From: Alienthe@hotmail.com   
      
   Neowulf (Aaron VonDerheide) wrote:   
      
   > On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 22:40:23 +0200, Alienthe wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   >>First off, as a reply to the header itself: why wait for the   
   >>future when domestic robots already have appeared? Several   
   >>companies manufacture several types of robots for the home   
   >>such as lawn movers, vacuum cleaners and just toys.   
   >   
   > Yes, but what might they look like in twenty years? Technology advances at   
   > an exponential rate, after all. Next year's X-mas toys will include some   
   > way-out-there robots. Heck, the tech in some of this year's toys ain't half   
   > bad.   
      
      
   The future imagined always seem more glitzy than the future   
   turns out to be. Other things seem to develop fairly steadily   
   like cost (down), availability (up), size (smaller),   
   speed (up) and so on. All this while reliability changes in   
   all directions.   
      
   The sensawunder seems to have taken an extended holiday   
   and instead we get toys like the talking fish that was a   
   craze a few years ago.   
      
   >>Neowulf (Aaron VonDerheide) wrote:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>>I was wondering if we could conjecture about robots in use in a cyberpunk   
   >>>story--say, the typical number of robots (and their form & function) in a   
   >>>house (or apartment) in, say, the year 2025. Or maybe 2015.   
   >>>   
   >>>Feel free to wander a bit off this topic--I just need some inspiration.   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >>Would that be for a cyberpunk story? Then again Asimov wrote   
   >>a number of non-cyberpunk stories exploring the roles of robots   
   >>in an imagined future. Some were clearly space opera.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Yeah, this IS background in a cyberpunk story. The story deals with a lot   
   > more than just robots--it deals with different kinds of synthetic   
   > intelligence and how society might react. The story itself is sort-of a   
   > political thriller, and most of the characters are synthetic intelligences.   
   >   
   > I tried swimming around in my mental world, brainstorming for some fun and   
   > interesting robot bodies. I need something weird and novel. Something   
   > remotely hijack-able by humans and/or other AI's. Li'l vacuum cleaners are   
   > not worth the time. :)   
      
      
   You might want to check out Stephan "Twoflower" Gagne's stories like   
   "Haven Born" and "A Future We'd Like to See", posted in these newsgroups   
   a number of years ago, dealing with these issues.   
      
   Anyway, an intelligence born on the net would quickly realise that   
   knowledge of its existence would be dangerous and might chose to   
   hide in your li'l vacuum cleaner... Tech is so complex these days   
   that few have a complete overview of what is inside a device and   
   there are many ways for an outside party to sneak in hidden   
   functionalities.   
      
   >>>I've been toying with the following notions:   
   >>> - A four-feet-tall humanoid robot (like that one on the old Buck Rodgers   
   >>>TV show) takes care of each story of a house; it would be sort-of a   
   >>>robo-butler.   
   >>   
   >>I believe it as Asimov that pointed out that billions of years   
   >>of development has brought forward the human body as perhaps   
   >>the most versatile shape and functionality. Single purpose can   
   >>look like anything. Of course if you have robots in VR they   
   >>can look like anything or anyone, like the Music Master.   
   >   
   > Very good point. In brainstorming, though, I've noticed that the AI's in my   
   > stories would prefer hanging out with each other (or with cybernetic   
   > humans), because they can relate better. I mean, your average human doesn't   
   > have all the ports accessible to a self-aware entity that is made up of a   
   > complex system of softare agents.   
      
      
   I am not sure what you mean by this. Still, considering that human   
   neurons operate in the kHz switching range and semiconductor gates   
   in the GHz range, it would seem machine intelligence would equal   
   that of a human, for a short, short while; which is more or less   
   the nature of the singularity.   
      
   > I.e., bots can jack into each others' minds. Your run-of-the-mill human   
   > (wetware) can't really play in that league.   
      
      
   Would they want to? I would however buy the point that bots could   
   present their data/knowledge/insight/etc with no loss in the   
   communication.   
      
   ==<)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)