Retrobots?

[D.Olivaw]

Recently someone posted a link to a segment of the old, obscure Beyond Westworld TV show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ay_QNie ... be&t=21m6s
It got me wondering. We sort of have two "speeds" around here. On the one hand, modernistic electronic/digital fembots with all that entails (hardware/software distinction, etc) and on the other hand clockwork dolls. What about intermediate points on that spectrum? Analog circuitry and tape-based fembots, like those envisioned in the clip ('70s/'80s). Alternately, vacuum-tube based ones like those that would have been imagined in the '40s and '50s. You could mix the latter with a Rocketpunk or Space-Opera theme to great effect, I think.

One fun aspect is that the behavior, operations, and way they malfunction is distinct for each category. Honestly, a lot of the malfunction stuff that gets written here fits better with the way analog electronics work anyway. Digital systems tend to just stop working when they break, with no graceful degradation. The sounds, sights, and feel of normal and abnormal operation all differ between a tape-based gynoid (say, who wanders too close to a magnet) and a tube-based one (what happens when one inevitably burns out?).

An obvious downside is the damage to suspension of disbelief. I've tried my hand at clockwork stories in the past because I quite like the aesthetic, but I find myself getting stopped up on questions like "how is she powered? It can't be with turns of that little key, given how many Watts she uses just moving around!" Thankfully such questions bother me less when reading what other authors here have written (looking at you Longtimelurker ). Of course, maybe we shouldn't let such silly questions get in the way of our fun!

[ministrations]

I'm going to throw a couple of things out here to respond to you.

First, it's interesting how much our tastes have changed as a group with the march of time. Those of us who remember the ancestors to these boards 20 years ago probably remember how important wind-up and clockwork dolls were to the group; it probably comprised the largest fraction of ASFR fetishists, if not a majority. And it's not like the concept has died, but it has receded a lot.

My personal feeling is that just like the world is coming to terms with the inevitability of human-appearing robots, and they're becoming mainstream, our group is evolving too and realizing that commercial sex robots will probably be nanotechnological, biological or even primarily virtual in nature, as opposed to clockwork or hydraulic. And we, like society, are reaching this point very slowly, as technology proves difficult to master.

As far as digital malfunctions, that's really a product of the redundancy built into each robot. No doubt most robots even from the beginning will need multiple redundant systems for each function. I think the big question is always whether a digital malfunction will just force the robot to shut down, whether the robot would try to continue with limited function, or whether there will be a behavior pattern programmed in to "humanize" the malfunction (as in My Living Doll or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).

But of course, I would never let my theories about real-life robotics get in the way of the wonderful stories people come up with here. I plan to go right on suspending disbelief.

One related issue that interests me a lot is how the software will present itself in the first real androids. Will it be like Cali Logan's latest video, where running a robot is like programming a late-model Ford SYNC? Or will it be more like Abigail, where units are tested and programmed for months and years to create the illusion of human experience? I really have no idea, but if there really is a secret angel investor funding a test facility full of robots, I'm not complaining.

[dale coba]

While the tech was poor, the malfunction of the primitive fembot was unavoidable. As her systems became overwhelmed, the illusions of her humanity fell away. She performed a display of sexuality, an uncontrollable celebration of our desire to see her as an object. With her malfunction, we were rewarded; though knowing the cost and complications of her repair would dampen the mood.

Future tech will never let fembots malfunction even rarely. There can be no reasonably necessary malfunctions - unless we continue to appreciate what they communicate. Unlike with a set of Russian nesting dolls, there is no clockwork doll inside Cherry 2000; but conceptually for us these more primitive states are nested inside the more sophisticated.

Lustful people want to see the animal in their lover's eyes - the gaze which betrays no distraction, no higher thought, and an appetite to consume and be consumed. We don't look for the animal, wild and most primitive. We see a less primitive version than her as an animal, rather as a thinking creation lacking an ego and utterly controllable. Malfunction-performances included, everything that could signify her falsity will find its place into the sexual programming of some future fembots.

The retrobot is inside the T3, as the animal lurks within the woman - for the purpose of our shared, libidinous enjoyment. I'd like to keep using the term 'malfunction', but what I mean is more 'erotic ballet', than an example of actual lake swans or sugar-plum fairies pirouetting in formation.

- Dale Coba

[D.Olivaw]

That was an insightful and strangely lyrical response, Dale Coba.

[daphne]

Future tech will never let fembots malfunction even rarely. There can be no reasonably necessary malfunctions - unless we continue to appreciate what they communicate.

Uh... have you ever used a Microsoft product, ever? I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing plenty of malfunctions well into the 22nd century.

[ministrations]

Future tech will never let fembots malfunction even rarely. There can be no reasonably necessary malfunctions - unless we continue to appreciate what they communicate.

Uh... have you ever used a Microsoft product, ever? I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing plenty of malfunctions well into the 22nd century.

I think the next century is actually a very conservative estimate. All systems eventually fail; the interesting part for me, as I said earlier, is what those malfunctions will look like. Julie Newmar getting a headache is deliberately cheesy, but I think there's some truth to the idea.

[dale coba]

I'm so anti-Microsoft, I won't use Bing.
I'm so anti-Microsoft, the copy of Word I keep around, I hacked the icon so it's a rainbow Apple logo.
I believe as firmly in the Blue Screen of Death, as I am a sworn member of the cult of Mac, two decades running.

I'm not sure our 20th century experiences with admittedly primitive systems will reliably guide our expectations in a massively parallel world of essentially free infin-flops.

- Dale Coba

[Spaz]

I'm so anti-Microsoft, I won't use Bing.
I'm so anti-Microsoft, the copy of Word I keep around, I hacked the icon so it's a rainbow Apple logo.
I believe as firmly in the Blue Screen of Death, as I am a sworn member of the cult of Mac, two decades running.

I'm not sure our 20th century experiences with admittedly primitive systems will reliably guide our expectations in a massively parallel world of essentially free infin-flops.

- Dale Coba

Pssst, it's a Black Screen of Death now.