I think Mr. Spacedock was right on the money with his comments on the Geth. A robot designed with highly advanced technology to fill the role of a human-like creature would likely move and act very much like a human-like creature, with muscles and soft skin. The typical sci-fi robot with exposed joints and metal plates all over their body wouldn't do so well, they'd get crud caught in their openings and get all dented and scratched on those nice shiny surfaces.
Yeah.
I find that visual sci-fi sometimes relies overmuch on visual shorthand and does too little to sit down and THINK about the interaction between body and environment. One could borrow ideas from the animal world and put mechanical twists on it, for both animals and embodied AIs in robot bodies face similar challenges at navigating a terrestrial environment (wind, rain, dust, mud, dirt, etc.), but over and over they fail to do so.
I suppose that's why I tend to like written sci-fi more...there's a higher chance someone will stop to ponder designs.
One particular example that has long bothered me was the original Borg. They had all kinds of loose tubes and wires festooning their bodies, which I guess worked well as visual shorthand for "these are cyborgs with lots of gear haphazardly inserted into them without regard for aesthetics." But in one scene someone who was fighting with one reached over and yanked one of the tubes out, apparently killing the Borg in the process (it definitely incapacitated them). Knowing what we've seen of Borg interior decor, I would not want to be walking around inside one of their ships with a loop of wire hanging off me that could wipe me out if it got caught on a protrusion as I passed. Later Borg designs tended to do better, they had a more "blended" approach to mixing biology and technology.
- Marvin (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
- K9 Mark III (Dr Who)
- 11-45-G (Love, Death & Robots)
- P-5000 Power Loader (Alien) -- not a robot per se
- IG-11 and K2SO (Star Wars) -- couldn't decide which one I prefer :)
I feel like articles such as this deliberately include controversial choices - like the power loader - just to drum up hits and discussion.
No R2-D2, no Max from Flight of the Navigator? Fail.
I vote for Chrome from the TV show Perversions of Science.
