They Will Walk Among Us…

By Monday January 16, 2012

The year, 2060. Elect a robot to Congress or President! Can’t be worse than the human ones we elected in the past.



44 Comments
  1. Mark says:
    1/16/2012 at 8:33 pm

    Wow. It’s 1970′s animatronics 2.0. Big whoopee. Still looks completely fake.

    Reply
    • msbpodcast says:
      1/17/2012 at 7:54 am

      Not completely. Take a good look. That face looks more mobile than some women after botox injections.

      They have entered the uncanny valley and are rapidly climbing up the other side.

      They have an advantage over CG humaniform replicas, the physics is already working for them, as long as they are sitting down. (The most complex form of motion in panoply available to humans is the not-so-simple one of walking. [Walking is controlled falling, something that anyone with a neurological disease fears as control is lost, and so is one's sense of balance. {The vestibular sense, never mentioned in literature, the real sixth sense, is an omnipresent feature of locomotion.}])

      Reply
  2. My Fair Lady says:
    1/16/2012 at 10:37 pm

    Do the Japanese make little boy robots, too?

    There attention to detail on the female gender speaks cultural volumes.

    Reply
    • Glenn E. says:
      1/17/2012 at 1:27 am

      What? You never heard of Astroboy?

      Reply
    • msbpodcast says:
      1/17/2012 at 8:15 am

      I can see the animation of the sculpture Ancient Greece and Rome (as a counter to your assertion Antinous comes to mind,) as now feasible in real-time live-action.

      Michelangelo’s David conversing in old Italian might make for an interesting evening as well.

      Given the capacity of a Watson-like intelligence controlling the conversation and a Japanese animatronic robot controlling the face and torso, it would be like having a fireside chat with FDR , but one on one.

      Switching from stored knowledge a la Watson to a connected one over the internet could/should/would give rise to “dinner with <insert name here>” soirées where one could interact with replicants of all sorts of influential people who are no longer living.

      A socratic debate with a Socrates replicant would be fascinating, as long as wormwood is not on the drinks menu. ;-)

      Reply
  3. Animby says:
    1/16/2012 at 11:00 pm

    Humanoid robots will not really take off until they are promoted by the porn industry.

    Reply
  4. orchidcup says:
    1/17/2012 at 2:31 am

    If the year is 2060, then civilization has collapsed and the machines have taken over the mega-corporation that survived the final merger of all institutions after the amillennialists attempted to trigger the apocalypse and the final judgment of Christ the Messiah.

    The few surviving humans are scattered throughout remote locations from British Columbia to the Gulf Coast of America.

    The East Coast of America is a nuclear wasteland and the Middle East is a smoldering pile of molten glass and rock.

    Civilization is attempting to emerge from the cataclysm and reinvent itself. God and theology has been banned where the last humans survive.

    Reply
    • Cursor_ says:
      1/17/2012 at 4:21 am

      Please.

      Let’s drop the nuclear bogeyman OK? It will never happen, never. Humans fear death too much to end their wretched existences.

      The world will go on the way it has done since people started settling down, made cities and formed civilisation.

      Hell they are so predictable that they do not even leave the ancient locations to live in better and more open areas. Why do you think people are still living in the same river delta areas? It is not because there is a wealth of healthy living there. It is because they have been for thousands of years now. All their generations come from there. It is tradition, not real value.

      You must accept that humans pick up habits. Those habits become rituals and those rituals that become widely shared become traditions.

      And the human has always had a fear of death. It is a tradition that they will not shake. And thus no nuclear holocaust. Humans know far too well what happens when thy die. Despite all the spiritual mumbo jumbo out there.

      Cursor_

      Reply
  5. Sea Lawyer says:
    1/17/2012 at 4:33 pm

    I think it’s the jerkiness of the stepper motors that is the most off-putting. They need to be able to smooth out the movement while still allowing for precision.

    Still, I don’t really think making robots look like humans is a good idea. We already have whackos who want to give animals the same rights as humans because they are cute… I can see the same nonsense with these things as they become more convincing in their outward appearance.

    Reply
    • Rob Leather says:
      1/20/2012 at 6:31 pm

      Perhaps. But I think also the exact duplication of movement. Ask a human to shake their head and they could never move it to such precision, nor would they want to.

      Same with the mouth and yes, they are in constant unconscious motion. Which is why she looks fake.

      Reply
  6. Mr Diesel says:
    1/18/2012 at 8:26 am

    I want a Cherry 2000.

    Reply
  7. kaore says:
    1/20/2012 at 2:01 am

    Oh good lord! She frowns!

    Reply
  8. Rob Leather says:
    1/20/2012 at 6:33 pm

    Director – “Right, now if you could just finish the filming with a frankly disturbing close up of her robotic tits…. FAN-TASTIC”

    Reply
  9. Fresck says:
    1/26/2012 at 3:37 am

    I hope they make a fully functional caretaker before I need one

    Reply

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