Robotic assistants
This thread is to design and discuss the various mechanical helpers one would find scattered around the New Frontiers universe. I considered putting this in the Ship Crews section, but I don't think it fits all the way, because the robots may not be present on any ship, and if they are, they may not be part of any crew.
You should also consider the robot laws.
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 the 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 Laws.
I was thinking of a sheet method to get the most important facts about the machines organised.
Name: (You can go to great lengths to explain the name, I know I will)
Producer: (Who made it?)
Appearance:
Purpose: (What it's for?)
Methods: (How the robot goes about achieving its purpose.)
Specific technical information: (Anything you want to explain about its technology?)
Other information:
I already had one planned. Take it away, myself.
Name: S.C.H.I.Z.O, although they're just called Schizo units. Socially Compatible, High Intellect Zest Outfit. The first four words are self explanatory, but Zest means a display of great interest and Outfit can refer to a collective group of people.
Producer: Zodiac corporation, who's main business lies with interplanetary cruise liners.
Appearance: It is human shaped, for starters. Their core figure is made of dark grey metal, and is rather thin. It gains a more realistic shape from the casing, which covers most of the core frame and it made of plates of shiny, silver-grey metal. There are several places where the robot isn't covered in casing, like the hands, the waist, the jaw, and on the inside of the joints.
Its head is very simple. The cranium is rounded with a single plate, the jaw is dark grey, and there is no suggestion of a nose, hair or ears. The eyes are sunken into the head, and look just like lights.
The eyes, along with the gaps in the casing of its entire body, glow in a single colour, giving the impression that beneath its casing it is made of light. See methods and technical information for details.
Purpose: The S.C.H.I.Z.O unit was developed specifically to keep people company, and does so by assuming an identity that is similar to the subject in experiences, skills and way of thinking.
Methods: Since different people have different interests, it would be hard for a single robot to adapt to so many different ways of thinking. This was overcome by designing the Schizo unit as a massive storage device, containing a multitude of digital copies of human identities. These are not the identities of individuals, but rather a summary of the average mental traits of a person who conforms to a set of criteria, namely the way of thinking and relative experiences and skills. While a unit wears any identity, it gains the experience and skills of such a character, whatever they may be, but they are limited to only that identity. All identities share the same memory bank.
For example, some of the most common identities are people with certain occupations because they have similar experiences, although they are not limited to that. An identity could just be someone with a particular way of thinking, like a person with paranoia. Each identity is represented visually, through the colour which the unit's eyes and the gaps in its casing glow. The standard persona of the unit is represented by the colour white, so while in said persona the units eyes and the gaps in its casing will glow white. Another identity may be represented by the colour purple, and so on and so forth.
When presented with a subject to keep company, the unit will simply assume an identity that the subject can relate to, and engage in conversation or practical activities. If no such identity exists, the unit will generate one by observing the subject and performing a neural scan. The process may take as long as two hours, or as little as five minutes.
Specific technical information: There is no empty space beneath the casing of the Schizo unit. It's packed full with hard drives that store the information regarding so many identities. Naturally these heat up with use, making the robot warm to the touch. The drives are surrounded by devices that convert excess heat energy into light energy, resulting in the light that glows from between the unit's casing. A colour filter changes the colour of the light, allowing for a more interesting display.
The robots also have a miscellaneous skill of immersing themselves into computer systems, bypass security measures, and access any functions available.
Other information: Since the Schizo unit is human-made, it is compliant with the three robot laws, which go as follows:
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 the 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 Laws.
The first law is the most prohibitive, as it prioritises the well-being of nearby humans over anything else. This is a large problem for the Schizo units because they are designed to emulate human behaviour, which encompasses amoral actions. As such, the units have been programmed to operate through loop-holes in the laws where necessary in order to participate in activities where a human may be harmed. Most of the time it involves finding a way to justify actions that bend the rules rather than break them.
For example, if a robot carries a weapon and is ordered to relinquish it, either directly or indirectly, it may continue to carry the item in the belief that keeping it to itself is the best way to prevent humans from coming to harm by it.
In a far less drastic scenario, a unit that was asked to spar with a human subject has to set its own parameters for what counts as harming a human, as the subject in question understands the consequences of fighting and has ordered the unit to fight with him or her.
As well-designed and capable as the units are, they still occasionally suffer glitches that greatly affect their behaviour. Some of the most famous glitches are the 'Constant Disagreement' glitch, wherein the S.C.H.I.Z.O unit disagrees with everything that it is told, the 'Three Headed Knight' glitch, where the identities of a single unit argue with each other, and the ever so ironic 'Multiple Identity Crisis' glitch, where the unit randomly summons identities, sometimes only to blare out a single phrase before another identity takes its place.
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