These are not the Robots you are looking for

Hi Sam, do you have a minute?

Hi Manuel, sure, you want to talk about robots again?  😊                     

You guessed right! 😄

Ha! I love talking about robots 👾, so what can I do for you?                  

I’m collaborating with a science writer, John, on a piece about the connections between science and Sci-Fi

I can see why you want to talk about robots then!                              

Indeed! Actually, though, this is more about the history of robots …

OK, I do know some of that … and I’ve read and watched a lot of Sci-Fi! 😁

I guessed as much, but I’m not sure about these …

Oldies like Daleks and Cylons or something from Japanese anime?

Nope: the original ones from “Rossum’s Universal Robots” by Karel Čapek

Wow, that play is 100 years old! But yeah,

I do know it actually … 😅                                                                         

Then you know that his robots aren’t machines, but organic.

Indeed, quite surprisingly: organic robots “assembled ” in a factory

And ultimately they develop feelings and become indistinguishable from humans

Yes, this was a very different cautionary tale from the Golem or Frankenstein

My question is: is this feasible nowadays, with synthetic biology?

Well, not exactly no, we can’t assemble a whole adult human all at once from parts

But?

We can clone organisms of course, and maybe within a decade even grow them in an artificial womb

but that is certainly not my area of expertise! And I don’t think we can pre-program an entire human brain … 😅

So these are indeed very different robots. Thanks this was very useful! 😄