Self-Assembling Robots

November 13, 2013

Kevin Berger

Rants

Rants

I’ve been a fan of Science Fiction since Grandma Berger gave me a Tom Swift Jr. book in grade school.  I think it was an impulse purchase on her part as I can’t imagine her as a sci-fi fan.  That first Tom Swift book was an old book when I read it.  Part of the fascination with it was reading what the book presented as fantasy juxtaposed against those same things coming to life in the real world in which I was living.  In any case, I was hooked.

It seems to me that most scientists would be fans of science fiction as well.  Look at Sheldon, Leonard, Raj & Howard on the Big Bang Theory…  Ha!  But on the more sober side, do you think scientists ever think about the cautionary science fiction tales as they strive to bring those fantasies to life?

This article by Judy Schriener titled “Will Self-Assembling Robots Slide into the Construction Industry?” makes me wonder.  Isaac Asimov first presented The Three Laws of Robots in a 1942 short story titled, “Run Around”.  Some of you may be familiar with them from the recent Will Smith movie version of another of Asimov’s books, “I, Robot”.  For those of you unfamiliar, here they are in their original form:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

* Laws and timelines taken from a wikipedia article title Three Laws of Robotics.

Replicator “bug” from Stargate SG1

The self assembling robot theme has been explored in science fiction over and over.  Here are a few from the more popular movies and TV shows.  The movie Terminator II introduced the T-1000 robot that could take the form of any person, tool or device needed to kill John Conner.  Stargate SG1 spent several seasons battling the Replicators – tiny robot parts that would form into complex forms to perform whatever function is needed including eventually the human form.  Star Trek explored this theme many times including V’ger in the first Star Trek:  The Motion Picture, and Nanites  and the Exocomps in Star Trek The Next Generation.  If you’ve seen any of these, you’ll remember that the idea of self assembling robots never work out too well for for the humans involved with them.

Asimov’s Three Laws sometimes make the jump into other science fiction universes, but not always.  He postulated that the Three Laws should be hardwired into the systems.  Maybe following that rule would keep Skynet from ever happening.  (I think Skynet is probably the most plausible description of how the human race ends in disaster considering we’re now wired via our smart phones to everything from our thermostats to our refrigerators.  We just didn’t get there by August 29th, 1997 as the original movie postulates…)  I didn’t even think about needing to put the reference in for Skynet until Kathy told me she didn’t know what I was referring to…

M-Block image borrowed from enewsletters.constructionexec.com

So circling back to the original article that started this rant, the entire piece talks about how wonderful the M-Blocks will be and how they will be able to figure things out and form the shapes needed specific to what problem is being solved.  No mention of the Three Laws or some version of them though.  I sincerely hope that all the great minds leading us into the brave new world of robots and intermachine connectivity are sci-fi fans.  They could do worse than to learn the lessons taught by the imaginative writers that came up with the ideas before science brought them to reality.

* Tom Swift book image borrowed from www.thespacereview.com

* Replicator image borr0wed from wikipedia.

* Skynet cartoon borrowed from xkcd.com.

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