When I was growing up, Star Trek: The Next Generation was a staple. My uncle hooked me on it in my early years, along with the lateral interest in science and technology that invariably came with some of the fringe ideas he was interested in (UFOs, Anti-Gravity, etc.). I would often find myself interested in topics that are now considered paranormal or pseudo-scientific. Don't get me wrong, I'm a proponent of sound science, but my roots began in the realm of "Want to Believe". But, I digress.
The first time an android stuck out in my mind was Lieutenant Commander Data. He was the product of a brilliant but aloof cyberneticist and engineer, crafted to be similar to humans in order to make life better for itself and others.
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| Credit: CBS Corporation/Paramount Source: Wikipedia Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use |
How far away is this from reality? Let's start with his brain. In the TNG episode "The Measure of a Man", Data establishes that he has a storage capacity equivalent of 800 quadrillion bits, which is equivalent to 100 Petabytes, or 100,000 Terabytes! In order to put this into perspective, Today's average desktop computer hard drive is about 1 Terabyte, or 1000 Gigabytes. The smallest commercially available 1TB drive I could find online is SanDisk's SSD PLUS:
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| Credit: SanDisk Source: Amazon.com Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use |
Needless to say, the tech ain't quite ready to fit in a man-sized head.
In the same episode, Data tells us that his linear computational speed is 60 Trillion operations per second. Without knowing what exactly Data meant by "operation", we will assume that one Floating Point Operation Per Second or FLOPS is equal to one of Data's operations per second. Doing the math, Data has a computational speed of 60 TeraFLOPS. This is actually kinda slow to today's standards. Data's brain calculates at 0.06 PetaFLOPS. The fastest supercomputer we have today can perform 122.3 PetaFLOPS. Okay, so Data's measely 60 trillion FLOPS can fit inside a man-sized head, and an equivalent real computer would take a Server Room.
Still Impressive. But the tech isn't quite there. In any case, we don't know if similar functions of the human mind that would make an artifice like Data work can be reduced to something like FLOPS. Sadly, computers today are by and large difficult to compare to the way neurons work. The point is moot, but still interesting.
But man-sized head supercomputers aren't possible. Yet.
Anyways, there are other important aspects to androids. Androids are literally robots that are manufactured to resemble and behave like humans as closely as possible. This gets us into some really weird territory. Our current materials science and ability to replicate the look and feel of real human skin and faces is horribly limited. As a result, the incredibly awesome human brain can pick out the fake stuff really well. And if the brain doesn't, then it ends up looking rather disturbing. For example, look at this photo:
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| Credit: Miami-Dade Medical Examiner Public Record RIP |
Anything... unusual about this young man? This is a doctored photograph of a deceased Floridian known only as Miami John Doe. Yes, this is a photo of a dead person, reconstructed to look as they might have in life. If you feel a little creeped, don't worry, you're normal. I had trouble looking at this image when I was integrating it into the post. Don't get me started on the research I did to find this. Ugh.
This introduces us to the concept of the uncanny valley. Basically, the more humanlike something becomes, the creepier it gets. To a point. There's a point where the creepy factor reaches a maximum, and then slowly ascends to something less uncomfortable. Check out this graph for a good visual representation:
Most of our attempts to create something humanlike have been laughable at best. We simply lack the technology as of this writing to create a truly "foolable" human facsimile. For example:
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| Credit: Wikipedia Commons |
We are just not there yet. Also, it stands to say that if done right, the androids don't exactly need to look exactly like a human in order to keep a sufficient distance away from the Valley. For example, in the upcoming movie Alita: Battle Angel, we see a big eyed, mechanical but otherwise quite charming example of an android:
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| Credit: 20th Century Fox Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use |
Okay, so not everyone is going to agree. But that's also a thing too; the subjectivity of the Uncanny valley is going to put perception of androids all over the chart. As societal standards change, so will perceptions of the creepy. After all, there was nothing seen creepy about a taking pictures with dead people in the Victorian Era. Or having mothers hold children in front of a camera while hiding under a blanket.
Chew on this stuff for a bit, and in part two, I'll explain what would be the first uses of androids, and if Androids might go the way of the Jetpack...
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