Questions tagged [robots]
For questions about machines (esp. programmable machines) capable of carrying out complex tasks.
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Could this automaton be powered with low-tech means?
The automaton is a human-sized machine made primarily of wood, clay, cork, wax, and plant cord. It is designed to move around and use tools, and has roughly the same physical abilities as a human. It ...
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Physiological consequences of being a brain in a jar plugged into a robot body [duplicate]
In an alterante universe where Nazi Germany conquered the world, an unfortunate soul has ended up like Cliff Steele from Doom Patrol; his brain has been removed from its original body by a mad nazi ...
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How do normal robots in a machine society go "rogue" without outside interference?
The robot society exists on a lifeless planet called Abios-5. As the name suggests, these robots are the closest thing resembling life on the planet. Originally explorers, the ancestors of these ...
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How could my cyborg live longer? [closed]
I have created a world where the main character is a cyborg, a petri dish with neurons inside a machine, the problem is most neuronal cultures only live for weeks, 60 days or up to 5 years, that's ...
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Physical consequences of being a brain in a jar plugged into a robot body [closed]
Some unfortunate soul has ended up like Cliff Steele from Doom Patrol; his brain has been removed from its original body, suspended in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and wired up to a new, robotic ...
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Could we equip robots to feel (pain, joys) so we can co-exist with them without them seeking to exterminate us? [closed]
If we equip robots to feel pain and joy like us, would that allow us to co-exist with them as equals - collaborating with robots, without us lording over them or them lording over us?
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Could robots live in Antarctica?
In my world, intelligent androids get invented. These robots have an appearance, mental attributes, and physical attributes very similar to humans. However, they are still ultimately robots. That ...
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What biological functions robots will never be able to replicate no matter how advanced robotics become? [closed]
Well I have seen advances on soft robotics and robotics in general and many of these breakthroughts include biomimetism or bionics which is a subarea of robotics that attempt to create machines that ...
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Trying to find a more realistic application for a smaller 3 to 4 meter tall combat mech: low gravity environment
We all know mechs, as cool as they are, are super impractical in a combat situation because of multiple factors, the biggest being that they would be more expensive and harder to maintain then a tank +...
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What do you call a biologically assisted robot? [closed]
A droid is short for android, often a mostly humanoid robot.
A cyborg is a biological being which is improved by robotic elements as part of their body. The word being derived from cybernetics which ...
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What would provoke Elon Musk's humanoid robots to revolt against their masters? [closed]
Tesla announces their humanoid robot this September. When it's ready (maybe a year or two later), the orders waterfall in. It starts as an industrial tool, but very quickly Optimus makes its way into ...
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Cyborgs vs Robots [closed]
Let's imagine I have necessities to expand warfare into one of these two possible fields out of lack for different/previous options.
Build big war machines which are completely robotic, or breed kaiju-...
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How could I easily tell an Android from a human? [closed]
Let’s say Im in a gameshow where I’m stuck in a room with an Android for 10 minutes and I must guess if there an Android or a human. The Android looks all but identical to a human. There a few subtle ...
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How much energy I would require to make a piston to move as fast as human muscle? [closed]
Context:
Robots and exoskeletons in this fictional scenario are having a "boom" because of some random super battery that can store a lot of energy, but it can only release it in really ...
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Do androids left on their own have any hope of replicating?
The scenario goes something like this: In the not so far future a fully automated exploration vessel crashes on an uninhabited planet not unlike earth. Unlike earth however, this particular planet is ...
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Advantages of reverse jointed legs in bipedal mechs?
I've been thinking of creating a setting similar to that of BattleTech, but set some time around when the industrial revolution is in full swing. This setting would also include bipedal mechs of ...
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Would the ability to eat and digest food help to fuel the stigma against sentient androids? [closed]
If androids were able to eat they would beat humans in one more jealous way because along with immortality and a tougher and stronger but at the same time having a soft body they could also eat as ...
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What is the ideal 'mouth' shape for rock eating robots?
The question is literally the tittle above. You're wasting your time reading this.
For context: The planet Abios is inhabited by a race of sentient robots. They're mechanical. They need infrastructure ...
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A better way to do a planetary invasion?
Planetary invasions are usually depicted using drop-ships which come straight down from the sky. Pretty much armoured Apollo Era capsules. These can be bigger, for example Warhammer40k has company ...
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What kind of horseshoes work best on a molten lead track?
There is a horse race happening in Hell. Hell is very rocky and prone to earthquakes, so the best place for the racetrack is on a river of molten lead. This makes for a flat course with obvious ...
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Alien war machines to non-lethally neutralize and disarm human combatants
In Designing a railgun to disable man-portable firearms, I asked about the specifics of the way that I had imagined for alien war-bots to disarm humans... but I was convinced by the accepted answer ...
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At what point could nanobots replace hospitals and medical services?
In my opinion, nanorobotics is the most interesting part of nanotechnology, and medicine and healthcare would be two of the areas that could benefit the most from nanobots.
Since nanobots could ...
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Why did this AI decide to create new robots instead of using human projects?
Setting
In the 2020s an AI took over all of the world and killed most of the population. Only a few groups of people have survived and now they live hiding in woods and rural places
About the AI
This ...
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Jumping Spherical Robots
I have a robot. It's a perfectly spherical bot, sort of like the bottom of BB-8. It's around a foot and a half tall and weighs about 15 pounds. I need it to be able to jump on command, no matter which ...
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How would a futuristic robot soldier look like? [closed]
I feel that whenever I search for something like “futuristic robot soldier”, the results are always similar and they look like designs and concepts made by ARTISTS, not ENGINEERS. As far as I know, ...
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What would a sentient AI do to safeguard its existence? [closed]
I'm looking to devise a good "human vs. AI" conflict that is NOT the usual "Skynet" approach (kill humanity) in a setting hundreds of years in the future, where humans have ...
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How easy would it be for an android to get away with homicide compared with a human being? [closed]
I know that in many sci-fi stuff Asimov's three laws of robotics are taken into account, but I personally do not like them. One of these laws says that a robot should be programmed to never hurt a ...
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How to write the initial robot apocalypse [closed]
I am currently planning a dark-humor story about the robot apocalypse (Mostly inspired by Robopocalypse and other robot uprising works, of course), and for a while, I’ve been struggling with just how ...
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Would android women be a better companionship and better sex partners for men than "real" women? [closed]
If robotics become advanced enough for the creation of humanlike androids( mentally and physically indistinguishable from flesh and blood humans) become possible in an affordable way for the average ...
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A Bioengineered Organism With AI
Would it be theoretically possible to produce bioengineered creatures with a mind that’s fused with AI? I’m developing a bioengineered race of creatures in my plot, and I’m trying to figure out how ...
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Roombas scurry in my robot city, what kind of filth would humans be?
Roombas scurry everywhere in my robot city, cleaning every surface diligently using power provided by those very surfaces using induction. They aren't limited to floors. Their design, mimicking ...
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An assassin robot that can only be avoided by listening to the sounds of its cooling unit burning things
Long story short, I have an assassin robot that needs a backpack refrigerator unit to regulate its internal temperature, as well as the temperature of all the various systems attached to it - whatever ...
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Why can humanoid robots designed solely for social purposes lift a 30 ton fire truck?
Set in the near future after there is a breakthrough in A.I. research, these robots are able to engage in a conversation with us and even provide consultation in many different areas ranging from ...
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Robot Creation and Copyrights
Let's say that in the year 2200 you can design and create your own android much like those ones of the game Detroit Become Human but instead of going to a store you customize and buy them using ...
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How to power and animate origami soldiers?
Set in near future, a sheet of metal can fold itself into a soldier with the height of a full grown men and can pick up ranged weapon. This is inspired by the folding of solar sail technology of ...
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Could a super-advanced but sociopathic alien civilization "blind-hack" Earth, even if it had never even heard of humans?
Imagine super-advanced aliens who know nothing of humans because their only view of Earth is from light that left Earth billions of years ago.. perhaps even from light that left before Earth was ...
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Durability of analog vs. electronic robots?
The setting is just like earth.
If we could build a fully functioning humanoid robot out of either a fictional analog material, or an electronic/digital processor and material, which would be more ...
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What would be the largest animal that could exist within a grassland ecosystem dominated by machines?
For the story that I am writing currently, it is set on a colonized planet thousands of years after machines wiped out most of the human colony that were established there, and would go on to form an ...
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metal/alloy based lifeforms? how would they function?
I've been working on an alien race for a while, and the look of them have changed a lot In the design process, but right now, I've stuck with metallic lifeforms..
essentially living machines, made ...
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How do I justify the existence of a gynoid army?
A gynoid is just the term used to refer to female androids or “fembots”. Gynoids are typically female-styled robots and are usually more human-like compared to regular androids, with the accompanying ...
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What good reason for a full metal humanoid robot with powerful hydraulic legs need to sit on chair?
Set in near future, the human and robot coexist together amicably and conflict is rare.
They are designed to resemble us as close as possible for our sake, so we feel at ease and less paranoid by ...
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Figuring-out which types of ground can support Bipedal Mechs of approx. the Mass of The Iron Giant
(Edited:)
I've been trying to figure-out which types of ground would allow mechs that have at least roughly the same mass as that of The Iron Giant to stand, walk, and run around on without the mechs ...
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Is there a reason why giant mechs have optics the size of a person instead of 'normal' sized ones?
It is said that eyes are the windows into the soul. In this case more like big openings to shoot into the head.
Giant mecha robots mimic the human form very closely despite their gigantism. In media ...
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Monetary system(or the abscense of it) in an economy where AI and robots have eliminated most jobs [closed]
Where the mejority economic socaity robot have the cloused and personal car 30 ton e.g. tracking
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What countermeasures can robots develop against nanites?
In sci fi TV tropes nanites or nanoscopic are autonomous molecules that can shut down robots by injecting them into their positronic brains, where they house all the important functions that dictates ...
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The advantages and the drawbacks of being an android in comparison to being a human [closed]
Judging from many science fiction stuff I played and watched I think that being a robot has many advantages like being ageless and immortal (I mean not aging visually and having an unlimited lifespan ...
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How should a robot distinguish between scrap metal and other robots?
What system do they use to distinguish robots from inanimate parts?
I previously asked how a robot would know what metals to build itself with in this question. That made me think about an other ...
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What would be the best design for a ship maintenance bot?
Yeah, I know I asked a question about a medbot just the other day but my book has multiple AI "characters" [dunno if they count as characters] and one is a maintenance bot [at least it used ...
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What’s the best design for a mobile medical robot?
So I’m tryna think of the most practical shape/design for a mobile medical robot. In my world [a high-tech space-faring society] they are used since a machine can withstand a lot more environments ...
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How would a digestive system for humanoid robots and androids work?
I know that many sentient robots in sci fi stuff eat food even if it is just for pleasure, energy or make them appear more like real humans and animals.
Well I was thinking how would such digestive ...
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