Battleangel

Yes, it’s one of those days when you can’t tell up from down. And for some reason I strayed into the subject of anthropomorphic creations. Or androids if you’re into robotic science. Anthropomorphic = “Suggesting human characteristics for animals or inanimate things”.

It seems that some peoples projects are even more up in the blue than mine. I’m thinking of “Valerie, a Domestic Android” for instance. As for creating a life-like android I have to commend them for their effort .. but .. does any of this work? Does it amount to anything? It seems to me that they are approaching the subject a bit backwards.

For one they seem to have spent 90% of their time molding parts for the exterior of the android. How nice. But that doesn’t really enable it to DO anything. And indeed this makes it different from any other android project that is listed on the AndroidWorld webpage. I.e. looks and charm before functionality.

And this is where we stand today, at a crossroad in robotic science. Every year we shrink and develop new power sources like fuel cells, nanoscopic anodes/cathodes and engineered bacterial batteries. And every year androids get closer to actually being useful. Now and again we note a major breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence and Fuzzy Logic.

The human mind however is not so easily impressed. Will we be satisfied by anything less than an exact replica of ourselves? I think not. So from this point of view I can understand their effort. If you can’t create the perfect android today, why not start fiddleing with good looks (which we already know we are fixated on) instead of focusing on the actual engineering and programming. In the end we need all three so for the final verdict I’d like to say that this is still a fresh breeze. Despite of being slightly backwards.

While being stuck in this nick of the woods I also happened to pick up GyP Imaginæ. It’s one of those discretion-advised-sites. Might cause vomiting and/or bad dreams. Personally I think it’s a masterpiece, but hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you

Anthropomorphic art, slightly disturbing illustrations and photo retouching. It’s all there. Christmas cards for friends and family, anyone?