21 thoughts on “The Valley”

  2. “I suspect that at some point this technology is really going to be driven by the s3x toy industry.”

    I expect serious attempts to ban this, much as prostitution is banned. I don’t know whether they’ll succeed or not.

  3. Could be very interesting with regard to telecommuting and behind the counter service jobs – like the DMV, hotel reception desks, supermarket checkouts, etc. And once that process starts, increasing automation could slowly creep in. Being able to out source and/or automate low level service jobs to say India or Mexico would greatly increase productivity. Telecommuting fruit picking and such like from low wage countries should similarly be possible (say functioning torso with arms on the end of a boom).

  5. It is cool how Japan wants to turn their science fiction into science reality.

    Only a matter of time before they make a real Gundam.

  6. “I expect serious attempts to ban this, much as prostitution is banned. I don’t know whether they’ll succeed or not.”

    It would be tough to draw a legal line between this, and less sophisticated…toys.

  7. Whenever I’ve read a Science Fiction story featuring androids, (even electric sheep), I’ve always thought ‘Nah… Why would we bother making humanoid robots. Robots’ll look like they need to look to do their robot things. Maybe people will change but making machines that look like people is stupid.’

    I guess I was wrong. People really do want to make friends.

  9. I suspect that at some point this technology is really going to be driven by the s3x toy industry.

    You say that like it’s a bad thing.

  13. Millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours of work just to create a robot middle-aged white guy. That’s what I call progress.

    As everyone knows, the real threat to the traditional family is not “gay marriage”. It is the anime-style teenage girl sexaroid. Once this technology becomes affordable by the common man, marriage as we know it is over. 仕方がない…

    Criswell predicts that in the future all movies will star a lifelike, robotic version of Robert Downey, Junior. God help us all…

  14. Meanwhile you have people investigating human-like responses and interactions with robotic dogs.. one day the robotics community will actually start working together.

  15. “I suspect that at some point this technology is really going to be driven by the s3x toy industry.”

    Evidently that point has not yet been reached: “Scharfe’s wife though, prefers the original.”

  17. I see this, except for the Real Doll industry, as a sterile research field. For almost all normal purposes an image of a person is all that’s needed — and this will be provided by direct digital effects techniques, not by constructing something out of plastic and gears and actuators.

  18. “Robots’ll look like they need to look to do their robot things. Maybe people will change but making machines that look like people is stupid”

    There is an advantage to having the robots be humanoid shape. That way the ergonomics of the task that they are delegated to perform will still be fashioned towards a two handed upright walking construct. The role of said task could then be accomplished by a human if a robot was not handy or vice versa.

  19. Hm, wouldn’t androids be useful in the construction sector?

    Non-union humans in the robotics sector building androids to displace unionized construction jobs – win!

  21. “Millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours of work just to create a robot middle-aged white guy. That’s what I call progress.”

    But like beauty, ‘middle-aged white guy’s’ only the outermost layer, readily altered. It gives the concept of different ‘skins’ for your application, a more literal meaning…

    “Adrianne Barbeaubot! rather than a Cherry2000?”

    I’ll take a good knock-off of Catherine Asaro’s ‘Alpha’ (from the novel of the same name), myself. Second choice: ‘Rhoda’ from Julie Newmar’s ‘My Living Doll’ days, or Eve Edison (Yancy Butler) in the short-lived ‘Mann & Machine’ series (1992)…

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