That’s me on the right, indicating my very intelligent but very literal laboratory creation, Bob the Robot, at the 1956 WorldCon Science Fiction Convention. The robot responded to simple commands from the RC unit in my friend Phil’s hand and yes, that’s a lampshade he’s wearing for a hat — that’s what was available at the junk store. He was built in three days. The hardest part was the aluminum paint — it wasn’t perfected yet, and didn’t do well on cardboard. Inside the robot costume is my friend Mike, who helped design and built it, and then figured out how to motivate it and make it “speak”. A flashbulb installed at the top would go off at the touch of a button. It exploded the first time we tried it. Very simple programming produces flatties, basically ON BP=MP, which is to say, whenever contacting any “otherness”, move toward it. Another way of saying that is to quote the U.S. Army’s 3 Commandments: If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, pick it up. If you can’t pick it up, paint it. Of course the paint used is always whitewash. If I didn’t appreciate flatties, I wouldn’t have created and used thousands of them. They make the game work!!! Only thing is, don’t expect from Artificial Intelligence what you’d expect from a live player, is all.

See You At The Top!!!

gorby