The Bar Bot
Helena: No, you don't understand me. What
we really want is to - to liberate the Robots.
Helman: How do you propose to do that ?
Helena: They are to be dealt with like human beings.
Helman: Aha. I suppose they're to vote ? To drink beer ? To
order us about ?
Robotic research spawns the most remarkable machines attempting
to emulate the ideal of the human being. But all of them leave
the most distinguishing feature out: our self interest. Well,
this robot has it: the Bar Bot asks people for coins and spends
the gathered money as soon as there is enough for a beer at
the bar.
It is not useful for humanity like most of today's robots
or the Platonic ideal of a robot lingering in our heads. Rather,
it is useful for itself, like humanity. The dependency on
others to pursue its own, highly selfish objectives makes
the Bar Bot perhaps the most humanoid robot ever built.
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more (pdf, german, 234 kB).
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