Robot Brains and Cyborgs

Howdy,

Richard asks about cyborgs and how do ya tell them from normal people or
robots.

Well, if I remember right, there was an old medical technology TL chart in
The old DGP Grand Census.  It may be reprinted in the World builder's handbook.
It said (from memory) that at TL 12, 'advanced prosthetics' were available.
To my mind that means either:

A) prosthetic limbs that are indestinguishable to most observation.

	or

B) advanced prosthetic organs which are capable of replacing critical internal
organs.  I'd guess that a prosthetic eye would be about TL 12.  It probably
won't look much like a normal eye, but at TL 13 a robotic eye would be
indestinguishable from a normal one.

Of course all these will be immediately detectable by a densiometer scan.

But I also remember that at TL 9 limb regeneration is possible, and at TL 12
they talk about regeneration of complex things like eyes.  So, to be frank,
I'm not sure why the question of cyborgs come up.  If you want to have a new
limb, you can grow it just as easily as have one built for you.  There will be
people who want cybernetic stuff built into them, but that would be rather
more rare than the guy who lost an arm and wants it back.

Now, the cyborgs would then be cyborgs by CHOICE.  And depending on how
obvious the individual wants it to be, above TL 12 you'll need a densiometer
to pick them out.  Even at TL 12, if the addition is small and carefully kept
to be the same density as surrounding tissue, an implant might be VERY hard
to detect.  X-Ray?  Build it out of plastic.

To quote an ancient chinese saying "Where there are electronic counter
measures, there are electronic counter counter measures."  If you want your
implant hidden, you can make it hidden.  Then it would take a more advanced
sensor scan to pick it up.  Such scans probably exist, but they are not
normally in use.

It's like trying to hide a body pistol.  The higher the TL pistol, the higher
the TL sensors it's designed to fool. :-)

As to the question:  Can a cyborg pass for a robot?  Well, if he was designed
to do so, sure.  But who would wanna be designed that way?  To fool a
densiometer scan your insides would have to look like the insides of a robot.
That means massive replacement of your organs with cybergear.  Also, I'd bet
your brain and it's massive support equipment will show up on a densiometer
scan.  I'm not really sure how to address the question I'm afraid.  Under what
circumstances would a cyborg wanna pass for a robot?
	------------------------------
Back to Pseudo-Bios.
I know zip about software programming.  Pascal and Basic are my limits.  I
can't address the difficulties of Programming these babies.  I'd get jumped
real quick by the real computer jocks out there.  But, I'd bet that at
differing tech levels, software engineers could handle the task with equal
ability, the main trouble is getting the hardware in shape to where a good
enough program can be run.

Quick look at brain design:
The education of a robot is effectively limited to how many storage units can
be stuffed in the robot.  Thus we can assume that given unlimited cash we can
build it to any education level we want.

Brain intelligence is limited though.  At TL 8 the max intelligence is
negative 3.  But at TL 9 we get parallel CPU components and the max
intelligence is then limited to Tech level minus 3.  Thus:
TL	Intelligence
9	6
10	7  etc. etc.

At TL 12 you can run Low Autonomous Programming and the cost of an intelligent
brain goes down.

So, I think that even a TL 9 brain is up to the task of fooling a person into
thinking it is an organic being under LIMITED circumstances.  (Hmm, how many
TMLers out there have actually met in the flesh... hmmmmmm? |->

So the problem is not so much the brain hardware, nor the software really.
But getting both to the point where the robot can act organic under more and
more circumstances.  Trying to fill in the gaps in the robot's conversation
that would not be there in a human.  Most humans have some sort of opinion on
every topic you can imagine (look at me and my big mouth!).  But if a robot
is mainly programmed for something like flying what happens when the question
of music comes up?  Then of course you could program it to be reticent on such
topics, but that's a cop out.  It is also a tactic that could be explioted.
(Blade Runner:  "Tell me about your mother...")

What do the software jocks say?  James?  Mark?  Richard?

Scott Kellogg
"Dreams are stranger than reality..."  - Me at 3 am the other night.