Korean Scientists Develop Female Android

[Anville Azote]

On 5/5/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Fifteen tiny motors embedded into her silicon face
> enable her to make a total of four expressions in tune
> with as many sentiments _ joy, anger, sorrow and
> happiness.
>
> From a distance, the android could be confused with a
> real, flesh and blood human being, according to Baeg.
>

"'Humans are different from robots.'  That's an article of faith, like
'black isn't white.'  It's no more helpful than the basic fact that
humans aren't machines.  Unlike industrial robots, the androids and
gynoids designed as 'pets' weren't designed along utilitarian or
practical models.  Instead, we model them on a human image, an
idealized one at that.  Why are humans so obsessed with recreating
themselves?"

[...]

"Can we get back to reality here?  I'd like your observations with
respect to the Hadaly robot, model 2502, manufactured by Locus Solus."

"Right.  It's very well designed.  I understand it's a prototype, but
it's intended for particular functions."

"Particular functions?"

"It's equipped with organs unnecessary in service robots."

"Meaning?"

"It's a sexaroid.  Nothing to brag about to your neighbors, but hardly illegal."

[...]

"Truly disturbing, isn't it?  I really understand.  The doubt is
whether a creature that certainly appears to be alive really is.  Or
alternatively, the doubt that a lifeless object might actually live. 
That's why dolls haunt us.  They are modeled on humans.  They are, in
fact, nothing but human.  They make us face the terror being reduced
to simple mechanisms and matter -- in other words, the fear that,
fundamentally, all humans belong to the void."

-- excerpts from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence