Hiro Yasuri was a dropout electronics student from Tokyo Technical Univeristy who was obsessed with anime – especially ones involving cute girl robots. His obsession led him to tinkering with robotics. In 2031 he developed “Unit 1” - a basic, human shaped robot powered by a rudimentary artificial intelligence. It couldn't do much – you had to walk it through the basic commands step by step. Over the next few years Hiro and a small yet devoted crew of drop outs and low-end employees hacked at the code and the hardware.
In 2037 Yasuri and company quit what jobs they had and formed Companion Robotics and unveiled their first product: Unit 2. Unit 2 was technologically sophisticated, true, but the most remarkable thing about it was the ability to learn. Companies bought Unit 2 robots and trained them relentlessly. Unit 2 only had a 12 hour battery life with a 4 hour charge cycle, but took about two days to learn basic tasks “from factory” and a week to learn some of the more complicated tasks.
In 2038 Companion Robotics introduced a new line of robots: Adam, Eve, Seth, and Caine. Adam was a general-purpose labor robot and could work for 60 hours straight under a moderate load or do intensive work for 12 hours, with a 12 hour charge cycle. Eve was a domestic robot with a 16 hour battery life before it took a 4 hour charge. Seth was designed as almost a novelty, able to do light work but was better suited to tutoring. Caine was the first military APRC and saw heavy duty within the next year.
By 2041 Yasuri had grown bored with corporate life. Companion Robotics licensed out the technology to make APRCs. All the founding members became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. The company now exists as a research and development shop for both APRCs and cybernetics with a small production run. Yasuri, who retired at the age of 36, spends his days tinkering with his small collection of APRCs.
Today, there are hundreds of models of APRCs. Costs range from about €900 for a basic model to well over a million for a top of the line combat 'bots. While they are artificially intelligent, they are effectively about as smart as the average high school kid. APRCs are capable of learning, but are very literal in their tasks and are not capable of creative thinking. Most APRCs are programmed with Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” (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 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.) Combat grade APRCs have somewhat modified versions of these laws and require a special license to own. Some APRCs have their programming modified to remove the laws entirely, and are highly illegal.
No comments:
Post a Comment