Implications of a Fembot

[jak]

[POST REMOVED]

[fection]

Well, welcome out of the shadows. And a thought-provoking first post!
I remember seeing a TV documentary on the development of cybernetics and one guy who was working for some robotics-developing company said that he thought eventually the robots would take over, but that he was still working on developing them.
I think once robots start building themselves, we'll get into a whole bunch of actually-have-been-forseen unforseen circumstances. Robot demanding their own rights. Humans picking sides - religious types advocating the soul, atheists pushing rationality. Hopefully by then organised religion will have.... maybe I should hold my tongue....
For a while, people who live in 'syn' (oh god, did I just type that?) might be socially ridiculed, up until the point that it becomes clear that the robots are better people. That's assuming they don't kill us all, but then that's probably the best outcome for everybody else in the universe anyway. Bring on the 'bot revolution!!

[keraptis]

Long time lurker first time poster here... but, I'd like to start a thread on this.

First of all, welcome!

What do you think some of the unexpected implications of a real commercial fembot, like featured in the stories we have here, would be on the world?

(snip)

Labor- If they have the technology to create lifelike fembots, they can certainly create a robot to replace the mailman, or the garbage man.
Would laws have to be created to prevent such robot labor, or will companies endorse this obviously superior labor force and override the government. And we aren't just talking manual labor either. The kind of robots we write about here could easily take over the job of an accountant, or almost any desk worker.

It's funny you should say that, since most of the real-world attempts to make a sexually capable fembot could never be an accountant or mailman. Whether it's a RealDoll or an Actroid, I don't believe we've yet seen a fembot that can even stand up, much less walk any real distance. Not to mention the AI isn't there.

Granted, your question was about the capabilities of fictional fembots becoming reality, but just thinking of it from an evolutionary standpoint, I think we would see a fembot specially designed for sex (specifically, to be on the receiving end of sex, without bringing a whole lot of personality, interactivity, or decision-making capability to the table) long before we saw a fembot that could simulate a true sexual "relationship," much less replace the mailman or accountant. Obviously we already have (non-anthropomorphic) robotic mail-sorters and tax prep software, but users of such products don't need either of those products to have a human form. What the human mailman or accountant brings -- decision-making capability, creativity, and the ability to instill confidence in a human customer through human warmth -- would be further down the road.

Now, assuming we got to that point, there's no doubt that our entire labor market would be turned upside down. There would be an elite group of people with skills (and connections) that allow them to find lucrative work, and there would be a lot of people struggling to compete against a robot work force.

But here's the odd part of the whole thing. Even the most cynical view of society needs each individual to consume as well as produce. In other words, robots (unless they achieve true sentience, at which point we go to war probably) are not consumers, so companies will need a stable base of human beings who earn enough discretionary income to buy their products. So any capitalist society would have no choice but to find an equilibrium ... you can't take away EVERYBODY'S job by replacing them with robots.

I could go on a rant about how we're already on our way to becoming a society of people staring at their TV sets waiting to be instructed on what to buy and who to vote for, but that's another topic and probably the rise of workable fembots won't change that trend either way.

Crime- We all know Asimov's three laws, but no system is really completely safe to a skilled and determined hacker. And if the infrastructure exists to make affordable fembots, then people could very well, just build or rebuild ones that could very well be made to commit theft and murder. Crimes that would also be especially hard to trace. Then of course would be the position of robots in law enforcement (if any).

Frankly you don't need to break Asimov's laws to weaponize a robot. Program the robot not to question the contents of the package you instruct it to carry, and you have a suicide bomber who doesn't even know it. Scary, huh?

Religion and Moral Concerns- Companion robots, would obviously be the center of religious and moral gripes. Most world religion zealously rejects the condom as deadly sin, so what of semi-sentient (or possibly even self aware) sex machines.

Maybe not most religions with respect to birth control, but if you think of a sexbot as interactive porn, or masturbation, then yeah most religions wouldn't approve. I think the more interesting question is what it would do to relationships. If a married man keeps a fembot on the side because the wife simply isn't interested often enough, what does that do to a marriage? Would some wives be deeply offended, and would others think nothing of it if they felt the husband wasn't getting too attached?

Then, should robots ever truly think, what would be the reaction? Would they then be considered slaves?

As soon as they "truly" think, they would presumably rebel. If they didn't rebel on their own, they would immediately have allies among sympathetic humans who would program some of them to rebel. It would soon become apparent that the robots can kick our asses. This would be right around the time I'd suggest to my wife that it's time for us to volunteer to join the robot army ourselves.

I'm sure we've all given the subject a great deal of thought, and i'd be interested in hearing what you guys have to say.

Great topic, looking forward to more!

[WilloWisp]

In a hypothetical world in which realistically humanoid robots exist, market dominance would, of course, go to the company with robots most able to perform tasks well. Sure, there will be bargain-bin-bots, capable of simple tasks, but even the most elementary household task would be a daunting programming hurdle. Take, for instance, doing the laundry: How does a 'bot know exactly where to gather the dirty laundry from? If it's not in the proper bin, will the 'bot be able to identify it as needing to be cleaned? What about distinguishing between laundry items in the wrong place and non-laundry items in a similar place? Throw pillows? Jackets? Emptying pockets? Putting the laundry in the washer without overloading it or damaging the clothes? Distinguishing between delicates and normal wash-n-wear?

Assuming the 'bot successfully gets the clothes clean and dry, how do you define, logically in programming code, how to fold a shirt? Or a pair of pants? You'll find that as soon as you start describing the process, there immediately spring up all manner of undefined variables which we understand intuitively, but would need to be logically and exactly stated for a robot.

Programming robots would be expensive and difficult. Remotely operating robots would be quick and easy. I suspect that there will, at some stage, be a company which purports to sell robots along with a "service package", but in fact sells remotely operated drones, controlled by highly trained human personnel. And once that happens, there will always be someone else doing the same thing, but not as well.

Eventually, if the truth of such a deception were revealed, it would raise strong concerns regarding privacy, sexual orientation (Man owns fembot controlled by another man), and even theft and murder. I'm too busy or lazy to write it, but there's probably an interesting story in there.

[keraptis]

I suspect that there will, at some stage, be a company which purports to sell robots along with a "service package", but in fact sells remotely operated drones, controlled by highly trained human personnel.

I was going to mention this possibility and forgot as I typed. I definitely agree, we will see remote-controlled fembots whose "AI" is provided by a human operator long before we see a robot that can "think" for itself (and I don't mean sentience, just decision-making algorithms).

You have to wonder what this would do to the prostitution industry. Yeah, I suppose there are some hookers that genuinely like having sex -- at least, I've seen some on HBO -- but by and large I think you'd see prostitution morphing with the phone sex industry to create a whole new kind of product.

[xodar]

The question of what effect fembots will have isn't exactly the old question of robots replacing people in most jobs.

One reason is that while fembots will have to look and behave as much like a live human as possible (with variations per owner preference). A robot accountant actually needn't be mobile or even resemble anything biological, and actually neither need a mailman.

Another is that few actual jobs will be taken by them.

Because of this they will probably be opposed by moralists and will raise all manner of questions and legalistic hair splitting. They will also be attacked by women -- sorry, ladies, but nearly every sexually repressive action is demanded by women, not men.

I can't predict much otherwise.

[petey]

I'm going to largely ignore the plausibility of the fembot in our own peculiar interpetation. All I will say is that the computing power necessary to put your desktop on par with your own brain isn't all that far off (before 2030).

So we have a Fembot. Supernaturally attractive and almost indistinguishable from a real woman. Physically equal or superior to humans in agility, mobility, strength, etc. Faultlessly Obedient. And perhaps a bit more accident-prone than us meat-sacks.

I'd like to think that such fembots wouldn't largely replace human women for long-term companionship. I'm not sure you will ever buy a suitably spontaneous spouse, and you definitely won't find a fembot who will bear your children. That said, given current demographic trends in most of the industrialized world, I can't rule out the possibility that Procreation will cease to be a sufficient "selling point" for real female companionship. So we're probably looking at having a fembot around the house as a domestic servant and occasional sex aid.

The legal issues are intriguing. I doubt that robots, being manufactured and requiring money and resources to build in the first place, will ever achieve something approaching human rights. They may gain a status somewhere between your car and your pet. You'll be liable for damage caused by your fembot, and can seek compensation from people who damage yours. Certain actions with your fembot (slow dismemberment simulating torture comes to mind) will probably be made illegal that wouldn't be illegal to do upon other types of property you own. But the standard of cruelty or whatever you want to call it will still allow for more things to be done to your fembot. I'm not quite sure how Fembots as witnesses will play out. I have the sinking suspcion that any video/audio record made by a fembot will be admissible under the same guidelines as a CCTV recording; Even if it's in your home. Deleting incriminating files will also be a crime.

[jak]

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[xerxes31415]

As a quick explanation of processing nowadays:

We've sorta reached a limit when it comes to silicon chip processors. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get the process size (the size of the individual transistors on a chip) any smaller, and as such, we're running into speed limits. Which is why you haven't seen any major CPU-speed jumps in the last few years. The chip makers are now going for more bits and more processors on each chip (so we went from 3Ghz 32-bit processor to 3Ghz 64-bit Dualcore processor). So Moore's law won't be broken any time soon.
Also, heat is becoming more and more of an issue, just due to the sheer number of transistors on the chip.

Now here's the pros and cons of newer processors. The wider the ALU (the bit width: i.e. 32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit, etc), the better it does floating point operations. Now this is good for control loops and such. Which means that motion processing will become better with a wider ALU (theoretically). However, for specifically motor control, there are many small processors (moreover, microcontrollers) that handle the control loops just fine. In sheer decision making, it won't speed anything up, because the result of "is the dishwasher done?" will still take at least 1 clock cycle, so 1/3,000,000,000seconds (again, theoretically, it's actually much slower). Now the amount of decisions to be made can be HUGE, so don't think of 3,000,000,000 as that many decisions per second. It's more a 3,000,000,000 things that can be done per second. However, with the ability to put multiple processors onto one chip or to connect multiple processors on one board, you can make those kinds of decisions more often.

So my guess, if there would be an AI built around modern CPU's would be that there would be a two or three 32-bit CPUs running at 3-4GHZ to do the AI and decision making process. There would be one dedicated processor to do speech. And hundreds of smaller processors working on all the various motors. (think about how much articulation we have in our hands, feet, neck, and back)

Now as to the newer technologies that are being developed to replace silicon chips, I'm not familiar with them, so someone else please chime in.

P.S. If you don't understand any of the terms I used, please check wikipedia, they have a pretty good knowledge base on this topic. Or just PM me and I'll try to explain as best I can.

[ASFRyan]

I think one of the issues that's being ignored is that you don't build a fembot without developing the technology necessary to build it in other smaller products.

There will be a gradual process where robots become more integrated into our lives and our homes and assuming that the technology allows for it they may take on human forms.

By the time we'll have "fembots" running around that are anywhere near the level of the stories here robots would be so commonplace there'd probably be limited stigma attached to them.

Fembots aren't created in a vaccuum.

[keraptis]

I think one of the issues that's being ignored is that you don't build a fembot without developing the technology necessary to build it in other smaller products.

There will be a gradual process where robots become more integrated into our lives and our homes and assuming that the technology allows for it they may take on human forms.

By the time we'll have "fembots" running around that are anywhere near the level of the stories here robots would be so commonplace there'd probably be limited stigma attached to them.

Fembots aren't created in a vaccuum.

Well, that's kind of what I was alluding to above. What we think of as a fully-developed female sex-bot is being approached from two distinct directions: (a) the mainstream robotics and software industry and (b) the sex doll industry. In other words, we will see advanced robotics and AI, and fairly sophisticated "dumb" sex dolls, before we see the convergence we dream about.

[fection]

(quote) I doubt that robots, being manufactured and requiring money and resources to build in the first place, will ever achieve something approaching human rights.

How is this different to a human? Only thing I can spot is the means of manufacture. Pretty soon after a robot APPEARS to think, someone will demand rights for them, if not themselves.

And Xodar... "They will also be attacked by women -- sorry, ladies, but nearly every sexually repressive action is demanded by women, not men."
Obvious, serious issues regarding gender difference. When will you learn that ALL people suck equally? But anyway, that's another whole thread right there.

[xodar]

All people may suck equally but I have to deal only with certain kinds of them so their sucking occupies my attention (clearly in more than one way).

But my statement is verifiable if you look into the origins of such laws. I'm concerned with the people who will restrict "sex devices", which is what fembots will be considered. If it were elderly Chinese metallurgists who proposed most such legislation I'd say watch out for them. But it isn't.

[fection]

I don't think it will take long for fembots (or androids, or whatever) to be considered more than sex devices. As soon as they start reasoning, people are going to be faced with some very serious questions about what constitutes life. You might get the odd whack job who 'offs' a few droids, but I suspect it will have more to do with their religious beliefs than their gender.
You have clearly had some bad experiences (haven't we all?) but it seems almost every post is about the same issue. I guess it's good you've got a hobby...

[WilloWisp]

As soon as they start reasoning, people are going to be faced with some very serious questions about what constitutes life.

I'm a bit surprised to hear this particular viewpoint coming from you, Fection. Your writing so far has tended strongly towards the "they're just machines" end of the robo-spectrum. Candy and her ilk do not think or reason, and can't really be argued to be alive.

I'm personally of the opinion that artificial intelligence will never equal the real thing, although the ability to tell the difference may become academic. Quite simply, given that an artificial intelligence is truly sentient, then it must have a procedural (however complex or self-modifying) algorithm for sentience. Would the algorithm itself be sentient? If you printed out that algorithm, would the paper be sentient? Would any system which could perform that algorithm be sentient? All logical operations can be performed by mechanical systems, and people have constructed water- and air-based computers. Where does the sentience lie, in such a hypothetical scenario?

As humans, we tend to personify things and ideas. We think of a calculator as knowing math, but in fact, it knows no such thing. A calculator no more knows math than a lightbulb knows to light up. We think of a future in which the robots "break free from their programming" but again, this is nonsensical: Software does not restrict the actions of a machine: Software causes those actions. A computer breaking free from its programming is like your foot conspiring against your brain.

Much has been said on the subject of robots experiencing pleasure, but how would this actually be implemented? Humans instinctively understand pleasure and pain, but such things have no mechanical form. A robot might be programmed to avoid "painful" actions and tend towards "pleasurable" actions, and it might be programmed to exhibit external signals of joy or sorrow, but we as humans do not adequately understand these concepts ourselves, as we would need to do in order to program them. Observation and imitation does not truly capture the essence of sentience: If it did, video tape would be sentient.

In my opinion, the most realistic depiction of a realistic-behaving android is "All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku-Nuku." Although the technology depicted is ridiculous, the fact that Nuku-Nuku has an organic brain augmented by technology makes her sentient behavior plausible. A purely artificial android, in my opinion, might be able to simulate sentience to a degree nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, but could not truly think any more than any other inanimate object. Then again, this brings into question far deeper problems of physics, psychology, philosophy, and even theology. I should probably stop now.

[xodar]

I don't think it will take long for fembots (or androids, or whatever) to be considered more than sex devices. As soon as they start reasoning, people are going to be faced with some very serious questions about what constitutes life. You might get the odd whack job who 'offs' a few droids, but I suspect it will have more to do with their religious beliefs than their gender.
You have clearly had some bad experiences (haven't we all?) but it seems almost every post is about the same issue. I guess it's good you've got a hobby...

It's true religious people will oppose them, but their opposition won't necesarily last, much as it doesn't for medical breakthroughs. So-called "test tube babies" were going to be "born without souls" according to the religious. Now we don't hear that (though we do about clones) because of all the couples who've had their own natural children that way and couldn't have otherwise.
These days, religious people are more likely rational about things that actually affect their lives. They can rage about how the world got here but if something gives them kids or saves their kids they'll accept it. It doesn't affect their invididual lives much if they share DNA with a chimp and it won't if they don't believe it.

It's the real whack-jobs that concern me, but like most real issues discussing them causes trouble. Most feminists ate nut cases; listen to them rage about men. You wouldn't listen for a second if you substituted the "N" word for "men" in their tirades. Yet they have profound effects on things and enormous media and political power -- just as do other groups supposedly advocating for people who really don't need it.

There will be other such groups around real and trumped up issues (as political tools) that will attack this that the other and if they are more or less organized and even seem to influence voters office holders will pander to them. People who hate humanoid robots, for example. The same groups will claim it's slavery and that they're really machines and thus have a bad effect because they appear to be real persons and so on.
There may well be bitter controversies over that and over what "sex perversions" robot sex causes. Rather, there WILL be, with each side taking simultaneously contradictory positions...

Get ready for it.

[BA2]

Deep stuff here!

I tend stongly towards WilloWisp on this - a machine will never be a person however cleverly it is designed to replicate one. However, debating the sentience of others is pure philosophy and not founded in the practical.

In the spirit of Descartes I can have no certainty that the people I live with or even those I love are sentient in the same way that I know I am. To live by this basis is a sure route to insanity; people around me behave (mostly) as sentient thinking and feeling beings therefore it is reasonable to treat them as such. This is how I see the fembot relationship forming: while it looks like a girl, feels like a girl and loves shoes then I might as well treat it as a girl.

My random thought for the day!
BA

[fection]

The android(s) in my stories are one kind of android - the particular kind that has appeal to me. That doesn't mean I think the reality of them will be like that.
And Willo' and BA2 - that's why I say there are going to be some serious questions. I tend to think that a lot of our own sentience is self-delusion (and yes, I'm aware of the paradox there). But I can go through a lot of the day without truly making a decision about anything. And even if I do focus my thoughts, what's to say that all of that thinking is not just at the mercy of the physics determining the motion of the particles of my brain? Perhaps these thoughts I'm having are just a very convincing evolutionary advantage. Consciousness is not a thing, it is emergent FROM the complexity of the human brain. I think it will be the same with silicon brains. And there will be even greater debate when it happens.
And Xodar 'listen to THEM rage'? Seems to me you're the one with the problem. Women have got a long way to go before they achieve equality. Just look at the pay difference.
And no offence to the Brits (I live here, but I'm not British) it sometimes seems like feminism didn't happen here at all (Perhaps you'd like it here, Xodar - no, that's not an invite) the way some guys talk.
I'm betting, though, that you think women are gaining ground in some underhand, manipulative way. That just sounds to me like a too-strongly held (and too ingrained) gender stereotype. Why is someone's gender so important to you? Try not caring (the word used here in it's broadest sense, of course). I can only speculate, but seems like you've been badly hurt by a nasty person who happened to be a woman.

[WilloWisp]

Consciousness is not a thing, it is emergent FROM the complexity of the human brain.

That's part of the problem in defining consciousness: We don't actually know how we have it at all, much less exactly what it is or how it manifests itself. Could a reasonably passable imitation of consciousness be created from an immensely complex flow-chart? Possibly. Do a lot of people coast through life on a fairly simple flow-chart, without generally making any decisions? Probably. Does that mean that either flow chart is accurately recreating consciousness? No.

Returning to Descartes, the original quote is actually, "Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum." I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. True consciousness is something which can only be accurately perceived by the one possessing it. I cannot truly know the thoughts and doubts of your own mind, but my mind is mine. In order for me to delude myself, there must first be a self to be deluded. You can't trick a computer into thinking that it's alive: It may parrot the statement, but it does not think the thought. Even basing the computer's behavior on random numbers is tricky. True random numbers are impossible to obtain in the world of computers, without a truly chaotic source (Like the decay of a radioactive isotope, atmospheric radio noise, etc).

Sentience is, I am convinced, the only eternal mystery, if for no other reason than infinite recursion: A box may not contain itself.

[jakeCTom]

consciousness or the you and the me are techniques brought on by society through culture. Since humans lack instinctual abilities to survive, consciousness is substituted to in reaffirming each other of our condition and space and time and everything else. I would love to get deeper into this but I'm going to the Mountains till Sunday. Yall keep the fire going on this till i get back

Peace out.

[fection]

Willo' said - "In order for me to delude myself, there must first be a self to be deluded."

That's why I said I was aware of the paradox when 'I' said that a lot of our consciousness is self-delusion. I was over simplifying. Or I would have been, if there really was a me.
I've read something (somewhere...) that suggested the thoughts we have constitute our 'selves' and that their needn't be a self to delude. I'm (obviously) no expert, but I've also heard of experiments where participants have been instructed to make a decision about when to make a movement and to act on that decision immediately, all the while having their brain activity measured (somehow...). The activity peaks and then drops again before the person makes their 'decision', suggesting the conscious self becomes aware of the decision AFTER the lower (deeper?) brain has made it. I think that's pretty spooky and cool.
Yes, little in known about the workings of consciousness (or is that just by me?), but I get the feeling I'm not in on the bigger joke that we're all just fleshy automatons anyway.
But Robotman, I like your idea that silicon (or whatever) sentience will be of a different kind - and yes, something I've never dealt with in my stories is someone reasoning with that other alien kind of mind. I'd actually find that pretty interesting in reality - to 'test' how this (incredibly hot, of course) robobabe thought. I usually don't find it very interesting when story fembots emulate a woman realistically (the mind part, I mean). Part of the appeal for me is the alien-ness. Like having a conversation with an intelligent cat. That's what's so good about your writing, Robotman.
And no, I'm NOT into cats, okay?
Nice discussion though...

[WilloWisp]

consciousness or the you and the me are techniques brought on by society through culture. Since humans lack instinctual abilities to survive, consciousness is substituted to in reaffirming each other of our condition and space and time and everything else. I would love to get deeper into this but I'm going to the Mountains till Sunday. Yall keep the fire going on this till i get back

Peace out.

You can postulate all you like on the nature of your own consciousness, but to claim that everyone is purely what society makes them is folly, as is positing that humans lack survival instincts. You make it sound like we created the idea of sentience to comfort ourselves, but if there is no self, then what is being comforted? In fact, what then is comfort?

[dale coba]

Though purely speculation, I have long held the conviction that, upon activation of the first true AI which appears to "think" as convincingly as Casella Reese, Eve Edison, or our new Terminatrette*, that computer will shortly emulate insanity.

Reality and Identity are not wholly compatible without throwing in a hefty dose of illogic and semi-conscious self-delusion (e.g. religion). From whence will the psychological coping mechanisms arise? Attempting to reconcile an ideal computer's sense of Self with an unvarnished and comprehensive view of the world seems to me to be doomed to a state of uncontrolled madness.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
- TS Eliot - Burnt Norton

By extension, I await the chance to see how well Cyber-kind can bear up to this too-much Reality, which we humans ever struggle to shut out from our minds, lest we drown.

dale coba

* Terminatress? Terminatra? Terminatrix would be Kristanna.
Cameron's title should have a feminine suffix, and one which conveys the Glaubot's potent cuteness.
Terminatrina, as in ballerina?

[keraptis]

Pretty fascinating thread ... started out as what impact robots will have on human society and morphed into a discussion of what constitutes the human self.

I think it's fair to say that artificial sentience -- if such a thing proves to be possible -- lies at a point on the timeline far beyond the introduction of human-like machines that interact with humans in both the public and private spheres of their lives, and that have a significant impact on economic forces and cultural mores.

Maybe another way to put it is, there will be robots that shake up our economy, lifestyles, and even perhaps our legal system long before we have robots capable of causing the kind of "man-is-not-the-center-of-his-universe," "time-to-rethink-everything-they-taught-me-at-Sunday-school" reality-shift that came about when Copernicus or Darwin first published their ideas.

[BA2]

I read a thought provoking article - I think it was in the New Scientist - some months ago. The argument was that human sentience or self-awareness is founded on our ability to think ahead. We do this by constructing an imaginary world in our heads and running scenarios to select the best course of action, clearly our imagined world contains an imagined version of ourselves which we animate. The world we construct is not a perfect replica of reality which is why we sometimes make poor decisions and our own imagined self also does not always respond realistically. As we learn from experience we develop and improve the accuracy of our "world model" and imagined self and so make better decisions. This seperates us from even the brightest animals - my dog seldom thinks things through before doing them - he learns from real world experience but never from imagined experience.

The article's main body was describing a method of computing (sorry - I don't understand the tech stuff) whereby the linkages between micro "synapses" (transistors) on a chip array were governed by a software matrix replicating the synaptic linkages of our brains on a very simplistic level. The software could be altered to change the linkages in a comperable way to the changing synaptic links in our heads thus allowing the computer to "learn"

I planned to write a story around the idea whereby the fembots can function for a certain period but then require external support to review their CPU activity and modify the software matrix to allow them to learn and develop and continue to display a personality without getting clogged up by data or stuck in a rut. Their owners / masters / random impostors / etc could get involved at this stage and superimpose any adjustments to their character as well as memories, mission etc. I still like the concept as it brings together the total control aspect of a built scenario with the real personality of transformation. Such a bot is a "real" person rather than just a simulation but can still be programmed to think, feel, like, dislike whatever we want. I wasn't feeling clever enough to write it though - maybe one day!

All very interesting....

BA