Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

scout29c — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:19:05 GMT

I know what intelligent beings will intercept the Voyager spacecrafts − us. Space is so vast, the spacecrafts are traveling way too slow, and we are advancing so fast that we will develop the ability to catch up with the spacecraft long before they get anywhere near another solar system.

That is − if another natural or manmade disaster does not befall us. I think we could survive a major population destroying disaster but I’m not sure. A large meteor striking the earth or Yellowstone caldera erupting are two examples of events that have happened before and will happen again.

Both would be devastating for humanity; pushing population back to what it was 10,000 or even 100,000 years ago. Civilization would be destroyed. We’d practically have to start all over again. Imagine thousands of years from now, as science recovers and rediscovers the sciences much as we did after the Dark Ages, digging up today’s remains.

However, if this disaster occurred and we were knocked back to Stone Age populations, we would still recover and after hundreds if not thousands of years, we would still be the first to intercept the Voyager spacecraft. Space is that vast.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Dennis McClain-Furmanski, Dalworthington Gardens, Texas — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:07:13 GMT

Why cripple an otherwise highly capable machine by restricting it to the human form? They could be far more functional if built around their own needs rather than being built like a hairless ape. We don't build cars to mimic horses or marathon runners, we don't build airplanes to mimic birds, and we don't build submarines to mimic fish. To build a machine with the purpose of looking like, or biologically functioning like a human is an awful waste of functionality. There's 6.7 billion of us right now. If someone can't find a person for their partner and have to buy one, they're just not trying enough. If someone has to do this, there are plenty of humans performing that job, which leaves the robot jobs to the robots.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

drooling — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:47:43 GMT

what about the chick on 'Third Rock'?

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Alan Boyle — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:28:42 GMT

Dennis, I always like the way you think. You're absolutely right that alien robots needn't look like humanoid robots. In our own society, there will be a need for some robots that are structured roughly like humans because our world is designed for humans (e.g., doorknobs, stairs, elevators). There will also be a need for some robots that are totally unlike humans so they can do the things we can't (ratbots who can get inside a tight space, etc.)

The last part of your message is great, too. It's the converse of the famous phrase from Agent Smith in "The Matrix": "Never send a human to do a machine's job."

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

John Delphia, Troy, Michigan — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:27:51 GMT

I think that the first detection of extra-terrestrial life will probably be the light-signature of RNA or Chlorophyll around a superjovian exoplanet eclipsing its star, the biological material being in a ring around the giant presumably sputtered off from a habitable moon. The first sign of extra-terrestrial sentient life will probably be found from telerobotic archeological exploration of our moon, and be *very* old, maybe the best reason to go back and visit there.
If sentient life evolves through universally discoverable physical principles, then their technological outcomes when optimised should be very similar even if their precursor biology is very unique... so we would eventually assimilate with them when we *voluntarily become* them.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

S.B. Stein E.B. NJ — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:39:43 GMT

There is the question about artifical intelligence being good or bad as well as how far we develop cybernetic technology. It comes up in science fiction and role playing games all the time. As an example, Palladium Books (www.palladiumbooks.com) has an alien species of sorts called Mechanoids that were once human and now use their advanced cybernetic bodies to fight to destroy all bipeds; this is an example of how far thing could go.

How do we know what the first life form out there that we will meet is like? It could be a silcon based lifeform that isn't even aware. We won't know until we get there. When are we going?

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

ejt — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:11:33 GMT

Mass. will be the first state to legalize robot marriages....go figure.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Barney Rubble — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:51:59 GMT

That Rosie from the Jetsons was a hot piece of can!!!

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Alan Boyle — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:00:30 GMT

By the way, I've received a few e-mails to the "Battlestar Galactica in Eight Minutes" synopsis ... in case you need to be brought up to speed on what all the fuss is about:

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=224004

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Thought Shaman — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:19:25 GMT

Dennis McClain-Furmanski wrote "To build a machine with the purpose of looking like, or biologically functioning like a human is an awful waste of functionality... If someone can't find a person for their partner and have to buy one, they're just not trying enough..."

Firstly, humans are biological machines, however we may delude ourselves.

Your second statement is a false generalization. For instance, try finding a single vegan woman with no kids 25-35 years old in Houston, Texas.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Tim, Albany, NY — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:21:33 GMT

If you read this article, then the one i'm linking here would certainly be something that interests you.

http://keyholepublishing.com/whatarethey.html

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Doug, San Diego — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:24:58 GMT

Tricia Helfer is just so visually stunning as to appear ubermenschen, and has turned out to be a great actress. My fellow geeks are gathering for the premiere tonight, breath abated...

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

SMD, NY, NY — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:25:03 GMT

The majority of these prognostications ignore a much more likely development: the use of genetic engineering to create artificial gene sequences that express as artificial organs with technological functions. If taken to its limits, this foresees a day when most of the human genome has been transformed in a way that allows our descendants - if they will be considered Homo sapiens - to reconfigure their structural and functional biology at will while remaining, in a very basic but essential way, human.

This is very different from "building" a robotic entity that evolves into human form - and is an area where first steps have already been taken. Witness J. Craig Venter's progress in synthetic biology at syntheticgenomics.com, or the programmable artificial genome that expresses as artificial protoplasm, developed in Japan.

It is true that a future 50,000 years hence will undoubtedly be, as is often said, not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine - but I'd give anything to see it.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Da — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:57:04 GMT

I believe that humans are machines engineered by an outside force at some point in time. A body composed of organic compounds with DNA programming.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Carlton, Orange, CA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:18:51 GMT

The Twilight Zone (The Body Electric), AI, Commander Data... It is not beyond humanity to delude ourselves into forming emotional relationships with robots. While Hollywood is not reality, the idea of intimacy with a cyborg is ingrained in our culture.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

john , new york , new york — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:18:54 GMT

Transhumanity is the way to go. why would anyone want to exist as a useless human? So flawed and weak. We will become robots one day mark my words it will be a great day indeed. Mind uploading will bring us to a whole new level.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Mark, South Bend, IN — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:44:14 GMT

This was great, as a sci fi fan and a scientist, I'm convinced only machine intelligences could live long enough to make interstellar journeys and still stay interested. But John Wright said that really nicely in his story "Guest Law".

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Gabe Jones, San Rafael, CA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:51:47 GMT

The assumption that an advanced alien robot would look anything like what we imagine as robots is false. The most advanced technology we've ever seen is the life on this planet. Inevitably, technology will more closely resemble life, not the other way around.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Adam, Brisbane, Australia — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:26:48 GMT

Gabe Jones makes an interesting point, and the extreme error correction abilities and radiation tolerance of microbes like Deinococcus radiodurans does make me wonder if Life here began as Someone's "Nanotechnology At Home" kit on a planet in a different part of our Galaxy.

In the 4 billion years since Life arrived here, impacts and electrostatics have been lofting bacteria into deep space, seeding nearby star systems, gas clouds and protoplanetary disks. I really wonder if there will be Life as we don't know it, since our brand of Life has been spread far and wide. And when that Life comes back to visit, I've no doubt it will be a mixture of natural and artificial. Bacteria trade genetic code between themselves all the time, and evidence of borrowed code in other living things is accumulating - if humans (and aliens) modify Life to create new nanotech-based robots, then we'll be doing nothing that Nature hasn't been doing for aeons.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Max Von Woodrow — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 05:35:39 GMT

One must be careful when referring to the series Battlestar Galactica because of the original series which aired over thirty years ago. Those aliens might have been mistaken for robots because of the shining lights and translucent skin which many of them, especially their leaders, sported, as part of their metabolism, their unique biology. I might not be spelling this correctly, but those aliens, that pursued Lorne Greene and and his lost fleet of earth space ships, were known as Psilons, pronounced "sigh-lonns". They are a race of semi humanoid people that exist in a galaxy to the south, so to speak, a galaxy called Alpha Centauri. Their unique metabolism and biology is that their "flesh and bones" are a highly evolved "rubber" flesh, similar to the consistency of "Rubbermaid" items, which we earthlings buy to use as laundry hampers or trash cans, rubber, that is, not Psilon flesh. They eat fruit and vegetables which do not have a lot of starch, which tends to plug them up and make them gummy. Fruit cocktail, the mixture of cherries, grapes, pears, oranges, and melon bits, is their staple diet. The lighted flesh effect that many of them have is due to a similar chemical reaction that our bio-systems view when we watch fireflies and lightning bugs in the summer. The Psilons contacted our galaxy by mistake, sort of, while aiming their communications beacons toward two other galaxies, Gamma Trianguli and Beta Origi. The best help that Psilons could give to our civilisation is twofold. One problem they could help us with is time machine guidance for a generation of "Ebenezer Scrooges", who have apparently tangled themselves in the spirit world, ghost dimension, while trying to get rich beyond their wildest dreams. Another way they might be able to aid humanity is through contact with the ancients, such as the rulers of Atlantis, another time machine group, and the Pharaohs of ancient times, who seem to have installed a goofy God named "Ra" as the leader of a mirage dimension, despoiling Starfleet coordination of government activities on the seventeen known earth like planets, which have 21st century technology. A third way the Psilons could aid our century is by giving us a detailed study on what they have noticed about "robot", that is, seemingly uncontrolled, flying saucers, which are an evolution all their own. It seems the Psilons know more about independent flying intelligent vessels, and computers that evolve from simple ice floes into computers in the sky, than we do. C3P0 and the Jawars, "jaywars", of Starwars fame are Psilons. R2D2 is a member of the evolved thinking androids, a commander of the flying saucer groups. R2 and the Jawars might help us understand Psilons. I don't know how helpful C3P0 might be, but I do think he has at least tried to understand his own origins, if not anyone else's.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Dennis, Orlando, Florida — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:17:03 GMT

It would be great to believe we, as a civilization, could actually advance far enough to create robots with artificial intelligence advanced enough to mimic our thinking process.
But let's get real.
In just a little over 100 years we've managed to punch holes in the ozone layer large enough to greatly accelerate the melting of the glaciers. And, if this keeps up we'll increase the water levels in the oceans about 25 feet losing miles of the coastlines and most of Florida. That's selfishly only considering the United States.
In the same time we've created a global oil consumption monster that's totally out of control. Who really knows what the effects of sucking millions of barrels of oil out of the earth every day will be? Probably something along the lines of when we have a bit of a drought in Florida. For those of you who haven't experienced this it's called sinkholes from hell. You really can't believe that gutting the innards of sphere will not eventually collapse it, can you?
What I'm getting at is if we keep consuming our resources and expunging pollutants at such a gluttonous rate we'll never make 500 years, as an industrialized world, let alone 50,000.
We may be better advised to utilize our intellectual resources on resolving these problems first.
Then again, maybe we'll need to find a new world to invade? Someplace new to screw up?

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

JOHN EASTMAN, ALTADENA CA. 91001 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:25:11 GMT

It's a big leap to assume that any alien life is more advanced and capable. Life on other planets could resemble our early stages with no outside influence to alter it. E.G., their "dinosaurs" may still be thriving. They might be microbes. It's possible we are the most advanced life form. Why is that so hard to consider?

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

G. Dozier, Salem Or. — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:04:14 GMT

OH, to let the imagination soar!! And then crash back down to a crowded, polluted Earth.You think technology,
I see an over crowded planet with the human population
battling to eke out a life against a robotized police force bellowing "ORDER", "ORDER"!!in three languages.
Good luck on reaching Alpha Centauri.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Delmar Fairchild, Barron, WI — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:53:28 GMT

Dennis should move out of Florida as quickly as possible. Opps, I read where this year the temperature will be cooler than normal all year. Oh well, so much for screwing up the world this year.

There are some really great thoughts written by everyone above. What about the idea that we already have gotten this far hundreds of thousands or maybe only a few thousand years ago, (before our newly recorded time span of 6 thousand years) had a catastrophe, regressed, progressed and are now up to speed on what we already knew "back then". Read the Sanskrits. They are among the first recorded history.
I always have thought that because we are a portion of the big bang then we must be the same as the rest of the Universe. Same elements, same laws. If we are, then there is nothing new to be learned, it is in us only yet to be brought out for use.
The possibilities of "Univeral seeding" has been given a shot in the arm by finding the Mars rock... Life in it or not, it is from Mars. An alien visitor. We probably have had billions of such visitors from outer space over the Earth's history. Some have said Water may have come to Earth from Comets... Water is on an extraordinary amount of planets and moons in our solar system and in other galaxies. Water and everything else we know about is throughout the universe. The same elements and the same laws. Nothing new. Whatever is out there is here already and we probably don't have to go out there to find it. We will attempt it though because we are curious or is it because we have an inherent drive to connect with "the rest".

Some of the authors here seem to think that human kind is a terrible species, and that we should all be robots and our human selves should die out because of our selfishness. Such terrible things that we are. After all we are going to change the shape of the eastern seacoast where all the fancy homes are. (Maybe again, only for the ten thousandth time in the history of Earth will it have been changed by something.) Nothing stays the same forever. It just changes form.

Take a look at the fossil records we are finding every day now. What do they all have in common? They all look like animals that are on Earth today. They have legs, heads, tails, bones, scales or feathers or smooth skin. Someone once said that "locomotion is life". To move on ones own, there must be intelligence or energy used in some form. Our intelligence in just an electrical charge from a reaction between chemicals in our mineralized watery bodies. There are limited ways life can move and we represent every kind in the universe. Prove me wrong. Nothing new here.

If any robot doesn't look exactly like a human or animal, it will look like one minute aspect of a human or animal. As Alan said, like a ratbot to get into something small. Even if they are as minute as our DNA, all robots will have to follow specific commands and look like a part of us to function as we need them to. They have to after all, we will design them.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Ryan Hall, Midlothian, Virginia — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:57:46 GMT

Once again, egghead astronomers have presented an incredibly narrow prediction. The anthropocentrism of these people is astounding and terribly disappointing. It breaks my heart to so often read of these scientists prejudicing our potential for discovery with this juvenile arrogance that directs us to discount any possibility that cannot currently be reconciled with our tiny, woefully incomplete understanding of the world.
"Humanity will never traverse space at relative speeds greater than that of light" - because we cannot at present conceive of how that might be possible.
"Liquid water is a prerequisite for life anywhere" - because liquid water is a prerequisite for life here.
"If humanity contacts extraterrestrial intelligence, it will be artificial" - because that's what our underdeveloped musings dictate at present.
This shamefully juvenile sort of reasoning is counterproductive at best - allowing oneself to essentially arbitrarily prescribe the parameters of reality from a position of relative ignorance is the surest method I can think of (short of outright propaganda) to obscure its true nature. The time has come that we ask ourselves about our true motivations. Are we out to discover and learn, or to make the universe in our eyes as we would have it be?

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

3/6 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:59:52 GMT

Resistance is futile......

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

To Serve Man — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:01:17 GMT

I wonder "Do aliens taste like chicken?"

I also wonder, "Have they asked the same question?"

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Delmar Fairchild, Barron, WI — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:09:45 GMT

Ryan, water is the prerequisite of our life. We are looking to outer space for our preceived well being. While we are looking, we will find "the others" that do not require water so why would we spend the money and effort to look for any type of life that is not dependant on water as the first prerequisite of space exploring? Why would any life "out there" that can live without water be looking for water borne life such as us? They will find us and possibly skip over us, because we are useless to them just as we will think "they" are useless to us.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

David H, Dallas, TX — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:55:40 GMT

It is not the limited imaginations of writers so much as the the limited capabilities of non-humanoid actors that constrains the kind of intelligent beings we usually encounter on TV and in movies.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

W.D., Santa Clara County, California — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:55:35 GMT

We'll be so lucky someday to find some alien beings who have the unique disposition of only telling lies, and as such, constantly admit to doing so.

Alien robots ... with sex appeal?

Rita new york NY — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:00:28 GMT

Its really interesting how different people read the same thing and understand it completely differently...
I was actually quite pleased to read the astronomers point of view and found it thrilling to think that even from a scientific standpoint there is a large possibility of running into our neighbors - whereas Ryan read it as a kill to that possibility...
I particularly found interesting the theory of life starting on Mars and ending up here.
I think that is wonderful thought to theorize