According to SciFi, robots come in three flavours: Adorably cute ones with a full gamut of emotion and expressions (i.e. No.5, Short Circuit), homicidal death droids that are intent on nothing short of the eradication of the human species (i.e. T-models, Terminator), or the in between robots, that are actually rather useful and do a variety of tasks such as providing comic relief (i.e. Kryten, Red Dwarf). In cyberpunk fiction, they’re usually the last of the three… neither good nor evil, with the exception of what they’ve been programmed to do. More often than not, they’re programmed for specific tasks, and with a minimal level of sentience.

Again, people laugh at the idea of robots, but they are already amazingly common place without people even being aware of it. Perhaps not as complex as those envisioned by Asimov, but all around us none the less. Smart cars, semi-intelligent assembly line machines, and even rudimentary A.I. driven units that have the cognitive processing abilities of insects and lower order mammals.

But cyberpunk fiction does not stop with robots being humanoid. Often, we see them in use as pets, such as the owl in Blade Runner, because live animals are something of a rarity in a technologically oriented future. Technological determinism alone states that it will become harder and harder to keep real animals, and we’re already doing a decent job at replacing them.

Nintendogs, for the Nintendo DS console, is one of the highest selling games. It has a number of spinoffs for other pets as well. There are documented cases of people neglecting their real dogs for their permanently cuter, less messy, more “human” virtual pets. There are also physical robotic replacements for a number of pets, such as Sony’s AIBO electronic dog (admittedly not that bright, but they get ebtter with each generation) or robotic fish… and they can be custom ordered into bodies not currently possible under biological sciences.

Of course, the Japanese make a much cuter one.

But getting back to where it matters, people.

Numerous companies are rather advanced in both animatronic and AI capabilities of robotics, with groups like MIT and Honda leading the way with the MDS and ASIMO. However, it’s often smaller “garage” labs that are making the more amazing breakthroughs in areas that really matter, such as robots capable of body language. Obviously, Japan leads the way in this area, but it’s often the hobby enthusiasts that come up with Android Synthetica, recreation people, such as the Actroid or even Project Aiko by lone inventor Le Trung.

Fact of the matter is that Robots are able to replace a lot of what we do already. As the development and production costs come down, the dystopian future vision of masses of unemployed anti-robot demonstrations and violence (Barrier Riots envisioned by Asimov), before a utopian golden age of labour free days seems quite real… But these are grand social visions and don’t touch on the every day work-a-life of the common joe.

1. If you get retrenched because your job was taken by a robot, and then the robot gets retrenched due to a newer model coming out, do you become good drinking buddies?
2. What do you get robot employees for moral boosting purposes?
3. If robots are programmed with artificial intelligence based upon our own, does that mean they’ll be lazy arseholes that only want to put in the absolute bare minimum of work?
4. Lots of sad sad individuals fall in love with their cars. With all that love and care going in to a robot, what happens when you can finally stick your genitals somewhere they’re not going to get 3rd degree burns, or make it hard to shift gears?

You might also like to read:

1. Cyberpunk Pt4: Exosuits & combat mecha
2. Cyberpunk Pt2: Of Cyborgs & Dirty Apes
3. Cyberpunk Pt6: She sells ghosts in the shells by the surreal shore
4. Cyberpunk Pt8: My Plug-in Baby
5. Cyberpunk pt10: Accelerated Regenerative Tissue

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