re: #226 Decatur Deb

As far back as the early 80s, the Ford Motor Company experienced the first Death By Robot. An auotomated warehouse lift mistook an intruding worker for an auto part and “shelved” him.

Around the same time, the Biotech where I worked was experimenting with robotics. They got a robot arm that moved assay plates around. I watched it work. Very impressive. BUT, one of my coworkers said something that drives my understanding of robotics to this day:

“Its not moving plates. It’s just turning from one position to another. And if your head is in the way, it will go through it.”

Thinking that way, you then understand why, for example, a relatively straightforward assay we developed at another Biotech was nearly impossible to automate - judgement. Robots don’t have it.

At a number of places I worked, we tried to automate assays, but the problem was always that humans are constantly checking little things that robots don’t. Do all the tip cones of my pipettor have tips? Did all the tips get the same volume of liquid? When I added the liquid to the well, did all the tips push out the full volume? Did I successfully eject all the tips? Did I create a bubble in any of the wells?

Robotics were always significantly slower and with significantly larger variation.

Your sex robot won’t be having sex with you. It will be moving certain parts preprogrammed distances and exerting preprogrammed amounts of force with other parts, either according to a basic program and/or in response to data received.