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"We're about 20 minutes away from the point where Clarke's law kicks in and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Mandroid | ||
| A humanoid robot; a robot in the shape of a person. |
There are hundreds of thousands of robots working in factories today. But they don’t look anything like a human being; their shape is dependent on their function.
| I turned to face the approaching mandroid. Its entire body was the same polished gunmetal, molded into the nuscle configuration of an archetypal human male.The head was carved into furows to represent thick back-combed hair... The green photoreceptor gaze regarded me gravely. The mandroid became quite still... On Harlan's World, you don't see many mandroids. They're expensive to build, compared to a synthetic or even a clone, and most jobs that require a human form are better done by those organic alternatives. |
| From Altered Carbon,
by Richard Morgan. Published by Del Rey in 2003 Additional resources -
|
Morgan has some interesting things to say about the use of humanoid robots; his perspective is that machines are expensive, but human labor is cheap, because there are so many of them and they reproduce cheaply.
This word seems to derive from a cheesy science fiction movie of the early 1990’s. It is also the name of a “breakdancer / producer / plasterer from Barnsley in South Yorkshire.”
The term has also surfaced in The X-Files. In the episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", when Blaine Faulkner is describing his encounter with Mulder, he describes him this way: "And the other one, the tall lanky one, his face was so blank and expressionless. He didn't seem human. I think he was a mandroid. The only time he reacted was when he saw the dead alien."
(Thanks to Justin for writing in.)
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Altered Carbon
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and Technology by Richard Morgan
Tech news articles related to Altered Carbon
Tech news articles related to works by Richard Morgan
Mandroid-related
news articles:
- Tesla Bot Humanoid 'Robot' Vs. Boston Dynamics Atlas Parkour Robot
| Auto-Targeting Fire Sprinkler Systems Now Reality |
| LEONARDO Robot Has Legs And Thrusters, Can Skateboard, Slackline |
| Xavier Robots On Patrol For 'Anti-Social Behavior' |
| Pengxing Intelligent Robot Horse You Can Ride |
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'Webb Foster had built his space laboratory... It was a great crystal sphere, a thousand feet in diameter.'
'It's illegal to hold back information during a psyche test,' the machine said peevishly.'
Perfect for exploring ancient artifacts on distant planets.
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs over a slant of steep upland.'
'This was as close as a robot could get to a cop in uniform.'
