607 | Some Robot’s Personality

Not entirely clear on data vs. memories here.

If I’m understanding this correctly, then Memories are things that happen to that robot, or that the robot experiences directly, and Data is other knowledge generally available.

For us humans (and, presumably, other biological sentient races), our memories and experiences make us who we are, so without them, we’d be as bland as a… well, as a robot. Knowledge, on the other hand, doesn’t. For instance, I can honestly say I’d be the same person whether or not I ever knew that the Battle of Red Cliffs took place in 208 AD. However, the process of HOW I learned that (having to look it up so that I could unlock a blade in Fruit Ninja), says a lot about who I am. (As it turns out, I’m the kind of guy who gets frustrated when he has no internet access on his iPod and ends up just spending the 1000 Starfruit to unlock it, and then goes home and looks it up anyway. I’m also the kind of guy who then immediately forgets that knowledge, and has to look it up again to prove a point on the internet.)

So it makes perfect sense that a robot’s experiences would be tied to his personality, and that if the robot saw something that he shouldn’t have, it would be experiential knowledge, and the only way to remove it would be to remove the personality, as well.

As for the swappable data drives (I picture them as blue, btw), that makes sense, too. Even in the future, there’s no such thing as infinite storage, so if you have a navigator robot and you want to turn him into a translator robot, you have to make room on the hard drive, so you swap out the navigation files with the translation files and *poof* the robot can now translate between 2074 different languages, but can no longer take your ship from Proxima Centauri to Betelgeuse, yet he’s still the same robot, personality-wise.

perhaps this will clear up this subject to those that are confused.

“I am bender, please insert girder”

or mayhaps that will only raise more questions.

[insert sinister laugh here]

This is perfect. You nailed it.

I wish I had a separate place to store my data sometimes, my personality get in the way of my science every now and then.

Kasey has been looking better and better over the years thanks to all those improvements in the art, but this is the first time I swooned over her. o.O

true true. Well at least snape pulled off one or two useful things. hopefully Efrem did as well

is it me or does every one who reads zap super smart?

I just caught up on all the archives… It’s been years since I last read Zap, and it’s just as amazing as I remembered! Keep up the good work!

could this be the missing memory plug mentioned here?

http://www.zapcomic.com/2010/03/daedelus/

can’t wait to see what’s on the plug…

Wait a second! Robot’s memory plug!!

How did you even remember–

Thanks for the link!!