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"The writing is clicking away in my head and piling up, and unless I get it on paper somehow it's going to create uncomfortable pressure in my skull."
- Isaac Asimov

Boppers  
  Self-reproducing robots; they did not obey Asimov's laws for robots (or any other man-made rules).  

These are the machines we fear; independent machines that make their own choices based on their own logic (which owes nothing to us).

In the shaft's great, vertical tunnel, bright beings darted through the hot light; odd-shaped living machines that glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. These were the boppers; self-reproducing robots who obeyed no man. Some looked humanoid, some looked like spiders, some looked like snakes, some looked like bats. All were covered with flickercladding, a microwired imipolex compound that could absorb and emit light.
Technovelgy from Wetware, by Rudy Rucker.
Published by Avon Books in 1988
Additional resources -

Compare these robots with the ultimate in sophistication (and servility) - C3PO, the droid from George Lucas' Star Wars.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Wetware
  More Ideas and Technology by Rudy Rucker
  Tech news articles related to Wetware
  Tech news articles related to works by Rudy Rucker

Boppers-related news articles:
  - Festo's eMotionButterfly, AirJelly And AirPenguin Robots

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