Breathing life into robots.

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JLCwrites

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So far mine have distinctive dialog, and the light behind their eyes flash, or glow to show 'emotion'.

What are some other ways to give a mechanical character personality?
 

blacbird

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I used to work in a Dilbertville cubicle for a major international corporation, and I tried many times to do this to the automatons around me, but failed utterly,

caw
 

poetinahat

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double-clocking servos, and fans running on high speed. *whirrrrrRRRRRRRrrrr* Oooooh yeah.
 

A. Hamilton

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Have you read PeeDee's online serial novel?
 

Mac H.

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and the light behind their eyes flash, or glow to show 'emotion'
From the point of view of a reader, here is a plea : Please don't give them glowing eyes.

It's a cliche, it doesn't make sense from an engineering point of view and doesn't have the range to give nuances of emotion.

What are some of the ways that people online give nuances into emotion? After all, most of us could just be online Turing testers for all you know.

Perhaps we are robots.

Mac
(Although you'll want to avoid the 'uncanny valley' as well with your robot design)
 

Tallymark

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Try Asimov. I remember reading some of his work on robots years ago and he was good with giving them...quirks. Like the robot that essentially 'twidled it's thumbs' (only, instead of thumbs, it moved around other robots that it controlled, or something like that). Idle behaviors seem unremarkable in a human, but in a robot...it can be something memorable.

Little, unique, weird things can breathe life into a regular character, so why not a robot too? Perhaps one robot enjoys decorating itself with magnets, much to the confusion of it's designers. Perhaps one has no concept of a personal bubble and stands way too close to people (or perhaps it does it on purpose, aware that it unnerves them). Maybe one likes to bend forks into unique shapes when it's feeling frustrated. It all depends on how far you want to go and what you're going for, and how 'human' or how foreign you want to make them.
 

Nakhlasmoke

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People are going to start thinking I'm being paid to do this...I'm going to say it again:

Iain M Banks. Culture novels. He has droids and ships (various AI constructs) and if you don't fall in love with his ships, especially GSV Sleeper Service in Excession, then your soul is a dark and pitiful thing. :D

Since you can't show human physical characteristics in a bot, you'll have to show it through their character. What spurs the decisions that a bot makes? We can assume that it's not the same things that make human act the way they do -ie greed, lust, anger.

So dialogue as you say is a start, and might be what you should concentrate on since physical tics might be somewhat limited.

Good luck!
 

dpaterso

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Banks' drones are a hoot, sometimes they're more human than the humans. And more cunning. And more sadistic. Heroic, too.

-Derek
 

Nakhlasmoke

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Banks' drones are a hoot, sometimes they're more human than the humans. And more cunning. And more sadistic. Heroic, too.

-Derek
I know. He's my hero. Along with a certain F Scott Fitzgerald.

I love when Banks has the ships talking to each other. :D I think people could do worse than learn from him.
 

Zelenka

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I was just going to suggest Iain M Banks. I adore his description in general, and he's from the same backwater part of Fife as I am, so that makes him doubly brilliant ;)
 

Higgins

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People are going to start thinking I'm being paid to do this...I'm going to say it again:

Iain M Banks. Culture novels. He has droids and ships (various AI constructs) and if you don't fall in love with his ships, especially GSV Sleeper Service in Excession, then your soul is a dark and pitiful thing. :D

It's true. Iain M Banks is the Master and Excession is absolutely indescribably fantastic....and the ship Minds and other Minds are incredibly well done.
 

triceretops

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My bots always fall down a lot over rough teraine, misinterpret verbal commands, and sometimes explode or have servo leaks. I had a demo expert who used bipeda bots, equipped with programable pyrotechnic devices strapped to them, in order to blow bridges and mountains. He had only to remote them out to the site and set them off. He called them "smart bombs."

Doh!

Tri
 

Meerkat

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Innocence. Robots in Stong-AI mode will learn by trial and error, and therefore make the same mistakes and assumptions that your average toddler will make. Therefore, your normal Turkey Lurkey home environment is also the quoting grounds for the sorts of things robots will get wrong. Example, until one (toddler or robot) understands scale or weight or time, they will try to cause things to happen or fit things together that are impossible. Another example is that until something is offered to their senses and programming as evidence, it will be an unknown, such as the moon was to the robots in Kubrick's AI.
 

AceTachyon

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Why do people always have to make robots seem human? They're machines! Not metal people. Not sure why they need to be bipedal humanoid, seems like the most inefficient design one could think of.
My guess is that we can relate better (typically) to a humanoid form.

Now that comment could be construed as humanocentric as there may be many admirers of R2D2. But consider--most people prefer to deal with a real human on a phone than with the "voice activated" menus.

Just a thought.
 

AceTachyon

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Yes, but from an efficiency point of view, wouldn't something that has a stable low-center of gravity, multiple arms, et cetera be much more realistic and useful?
Good point.

Along the same lines, it'll probably come down to a question between form and function. Maybe the more functional 'bots have better need of practical designs (construction robots with tracks and multiple arms, for instance). The ones that deal with the public may be better served with a humanoid design (a la C3PO).
 

benbradley

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Yes, but from an efficiency point of view, wouldn't something that has a stable low-center of gravity, multiple arms, et cetera be much more realistic and useful?

Personally, I've always like the B9 robot from Lost in Space.

Well, there's this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060809154145.htm
Here's a more comprehensive page, with links to videos:
http://www.msl.ri.cmu.edu/projects/ballbot/

There were some excellent robot stories (in terms of manipulating the reader into wondering "is it really alive?") in the book "The Mind's I."
 

JLCwrites

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Thanks for all this great information.
FYI
This is a middle grade book. Probably 40k. I do need the robots to have the ability to interact with humans, but still maintain a "robot" personality. They don't all look like humans. One looks like a water heater, another like a wrecking ball... etc.
The environment is present day steampunkish.

I have been doing a pretty good job of making these mechanical characters likable for the reader. But I wanted to tap into your minds for any extra ideas.

Thanks again for this valuable info. This is my first foray into writing sci-fi, and, of course, I want to make it a good one.
 
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