From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Mar 11 1999 - 12:02:32 MST
"Billy Brown" <bbrown@conemsco.com> writes:
> What do you think about the organic body approach to humanoid robotics? I'm
> thinking it solves a lot of problems with appearance, power supply and
> mechanical reliability, but I'm not sure how bad the interface problem would
> be. I'd certainly expect neural interface technology to be advanced enough
> by 2020 to allow computerized muscle control, but what about the more subtle
> issues?
Tricky. Growing entire clones is likely rather expensive and slow,
since you want to get them to an adult size and it is not clear this
can be easily achieved even with hormone therapy. And development
without brains (yucky but IMHO ethical) is likely stunted, so they
have to grow with neurointerfaces in place to provide stimulation. In
the end I think this will be done if we get an overall transhuman
trend where people tend to regard individuality as more based on
mental pattern than physical composition (which makes the clones more
acceptable) and more and more advanced interfacing technologies
culminating in uploading (which would create a big market for these
bodies when visiting physical reality). But this trend might take a
long time to occur, making humanoid biological robots rather
remote. Still, animal robots might be much closer - remember the
experiments on controlling roach movements or using moth antennas as
sensors. Maybe the zoophiles will get sexbots first :-)
The more modular solution, where muscles and other tissues are put
together in a more artificial way than growing them all together, is
likely simpler to get a bit along the way with (muscles in nutrient
baths, stimulated by electrical impulses etc). Unfortunately I think
making a believable whole humanoid out of them is extremely hard, and
it might be simpler to go for the clone or a well-crafted synthetic
body.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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