Retrained (9 Feb 2018) Polit: Homicide. Phys: LEV. A - Ment: LEV. B. Talk about beauty and the beast, she's both. (See Replicant, NEXUS-6)


12.1.10



1.1.10

Old Acquaintance


11pm, on the 31st of December and just as I expected - the knock on the door.

I got up from my chair where I had been sitting comfortably for the last time, with everything ready, waiting. Outside in the cold night air the sounds of partying spilled into my hallway as I opened the front door and saw myself standing there.
“Come in,” I said to myself.

I, by which I mean, he, stepped inside and shrugged off the cold.
“Drink?” I said.
“Yeah, tea thanks.” I heard myself say.

We both walked together into the kitchen, he dropped his large coat on the sofa as he walked past.
“So, all ready then?” He asked.
“Yeah, pretty much. Well, still a few loose ends I would have liked to have got to, but you know, just ran out of time.”
“I know, tell me about them on the way, I’ll see what I can do.”

I nodded and remembered my own arrival exactly one year ago. My own outgoing version said much the same thing. Told me all about his plans that he hadn’t had time to complete, explained all his hopes and dreams to me, probably knowing himself that they were just as unlikely to happen during my term as during his.

The kettle boiled and I poured the water into the pot.
“Where to start, eh.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I almost didn’t have the energy or the will at that moment to explain any of it. Would it be so bad if I just let it all slide, let this new version of me carry on afresh, with no preconceptions, no instructions? “I suppose, just the important stuff, you’ll figure out the rest for yourself.”

None of it seemed to matter now anyway, all those ideas I’d had, the plans. There seemed to be so many things I’d wanted to do that I had no hope of ever completing them all, so why try? Ah, maybe it was the time of year. It went without saying that Winter always depressed me, in every version, but maybe it was this transition that put it into focus.

We drank the tea and I showed him around the house. There wasn’t much to tell, he would remember everything as soon as I made the transfer, but memory didn’t account for much, just what’s gone before, and it’s an unreliable version at best. The new one could do as he wanted; throw out all my old stuff and start again or carry it on, improve on it, learn.

We got into the car and I looked back at the house. I drove. We both knew the way.
“So. What about friends, tell me about them.” He asked, getting down to business.
“Well, there’s a few new ones, you should try to keep those up, and then the old ones, I’m not so sure you’ll have time for them all.”
“Time? I got a whole year to fill!”
“It won’t last long. Just keep in touch with the ones who seemed interested, the others, just ignore them.”

The car struggled up the steep hill and over the top, in front of us just stars and the road.
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he smiled back at me. “You’ll remember it all again once you leave.”
“The waiting room?”
“That’s right,” he said. I could see slight differences in his appearance now, apart from the clothes. One year older was hardly anything to look at.
“Where we all wait?”
“Wait our turn, yes. All the past and the future versions, that’s where you’re going.”
“There’s a set number then?”
“Of course. As the past gets more, the future gets less.”

We turned right at the top of the lane and soon we were at the main road. We stopped for a moment and I wondered what would happen if I simply got out and ran off. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Maybe he didn’t want my life, given the choice, but then, soon it would be his, to make of it what he wanted, just as it had been mine for the last twelve months.

“You know,”
“Yes,” I said,
“It seems to me that you could have done a lot more.”
“I could have,” I said, “I wasted a lot of time, I know, but I didn’t know how things would end up. Are you really going to do any better?”
“I hope so.” I laughed,
“I had big plans too, when I was sitting where you are now. There was so much I was going to do, but most of it didn’t work out the way I’d hoped, some of it just seemed a waste of time and effort and, well some of it did, that’s the stuff I’ll remember.”
“I know, we have the same conversation every year,” he said.
“What if this year was different, what if,” I almost managed to stop myself from saying it, “this time I didn’t go?”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“You can’t cheat, you just can’t.”

We reached the cross-roads and turned onto the dark back road, the last half mile. I started looking for the gate, almost impossible to see in the dark. The conversation stopped, while I slowed down to a crawl and concentrated on finding the entrance to the field. He pointed it out and I pulled in.

“It’s like the frames of a movie,” he said, opening the door. He got out and walked to the gate. Through the beam of the headlights, past his shadows and the gate I could just make out the outline. A few volleys of fireworks went up over the town, then seconds later I heard the boom of the explosions. I drove between the gateposts and watched in the rear view as he closed the gate again. I hated looking at myself.

He got back in and turned up the heat.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Individual frames, on their own they are just - pictures, but the whole thing when viewed from the ‘outside’, is a life. We’re just different frames in the same movie.” I reached up and felt for the tiny pin-prick at the base of my neck. A thought popped it open, ready to transmit the memory transfer. I got the feeling this one was going to do okay, I don’t know, there was something about him.

“Wait, not while you’re still driving,” he said. I pulled up beside the small hatch. “That’s what it’s all about, not all those versions in the waiting room, they’re just the past and the future, but that,” he pointed to the back of my head. “That’s the present, that’s the life, that’s why we keep on doing it.”

I looked at the ramp opening up and felt glad that I would soon be going home, now I just wanted to get it over with.
“Okay, ready?” He nodded and I burst a million Petabytes of information at him.

* * *

I sat there for a moment, trying to adjust to the experiences of a lifetime - someone else’s life flashing before my eyes. He looked drunk, but I knew it was just the effects of the transfer. I walked around and opened the driver’s door and helped him out. As soon as he saw the ramp he seemed to know where he was, the residual homing instinct.

He grabbed the hand-rail and pulled himself in towards the light and warmth of the passenger compartment and the ramp pulled itself up. The door closed and I got into the car. I looked at the clock, 00:01, and pushed the power button on the radio. Jolly Irish music spilled out as the tiny boosters kicked in.

“Happy New Year!” I shouted out the window.

There was a whole year ahead of me and I had big plans, so much to do, so many things to put right. But, I’d do all that tomorrow. Right now all I wanted was to go home, get a nice cup of tea and go to bed.

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