Robot dog's lifespan is about 16 years...

[Propman]

Remember these robot dogs? Apparently they're slowly breaking down. Makes you think what would a fembot lifespan be.

http://gizmodo.com/sonys-robotic-dogs-a ... 1712160637

[FaceoffFembot]

I think that software is not that much of an issue - there will alway be a team of Eastern European script kiddies to crack stuff. The emulation scene and the fact that I'm running a cracked version of Win7 while still enjoying all of the updates is a testament to that.

Hardware, on the other hand, is a bit more tricky, and although 3D printing in principle gives back to the consumer agency over the product he bought, I don't think the tech is quite here to produce intricate, industrial-quality parts.

But hey, fembots are still in the realm of science-fiction for now - let's hope that by the time they came out, technology making the communist ideal a bit closer will be out too!

[BA2]

Interesting scenario...

I'd guess that people's attachment to their older 'unit's' personality programming (or the unit's attachment to being herself) would support a thriving industry in emulation software to host legacy AI (SI, sim, emulation... whatever) code on newer systems. Of course, hosting a simulated or emulated personality in such a way could lead to problems with latency and the personality hosten on the emulation platoform would never achieve the full functionality offered by the newer system. Perhaps an alternative would be to re-write an 'equivalent' personality for the new OS - again, maybe not perfect as the limits of the old system would have defined, to some extent, her development.

I'm imagining a human personality here that was emulated as software to 'become' an early model robot girl (transfer type conversion a la Dyson). The personality would be largely functionally the same as the original but achieved in a different way and on very different hardware from the biological; she may have new limitations or differences due to the technology available or by choice. For example, the subject personality would have to be programmed to cope with being a machine; either as a sleeper - to ignore tell-tales - or with protocols added to an 'aware' personality to permit maintenance and support, possibly control. If that unit later requires upgrading there will be further changes, this time harnessing advances in technology to improve performance back towards the human original. Would these changes be true to the original (perhaps the full human personality can be kept on file as a reference) or would they be the programmer's best guess at how the original would have thought? Maybe some owners or subjects would prefer to preserve their original code on a less efficient emulation platform than trust that a new version would still be 'them'?

I can feel a hint of a story in this...

[smalk]

Where there is demand (repairing / updating an older model, no more supported), there will be offer. The real question would be how much you would be willing to spend.

Suppose they offer you the choice, between restoring the older model for 3k, and buying a new one with a whole range of new features, for 1k.

The emotional layer involved will render the topics very interesting for social science researcher, though. xD

[ministrations]

@BA, put another way, that story IS Cherry 2000. And I think that movie touched on the most important facet of this issue, which is memory storage and transferability. I think that once truly realistic fembot companions exist, no amount of extra realism or willingness on the part of a replacement fembot is going to matter to a human partner if she can't remember the last however many years of your mutual experience.