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Social Robots by Steve Payne
 Author
says: what if social robots were released onto the market in the next
eighteen months? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not
necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
In 2012, the first of the
Clinton Administration's many
android-related challenges began on this day when a prominent Senator's
daughter was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by a Mobile Dextrous
social robot owned by the girl's father.
Product recalls were immediately issued by the Personal
Robots Group of Media Lab, part of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology's sprawling campus in Cambridge.
The loss of support from a leading pro-android member of
a senatorial oversight committee would have profound implications for the US
Government. Researchers working on a Defense Department program at iRobot
Corporation and the University of Chicago had recently completed the
military application work for "jamming skin-enabled locomotion".
The stunning result was a robot purpose built for
discreet reconnaissance missions that could squeeze through small holes,
fitting through openings smaller than its own dimensions. Looking like a
semi-inflated volleyball, the robot expands and contracts a flexible
silicone shell to push itself around. That shell contains air pockets packed
with particles. When the air is removed, the air pressure equalizers and the
particles inside the pockets shift, changing the blob's shape.
Before the vehicular accident, such a mission had already received executive
approval for the assassination of the reclusive leader of North Korea, Kim
Jong-Il.
Author
says original content has been repurposed to celebrate the author's
genius © The Uncertain Future For Social Robots published in the January
2010 Edition of
Popular Mechanics Magazine. To view guest historian's comments on this
post please visit the
Today in Alternate History web site.
Steve Payne, Editor of Today in
Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History
That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on
Facebook, Myspace and
Twitter.
Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items
explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist
superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy
Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting
fictional blog.
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