Thought for the Day

[keaalu]

Note: Yes, this IS following on from what I posted the other day; I added more, but under the cut, so I don't clog people's friends pages with my whining.

September 12th, 00:12
Small ponderation.
Danji wants anthroids to become all uber-popular and fill the world with cool art and stuff, which is great. The world needs more funky-dope robots and snazziness. (Although I could do without the sex.)
...at the same time, I sit here and think "...but... I quite liked being a bit unique. I don't want my special thing to become the latest lemur / rainbow-coloured-husky / noble-native-american-werewolf / bioluminescent-rave-beast, and to vanish into the seething masses "
I am internally conflicted.

Edit:
Okay, let's clarify a few things.

I am NOT going to get all blender-kin-esque, because frankly that's mostly ridiculous, but if it helps, eh, so be it.

No, I make no assertion that I am anything other than you see; I am 100% human, 100% human-souled (especially since no-one really knows what a "human soul" should feel like in the first place, I guess); I am not otherkin, therian, were, furry; I do not believe myself to somehow be the reincarnated or preincarnated or destined-to-be soul of a dead/not-yet-living/whatever robot.

BUT

It resonates very close to my heart. It is something that is important to me. If I get no art, pfft, it's not a big deal. (...but it naturally makes me warm and fuzzy if it happens. thankyou Techno *glee*) If I'm the only one who likes Synth, as they stand in their current iteration, SO BE IT. I LIKE being a little unique. I LIKE my individual quirks that make me who I am. I have no burning drive to make Synth somehow the "next big thing in furry/fantasy/sci-fi/whatever". I happen to like the status quo. (All I'd like is for a few more people to read my fiction, but eh, it's not something I'd rant and rave and scream much about.)

I don't begrudge people like Danji for wanting to push their ideas - I don't BLAME them either, heck, if I had time I'd be plugging Dauntless everywhere. All that makes me nervous is that anthroids/Synth become the next "LGD"-whatevers that Danji mentioned on his ElJay - and I think I'd cringe right away and withdraw my fiction even further into obscurity if Ivy was nothing more than wank-material. Sure, I've accepted it'd happen if my fiction became more popular, because let's face it, people sexualise Clifford the Big Red Dog (the mind boggles), a petite little foxlike alien robot girl isn't too hard to sex up. All that makes my leery is of robots becoming the new foxes in furry - I've come to terms with the fact foxes are so horribly oversexed, even if I'm tired of having to keep excusing my likes, but for it to go that way with Synthetica too? Having to keep excusing Ivy for being who she is? Having to keep explaining that she's not just a high-class sex-doll with AI? And that I'm not jumping on other peoples' bandwagons? I think I'd vanish altogether.

...I think essentially what I'm saying is that there's some mistranslations when comparing how *I* like Synth with how OTHER PEOPLE like anthroids/LGDs (and no, I'm not name dropping and meaning Danji here, I mean 95% of robophiles, be they sci-fi-fans, furries or whatever). A lot of people want robot/anthroid companionship, or at very least sex on tap from a personal sex-droid (as evidenced by 90% of Star Trek fiction involving Data). Me? If I were dropped into my little universe and told to choose which of my characters I'd be, it'd BE Ivy (or Eri, based off facts you don't yet know.) Not just a friend of them. Them.

I mean, consider this: I have no "online self". I do not have a "fursona", or online avatar, or anything like that - what you see is what you get. Even "Keaalu" is little more than a fancy pseudonym - something short, easy to type and reasonably easy to remember (certainly easier to remember than my real name), and there's no other "Keaalu"s out there.

BUT. If I were to decide to suddenly "have a real avatar" or anything, Ivy would more than likely be it. In all the fan-fiction I have written where I've inserted myself as a Mary-Sue character to "bounce" off the canon cast, or just plain fiction with an alternative "me" in it, I have represented myself as Synthetic in some way, shape or form. This is as far back as I can recall, so since I was, oh, must have been about 12 or 13 (I'm 25, now). So it's not a big stretch to see Ivy as me. And in spite of her occasional nervous breakdowns, self-doubt and worry, she IS close to me. Her nature is normally very much like mine. We both severely doubt our worth at times, hate having to take a compliment (ever noticed I rarely say more than "thanks"? I'm not ungrateful, I just get tongue-tied and genuinely don't know what to say.) If I can talk ABOUT something, something non-emotional and quite easy to discuss, like the technical details of what I'm complimented ON, that's better.

Seeing comments like "OMFG that's so yiffy *MURR* you should make an anthroid character of it!" or the equivalent makes me... uncomfortable, I guess, in ways it's difficult for me to to define. Especially if "Synthoid" gets lumped into the description.

No, I am not saying Ivy is somehow the "true me" or my "inner self" or anything like that. The inner me is Abigail Scott, plain and boring. But Ivy is very, VERY close to who I am and what makes me tick, and for her to be a lone synthetic star against a galaxy of biological characters is not only really not a big deal, but actually something I'm comfortable and happy with.

(I apologise if this looks like a "OMFG NEON GREEN HUSKIES WITH BANGS AND WEARING CORSETS ARE COPYRITE MEEE © NO STEAL OR I KEEL JOO"-type boring old rant, because it's not how I see it. :P And lastly, I apologise for the occasional random @s, someone's switched the key with the " on this PC and I can't change it back)

Comments

[slaskia.livejournal.com]

Granted I don't know him as well as you, but personally his obsession with robots comes off as a bit scary if you ask me...

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

I don't recall ever meeting you, so I doubt you know me at all. That being said, we all have our obsessions, that's what makes life fun. :)

[aegis-fox.livejournal.com]

Hey, wasn't that my line?

...I have no idea why I'm complaining. But still.

[slaskia.livejournal.com]

Offically no we haven't met, but I've read enough of your posts in this journal and on VCL_Horrors (when it still exsisted) to get an impression of you. I don't blame you for having an obsession as a form of release, it's just the manner I've seen you reveal it that gives me pause.

But like I said, I'm basing this on very little knowledge about you as a person...

[robocoon.livejournal.com]

yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, there was even a time a few years ago when I hated you and him and a few other people for doing the furry robot thing, thereby making me "not unique". So a whole ton of them.... erg. :[

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

But wouldn't you want to not feel so alone with your idea?

Besides, you still have a totally different take on the concept than we do, so... yeah, you're still unique in that regard.

[harvey-longtail.livejournal.com]

Some folks don't create ideas to make friends or get popularity. Some people do just come up with ideas because it's fun to do.

I've done a lot of creating in my time, and I can't say I've ever felt "alone" if I didn't share it with anyone. It was just for me!

[aegis-fox.livejournal.com]

Hm. I can sort of relate... no, actually, I can't, since what I like generally already is part of the raver/glowstick/furry/pop-culture stuff. Somewhere, at least.

The question is, would it upset you becayse everyone else would be removing what makes you unique, or because you think they'll be getting it wrong? Misappreciation, so to speak. As in "Hey check out this synthoid concept: Let's overuse, corrupt, dismantle, and sodomize it in everyway possible!!! L0Lzz!!11!!1!one."

Well, I doubt anyone would say those exact words. But it'd be the eventual result, quite possibly.

The other question is if it's something any of us even have any control over to begin with. Even if it does become mainstream, so to speak, you'll still be quite unique, as will your approach. But I still understand your point.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

It's PARTLY the whole "Hey check out this synthoid concept: Let's overuse, corrupt, dismantle, and sodomize it in everyway possible!!! L0Lzz!!11!!1!one." concept, and partly because hey, who doesn't like being UNIQUE?

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

I agree, that "overuse, corrupt, dismantle, and sodomize" aspect is something I DON'T want to happen to the concept.

That being said, remember that there's always ways to make stuff be unique. Considering that it's going to be forever until the fandom as a whole is aware of the concept, anyway, I don't any reason to be afraid that you're not going to be unique anymore. At the same time, it can be fun to share certain key elements and themes, and to talk about them among friends. :)

[paul-doyle.livejournal.com]

Some things have universal, enduring appeal. Even if they are (fundamentally) a bit boring and cliched unless there's a unique twist on it. I admit I'm a dragon nut (full-sized or anthro) which obviously is as cliched as anything without creative spins. Also, gryphons, unicorns, foxes, wolves and horses certainly fall into the enduring (if predictable) category.

I personally have no sexual fixation whatsoever with anthroids, though I accept that possibility (Data in "Star Trek: TNG" had sex in at least one episode, after all). They are pretty cool otherwise, though. So you never know. Anthroids don't have to be as outlandish as some of Godzilla's opponents (Megalon comes instantly to mind) to be memorable. If it catches on, cool . . . but no need to push these things, either :)

[harvey-longtail.livejournal.com]

(Coming in from Danji's journal)
I hope I haven't stepped on any toes in drawing art of anthroids recently. It was not my intention.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't have plans to go the way of oversexualizing my anthroid character. When asked if he was anatomically correct, I said, "Yes, but just that - correct. He doesn't have a seven-foot dong and he has no programs that can make him do so." That thought does disgust me. The idea of using AI solely for sex squicks me there and back again.

I hope to do a few small, cute-based comic-style sketches about my anthroid, mostly humor-based. He's... got a plug on the end of his tail. XD I wanted to take a kind of light-hearted approach with the idea.

I don't know how you fit in with the anthroid concept as, well, I don't know you. As far as I know, you are not mentioned in the Anthroid entry on wikifur, and that's where I got most of my info about 'em.

I understand the fear of the furry community getting a hold of something you love and mangling it. It would creep me out to wake up and find my blue cat character being posted in porn on -chans (even though I don't have a _huge_ connection with him or anything). And I do understand the idea that perhaps Danji pushes a little too much about the concept and might therefore come across the wrong sorts of people. LGD kinnah made me wanna vomit (that's not Danji's fault that it exists, and to each his own, but I could never use a lifelike being like that). >__< I like the idea of using anthroids as companions, as in, "Hey let's go to the store. Hey let's play some video games." But once you let go of an idea and introduce it to someone else, there's always that chance that they'll love it and want to make it their own. And you're sitting there going "WEH COME BAAAAAAAAAACK that's not what it's meant to dooooo" and there's nothing you can really do about it unless it's been copyrighted. And even then... not really much you can do.

I'm definitely interested in your take, though! So if you have stories or artwork somewhere, let me know? :)

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

No, no toes have been stepped on. :) To be honest I DID think he was rather nifty, and it wasn't that which prompted my little whinge - just part of a confluence of events. I just wanted to get my own thoughts down "on paper", so it's obvious I'm not disinterested if I don't comment, just... nervous of it.

I WAS on the anthoid entry, but I took my name off as I felt it was misleading. (I LIKE them, sure, but I'm hardly pushing to mainstream them, and I'm not even furry.)

[harvey-longtail.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm not hip-deep into the furry interest circles either. If someone were to ask what my true interests are, "furry" wouldn't even make the list. They're just really neat to draw, and I can make people happy if I draw 'em.

I am still interested in larger versions of your artwork, more on your characters, stuff like that, if you're at all willing to share. I promise I wouldn't take your characters and run. :3 If you're not willing though, I totally understand.

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

I agree with you 100%, actually. I don't want anthroids as merely sexual objects, but as cool, fun robotic friends that can do some things with me that organic beings can't. There's really no end to the kinds of things they can do, it's just that I don't have enough time to write it all down, and maybe that's what's preventing others from really understanding the stuff I like about the concept. :p

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

Bargin' in from Danji's journal since you posted the link. Actually very useful for you to have done so.

Although I'm feeling uncharacteristically lazy to take it apart piece-by-piece, much of what you said resonated with various thoughts I had on several aspects of the various topics alluded to. And no, it certainly doesn't look like a "OMFG NEON GREEN...etc." post.

Actually, I'm feeling so tired that I'm going to flagrantly compartmentalise the various issues into a list. Tell me if I'm causing more trouble than clearing up in doing so:

1. Individuality
2. Socialisation
3. Identification and interpretation of subcultural components

First, one thing presumed here is that people in general like to "express their individuality" by being "unique" or "definably different" in some way. Like Iguana (the comment). And the way this is being discussed or implied here is in having an avatar or identifying with a concept which is in itself rare/unique, which, humorously, is often parodied by various commentaries within the furry fandom. Or having an outlook that necessitates by definition i.e. identity politics in the otherkin demographic.

As a result, you and several others seem to be rather confused with Danji's behavior here, in that he seems to appear to simply want other people to share his views. I will not pretend to even begin understanding how it all fits together, but I will point out that there is a difference in being "rare" and being "the only one", even if this difference only exists in perception. Feedback and some degree of common ground is important, as opposed to feeling totally alienated, and perhaps to paraphrase Danji, he does not think nor expect anybody to actually understand this interest/fetish or the way he treats it anyway. I will not attempt to comment on how he reacts to this notion as that'd be assuming I can read his mind.

Another clear motive is that of sexual treatment, the discussion of which would revolve around the current perceptions and reactions to such within the fandom and in society in general. It is somehow connoted degrading to see something as a source of sexual gratification, especially if this is the only purpose for it. Perhaps part of the sense of uneasiness relates back to our conceptions of sex and various moral discussions based in principles of self-gratification being an act of selfishness. I recall treading somewhat clumsily around this in a previous discussion with Harvey attempting to hypothesise various interpretations of seeing anthroids as a fetish.

This obviously also relates back to sexuality within the fandom as being notably more freely expressed in certain ways. There's this certain sense of defensiveness about it, given the presumption that it is an indication of prevalent promiscuity and that this is somehow bad or derision-worthy.

More importantly, though, it's degrading because sex tends to barge everything else off. Once something becomes associated with sex, people tend to presume that everything else is somehow irrelevant, which would unfairly affect people for whom this is not the case- e.g. you...and me, and most of the people I know involved in the fandom.

I guess in the end, we are essentially worrying about what others think of us, or somehow misapprehending us and therefore if they so wish to judge, will do so unfairly. The very least you can take from this is the sense that you are comfortable with the way you percieve your treatment as it varies alot, so really any sweeping broad generalisation will always be limited and arguably incorrect. And regarding the pursuit of uniqueness...well like "meaning" to life, trying to look for that will really only be a self-defeating exercise, since we already possess it and it is useless to try and adapt ourselves to the habit of profiling. That's kind of why I like using almost stock generic characters such as Morgan here (in the userpic box). All those visual, outwardly oriented markers of symbolic individualism are quite simply extraneous. But that doesn't mean I don't feel a certain tug to be unique, myself, either.

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Well, here's the thing. I want the concept to grow as just that, a base concept. After that, there's all sorts of unique things you can do. I believe your spin on the concept has plenty of uniqueness in it, after all, and I respect the wording you choose for it and stuff. I have my own spin on synthetic creatures, and I really enjoy seeing other people creating their own ideas. So it's not about everyone embracing the same idea, but rather for people to play around with the very broad concept.

You should still feel original, though. If you don't, then use your imagination until you feel it is original.

But for me, I want to be original, yet I don't want to feel alone or unappreciated. I really like the idea of people genuinely enjoying my concepts, and I really like the idea of the broad concept being tested more, until it is something that most of the fandom is aware of. Out of many people that I talk to, most of them don't know what an anthroid is, or have never heard of the concept. What is making me happy is seeing that they're finally being exposed to our ideas. :)

So, yeah, in a sense, it means that people like us will be more appreciated for our unique ideas, so it's slightly a vanity thing, I suppose. The other part is in feeling comfortable that we are not alone in our interests.

That being said, I don't want anthroids to become the next big fetish, either, since I love them as way more than just on a sexual level, and it would be quite a tragedy if they were to be considered nothing but a sexual kink. It would be great if EVERY part of them was explored and conceptualized by people, such as their mechanical advantages, their AI mindsets and personalities, and that those concepts could be used in more neat storylines.

I still think your ideas are very unique. I don't want anyone to rip off anyone else's ideas. But it has been painful going around and hearing everyone say "OMG I thought I was alone with my interest, now I'm not!!" when I haven't been able to say that. That's what I want to change. I don't want the idea super popular to the point where it's ruined, but I don't want to feel like no one understands it or appreciates it, either.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

Oh, I understand where you're coming from, don't get me wrong - everyone wants to be appreciated! It's just that a frequent theme in your comments (including ones that aren't even vaguely related) is in a vein of "OMG that looks so anthroid-y, you should draw them /draw them more!"

From my point of view, I've always been in the middle but outside, as it were (perhaps why Fox and her skills of camouflage resonate with me? I don't know). So I'm happy being different, without necessarily having people that share my ideas. I mean, following your comment of anthroids ages ago was more out of interest to see if it was what I thought it sounded like, not a burning drive to find "kinship". :\ (BTW, that isn't a case of "OMFG why did I meet you *rar grumble*", just an explanation of what prompted me to approach you.)

[aegis-fox.livejournal.com]

Argh, I thought this subject was DEAD. Dead, I say... *shakes head*

Oh well. My take on the second half of this:

I think it sums up your fears, desires, and motivations on the subject quite nicely.

Though as I've said before: At some point, you have to accept that the actions of people are, for the most part, beyond your control. There are probably people that would see Ivy as a sex toy no matter how much you try to defend her or deny it, save for changing who she is altogether. It would be part of who the said people are. And trying to protect your interests against such things is quite often futile.

As to synth becoming mainstream and a widely accepted sexual tool... that falls on other people's desires as well. There will always be the kind of people that will see these things as yiffy, so to speak. That's pretty much true for anything: The internet's practically proven this. Attempts to counter this through trying to limit such people's ability to reach it, is self-destructive at best. Think of the results of the VCL_Horrors owner's use of "I don't want people to attack me, so no one's allowed to guess who I am" approach.

The best way to fight such a thing is the spread of information itself, of what your ideas and characters really are. So that even against the possible sexual affiliations that may arise, there'll still be the knowledge of what your creations and world should be.
Or, to use your example, Clifford the Big Red Dog is a children's character, who, yes, some see as yiffy. But to the overall world in general, he's still seen as a children's character. Probably even still to those who sexualize him. Which is a little disturbing to think about, but still quite possibly true.


...wait. Does this mean I have to stop randomly saying "foxes"? .........Don't answer that.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

MUAHAHA. Never defeated.

Yeah, I know, and I know people will get off on anything - if you put it online, someone somewhere will be wanking to it. (Clifford the Big Red Dog anyone? :P ) It's the idea that that might be the SOLE interest people have in things.

...And ...you said "yiffy". I'm sorry, you have lost all my respect now, please leave my ElJay. *sticks nose in air* ( )

[julian-wilbury.livejournal.com]

Wow, this exploded. Didn't see your edit at all.

People- furries ESPECIALLY will sexualize ANYTHING. But you know that by now. I could count off tons of weird examples, but again, you mostly know them already. I won't even get into the non-furries who slash REAL LIVE PEOPLE who are NOT GAY...gah, so much hate for them. But that's another rant altogether.

I'm not a big fan of robot sex at all (synths are a little more understandable...but I also say NO to synths as "sex toys") but still...that's probably me just being the gender-neutual freak I am. :b

You probably know half the reason why I followed your work and your journal- heck, I wanted someone to listen to my half-baked ideas on robots/cyborgs/synths whatevah. The people on my friends list who really want to hear me babble about that crap is really far and few inbetween.

Yet...

I know the feeling of being afraid of something being the next furry "cliche". Hardly ANYBODY knows about gryphons in real life (although, of coure, they all know about Buckbeak the hippogriff....*shakes fist*)...but of course, they're furry cliche on the Internet. Coyotes are meant to be hunted, shot, poisoned, and eliminated. (But then again, I live in the Midwest, so that's why I get that feeling. But to be honest, it was just as bad in Cali.) Internet? Furry cliche. Those are two of the flesh-and-blood (although not necissarily meaning REAL....just "organic") things I love MOST
and furry just ran and had a feild day with them with a blink of an eye. I'm sure people are often "omfg it's another gryphon from rockerbot" when they see a new art post. WELL I WRITE STORIES ABOUT GRYPHONS, AND I LIKE TO ILLUSTRATE SOME OF THE THINGS ABOUT THEM, SO STFU.

Luckily the cloest anyone ever gotten to getting "y***y" with Lillian was in a IRC chat...(excluding the PaintChat incidents which was mostly just a joke...if you don't know, don't ask, it's just me being a weirdo with the rest of the weirdos at the TLKFAA Sketcher. It's fun to be immature sometimes!)

As for "closeness" to your character(s), if people think you're a Synth-Otherkin because of what you said, heck, I'm a camearbot Otherkin. Really, though, I see my characters, at least the MAIN ones as parts of myself that sometimes come up into my head full-front. And if that makes me MPD, well, then, Chuck Jones (of Looney Tunes fame) was MPD, as well as many other artists and writers, because a lot of them felt the exact same way about the characters they created or were close to. But I explained it further in one of my own journal entries (actually, a couple).

Crap, none of this makes sense, and a lot of this is re-tread over what others said...oh well. My fault for coming in late. :b (Heck, I mean, the last time I checked this entry, there was only 8 replies! :b)

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it did kinda "explode" after I edited it. Oh well - discussion is good, and all that. *nods*

I'll have to go look see if I can find these journal entries of which you speak. ;)

[starglider.livejournal.com]

Commenting rather late as I've only just seen this;

I don't think you need to worry about the concept getting over-sexualised. It doesn't have an instant visual appeal, the details are too complicated for most of the sex-obsessed people (who generally aren't all that imaginative; and no eight breasts and ludicrously scaled up genitalia does not qualify as 'imaginative') to both with, and the fetish community for humanlike robots is neither large nor terribly related to furry (unlike say BDSM, which is huge and unsurprisingly has plenty of furry adherants). A much more common usage of android and cyborg is for the childish 'power-level one-upmanship' that seems to go on on a lot of furry forums; technology is just one of the many excuses (along with magic, genetic engineering etc) to claim stupendously powerful abilities of various sorts. Some degree of superhuman abilities are plausible and interesting with reasonably modest technology, but the wildly excessive stuff generally isn't justified by any physically plausible description of the technology used and doesn't really serve to make things more interesting, just to make the character's owner feel superior. As noted below wildly superhuman physical abilities generally imply the technology for wildly superhuman mental abilities, and you just can't roleplay the latter even if you're knowledgable about AI and trying hard to do so (which is a lot of mental effort, and relatively rare).

My view of this is going to be somewhat unique simply because I research artificial general intelligence (and have in the past done robotics work) in real life. As such I'm constantly aware of how unlikely and superficial /some/ of the 'artificial being' concepts are. Furry as a whole tends towards disappointingly human personalities, with just a few instincts where convenient and traces of perceived animal personality traits, whereas when you spent a lot of time with actual animals you realise that they think in genuinely different ways. AIs are /much/ more alien than that, as well as being vastly more varied in possible designs, even before you start getting into transhuman intelligence. It really takes a great deal of work to design an AI that even loosely resembles humanlike cognition, and even then you have to ask why you'd want to saddle an AI with all the legacy evolved junk humans have (such as our tiny working memory size and peculiar set of irrational 'emotions'). A sufficiently powerful (i.e. somewhat transhuman) AI should be able to /emulate/ human/near-human behaviour without too much difficulty, but its underlying cognition isn't going to be humanlike (if it uses emergent/evolutionary design patterns it probably won't even be humanly comprehensible). An exception to this are AIs that are created by emulating human brain function at a low (neuronal) level, either straight 'uploads', uploads with additional more conventional software added, or 'grown' AIs that mimick an entire human childhood. Emulating human brains that accurately is still highly nontrivial, but it's quite a bit easier than designing a reasonably humanlike AI from scratch. Note that it's easy to make up a load of AI cognitive mechanisms that sound humanlike, but the origins of behaviour are a /lot/ more subtle than what those kind of superficial mechanisms can capture; you'd end up with a chatbot-like surface layer and a deeply inhuman (and probably incomprehensible) 'underlayer'.

[starglider.livejournal.com]

Personally I have a lot of fun making up AI/anthroid characters and imaging them coping with various scenarios. I like imaging fairly inhuman cognitive architectures, by human storytelling standards. But anything I can emphasise with and easily roleplay is still going to be quite close to human in the grand scheme of things, and clearly can't really be transhuman in non-peripheral cognitive abilities (a problem sci-fi authors run into whenever they try to write smarter-than-human characters). So I have to include fairly extensive and sometimes convoluted rationales for why they're relatively humanlike and why they're (a) not that much beyond human abilities and (b) won't rapidly start self-modifying themselves to have greater and greater intelligence (as most real AGI systems of human-equivalent intelligence would). Note that with current or near future technology, anthroids will have some physical advantages but also quite a lot of physical disadvantages. If you start bringing in tech like self-repair nanotechnology and superstrong materials you're implying (a) vast changes in the society that build the creation and (b) the potential for vastly transhuman cognitive abilities, because with nanotech-built computers you get this even with the most naieve and inefficient software (IMHO competently designed and/or post-takeoff software is going to be pretty transhuman even on current real-world processing substrates). You can get around (a) for a character with sufficiently creative origins (last product of a lost civilisation that wiped itself out in a nanotech war or similar) but (b) is tough; the AI would have to have been deliberately built to be quite limited in cognitive abilities and want to stay that way.

Finally, it's nice to hear that keaalu identifies with her characters in such a close sense, in that that's inherently more interesting than thinking of them as toys or plot devices. I always have extra respect for people who'd genuinely like to see their fantasies made real (assuming they're not dark fantasies); particularly when they actually work towards that end in real life, but I accept that in the vast majority of cases that's not really possible. I'd certainly be interested to see what Keaalu would do if we developed the tech to create arbitrary AIs, anthroids, cyborgs, uploads, full-realism VR etc. As for danji; much as I sympathise with the concept, I consider the creation sentient beings with strict (and avoidable) constraints on the possibilities for self-growth (which hardwiring affection and loyalties certainly is) to be morally wrong. It's a particularly insidious form of slavery. Creating nonsentient beings (noting that the dividing line is possible but nontrivial to demarcate) for arbitrary personal use isn't a moral problem, but I'm not sure that in this case it would be a good idea for the ongoing wellbeing of the human.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

"My view of this is going to be somewhat unique simply because I research artificial general intelligence (and have in the past done robotics work) in real life."
You have no idea how jealous I am of this. :P I so nearly went in for a degree in that type of science instead of pharmacy, but I wanted to be halfway sure of getting a job at the end of it, and I was always better at chemistry/biology, so... go figure. :( :P

I'd be more coherent and answer a bit more except that I'm still high on pseudoephedrine for my cold, so I'll try and remember to come back once I'm well again. :P