Robots in television — particularly comedic television — are usually human-like in ways that very few sane programmers would deem useful. It can be something as simple as being philosophical (wanting to understand human emotion, wondering if they have a soul, etc.), but can extend to such things as robot social cliques, robot food, robot entertainment, robot religion, and even robot marrage. It doesn't matter if it makes no sense in the context of a mechanical servant, or even if it's truly undesirable, the designers have put it in there for some twisted reason. This will often take the form of having an Artificial Human, a robot that looks exactly like a human.
The degree to which this is actually varies depending on the setting. In some cases they get a free pass - it may be that an intelligence, artificial or not, needs to be vaguely human-like in its basic outlines, with emotions, interests, motivations, et cetera simply to be functional for certain tasks, such as those requiring a great deal of long-term autonomy. On the other hand, perhaps humans prefer some bots not to behave like automated teller machines. Or it may be, if human intelligence itself is merely an evolved set of functions held together in an evolved psychological architecture, that any society with sufficiently ubiquitous and flexible automation will necessarily have the means to produce something human-like. Whatever serves the needs of the well-reasoned plot or setting.
There are the five typical levels, though machine intelligences between these five grades are common:
1.Brick: somewhat autonomous, stupid, uncreative robots. Your basic auto factory assembly line.
2.Robo-Animals: Cute and intuitive, act just like animals. That is to say, clever and surprisingly instinctual.
3.Average Joe Android: Very good memories and math skills, but usually lack interpersonal skills, creativity and/or emotion.
4.Nobel-Bot: Just like Joe Android, but with a superior intellect capable of cracking most scientific problems in picoseconds.
5.God Of the Machines: The god AIs will be so far advanced that scaling them would be futile, but they usually have grades between each other, and may even still puzzle at Emmotions.
Robots being 'family' is nevertheless a common trait in sci-fi. After all, if robots can get married, be human-like and be loyal friends, it makes perfect sense that robots would develop their own sense of family.
How seriously this term is applied usually depends on how human-like they are, how well characters regard robots, and how light the source material is. Sometimes the robots love each other just as much as any human family. Other times it's just a technical term used by humans.
The main types of family are as follows:
•Robot series: All of the robots are from the same 'series' or 'Brand' which usually share similar designs and are usually all based off an original prototype. This can sometimes even apply to more advanced machines that follow the 'spirit' of the original design or carry on their legacy.
•Same creator: All of the robots have the same creator, making them a 'father/mother' to all the robots and making them 'siblings'. Sometimes the creator actually treats their creations like children, although some can get a bit carried away. Expect when if a robotic 'son/daughter' turns against their creator. This usually overlaps with the above example, since the same creator would make similar robots. A builder treating his creation as his child is a trait dating back at least to Pinocchio.
•Replacements, clones or copies: When a robot is replaced with a better model, mass produced, or copied by another party, this technically makes the two robots 'brothers' even though they're essentially the same person in terms of design. One of the robots is usually an evil version of the other, especially if they're angry of the existence of their 'sibling'.
•Robot family: In a series where robots are allowed to live amongst humans, many robots form their own real robot 'family', usually by having robot parents making or adopting their children. Sometimes the siblings will look like they're 'related' but sometimes they can be mismatched.
Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:58 am
