From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 22 2003 - 18:32:44 MDT
Stargate has some pretty nice androids. Reese shows the dangers of
replicating nanotech and bad orders; she made some toys and told them to go
multiply and survive. Years later the Asgard are fighting for their lives
against these things. The second appearance of the upload-robots of SG-1 in
"Double Jeopardy" was pretty effective, too, from robot-Jack's "Hey George!"
(George Hammond being Jack's CO -- but the robot isn't in the chain of
command, hee hee) to the other two robot's stoicness in the face of torture.
Being fairly accurate replicas they could feel pain, but they could also
maintain an impassivity I doubt the biological originals could have.
Otherwise they were nice for acting largely like their originals, although I
guess that was mostly reflected by Jack. Between him fighting with himself
and Major Carter getting along with her alternate universe self we have a nice
demonstration that some people will be able to copy and cooperate and others
really won't get along with themselves.
The entity from the system of energy beings who are vulnerable to radio waves
was kind of cute too. Of course it was played by Amanda Tapping, so there's
interference there.
There's always the Culture, of course. Hard for me to pick out a single AI at
the moment, though. I guess others have done a better job at spelling out why
they pick a favorite, e.g. emotionality (showing it's independent of
substrate) or I guess just pathos (Hal). I keep hoping some TV show will show
the robots multiplying and self-modifying and being quirkily contemptuous of
'death' without being evil. Instead they keep getting killed off. The
Buffybot on "Buffy" got resurrected a couple of times but seems to have been
abandoned upon Buffy's return.
-xx- Damien X-)
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