What! No Robby?!

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

Robby would get my vote too

I had to go with T-800 - scared the bejesus out of me in my youth. Until T2, that is...then he was a good guy I guess.

Are cyborgs technically robots? I'm not sure where the robot line is truly drawn.

Technically the T-800 with skin is a cyborg, without its a robot.

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When I was a kid, I loved the scary red robot with the whirling blade from "The Black Hole. Also the little floating robots were cool too.

I would say that Hal is the brain of the "robot" that is The Discovery.

He can sense his environment and move himself through it. He use the pods as manipulators (much to Frank's dismay). He has advanced AI algorithms that allow him to independently solve problems and achieve his mission goals.

In the same way, I consider the NASA probes to be robotic, too. A robot doesn't have to have arms and legs.

What is the group's opinion of what Colossus and Guardian from The Forbin Project are? Those literary devices were dumbed down and kiddified as WOPR in War Games. They were demonized as SkyNet in The Terminator movies.

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

I didn't say Hal was the robot. I said that Hal controlling The Discovery was a robot. If Hal was wired into an RSMedia, would it be a robot?

Not to too severely derail the purpose of the thread, but if there were huge, crane like, appendages that extended out from The Discovery and allowed the ship to autonomously collect samples, service the radar dish, and wave to passing aliens, would it be a robot, then?

If not, why not? It's got sensors, navigates through the environment, and can manipulate its environment based on decisions it makes with input from the sensors.

If such a huge structure with crane like arms is a robot, why is the wireless control of the pod different than the wired control of the fixed manipulator?

Forgot to answer the other question...

Colossus:The Forbin Project is a 1970 movie about a pair of super computers taking over military operations and deciding it knows what's best for humanity.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/

There's also the novel, Colossus, and a sequel, The Fall of Colossus.

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

If it moves itself around, can sense it's environment, and can reach out and affect that environment, all without external control, then it sounds a lot like a robot to me.

We really ought to take this over to a different thread, and we've had several to debate 'what is a robot' over the past year. Here are two.

http://www.robocommunity.com/forum/thread/11149/What-is-a-robot-/
http://www.robocommunity.com/forum/thread/12988/What-is-a-Robot-/

I have a generic set of qualities that I require be present to qualify a device as a robot. Those qualities do not include "must have arms" or "must have legs". I'm not saying that you have those qualities at the heart of your defintition, Nocturnal, but here are community members that believe it's not a robot if it can't "walk".

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

I wasn't trying to stir up dust, just answer Peter's question.

Agreed to disagree then.

My definition of a robot has a lot more to do with the autonomous control, than it does with what is being controlled. The logic is more important to me than the mechanism driven by the logic. That's probably why I went with Comp Systems as a major, as opposed to Mechanical Engineering.

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

On topic... I chose R2-D2.

The one that tried to throw the astronaut into the lava flow on "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet"?

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

MrScott said:

Ya thats him he came back along with B9 and Daleks in this commercial

The one that tried to throw the astronaut into the lava flow on "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet"?