Sci-Fi Civilian Vehicles, Equipment and Technology

Possibly deep sea work as well if it's pressure resistant.

Using power armor for construction would likely be more efficient than larger vehicles for smaller scale projects as their is more room to maneuver and it would require fewer resources to make.

There is already some exoskeleton variety in use now in some commercial uses. IIRC Lockheed Martin actually has some in use. Daewoo is working on a ship building prototype. They could quite feasibly be used by rescue services. Fire fighters and rescue services alone could make great use of them. I could see some LEO use as well. Construction namely carrying heavy things and holding heavy tools.

edited 12th Jun '18 3:50:45 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Somewhat related, if most of your population is transhuman in someway at the biological level, with chemical enhancements that improve efficiency and all that jazz (let's just leave out robotic limbs for sake of argument) does that mean the daily calorie intake of said humans needs to increase?

Probably, although it would depend on the nature of the enhancements. Energy in-> energy out etc.

Strength, speed, and healing enhancements would definitely require more calories while toxin resistance and sharpened senses probably wouldn't.

Sharpened senses totally would because it places a greater cognitive load on the brain.

Possibly, but the brain might just tune out most of the input until the user decides to focus on it.

Deciding to focus on sensory input puts a heavier cognitive load on the brain, even when not focusing (because something must be monitoring the sensory input in order to know when focusing on it might be necessary). We already do this, of course, which is why you will suddenly notice someone saying your name in a crowded room, you just aren't aware that your brain is monitoring your surroundings because it doesnt intrude on your consciousness. But it totally requires energy.

Something i've wondered about genetic enhancement is would any augmentations be passed down if the person has children?

Depends. It might be easier through the parental line just given how the differences in reproductive systems work, but if those changes can be made to the gametes (sperm and egg cells), then yes.

The reason that it might be easier through the male line is that because men are constantly manufacturing new sperm cells, as long as the changes migrate to the cells creating the new sperm cells it should pass on where as women aren't constantly replenishing their ova in the same way so it's harder for those changes to be transferred.

However if these changes are made early enough, like prior to or just after fertilisation, then yes, they will pass on assuming the changes don't make the recipient sterile.

Okay so we know logistics is a big thing.

So, how cheap do you think Civilian Androids would be?

And why are the droids in David Cage's "Become Human" so cheap?! 900 Dollars for a complex machine?

I'll point out that these days you can buy a high-end I Phone for around $900, even though 40 years ago you probably couldn't have purchased electronics that compact and powerful with all the money on the planet.

As far as "civilian androids", though, I guess I'd question if they'll ever really become household appliances. I can see them fitting in nicely in corporate settings, but I can't really see them being something everyone has around the home. At least not super lifelike ones.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jul 9th 2018 at 10:23:45 AM

The price tag is a bit on the low side for a very complex machine especially ones that do what the droids do in the game. I would chock that up to writers have no sense of scale. I would imagine this would be more akin to buying a car than Kitchen Aide mixer with large scale mass production.

A piece of electronics that is complex enough to acheive sapience probably should be more expensive than a cell phone, unless the cell phones of the time period are just as complex and possess the same potential for sapience.

"Call my mother."

"Do I have to? You called her yesterday..."

Or maybe cell phones of the time cost $10 each. That does seem to run afoul of basic economics, but who knows?

The point I was making is just that we have no idea how complex and costly the electronics needed for an android would be, and based on historical patterns saying those electronics would be costly based on our current estimates doesn't mean much.

I like the idea of it being nearly as expensive as a car, as it would be a complex piece of machinery you have made a investment in.

Presumably if there was ease of access to materials and the parts needed, as in the manufacturing had become easy and cheap enough, androids would be easier to mass produce, but still costly as they are highly complex machines.

We have no real conception of the relative complexity of futuristic electronics, though. Like I said, the electronics in our cell phones would have been inconceivable 40 years ago. In a far-future setting it's possible the electronics in an android could experience the same effect. In fact, it's very likely.

Well... Our modern cellphones wouldn't quite be inconceivable 40 years ago.

As in if you were to show a modern cellphone to the appropriate engineers 40 years ago, their response would not be 'OMG! It's magic!' or even 'How does this space alien device work?!?', but 'Oh, yeah, that makes sense.' They'd even be able to build a copy of it, with their available tools, it would just be somewhat expensive.

See, the thing about those kinds of tech advances is that as fast as it seems to move, it's actually moving pretty slowly. Most of the technological stuff we have today could have been produced about 20 years ago if one third of the stuff leading up to it hadn't been developed initially for military purposes and not released for civilian use until 10 years later and another third hadn't been intentionally bottlenecked by the companies who designed it until they could tweak it enough that it could be as a new patent of its own, rather than the modification of an existing patent it started out as and the last third hadn't been some university lab's passion project that the university finally decided should get sold off once they were done proving it could be done.

This is also why we'll definitely get civilian household androids at some point in the future, even though they're not remotely practical. Because the idea of android household servants has entered the public consciousness and several robotics companies and university engineering departments are working on life like androids just to show that it can be done, eventually one of them is going to finish proving that and the research grants are going to run out and at that point putting two and two together to cover some of the costs of the research will be a no brainer.

Well, we have them now, its just a matter of how much one is willing to pa for a given level of capability.

And the first affordable, mass produced androids are totally going to be sex bots.

I'm not so sure about the sex bot thing. As funny as it is that many advancements in technology were spurred by people asking 'How do we porn this?', a sex bot is a lot harder to buy casually (and a hell of a lot less convenient to store/hide) than, say, a vibrator or a fleshlight.

Now... Will those civilian domestic androids that are definitely going to happen even though they're not remotely efficient or, generally, a good idea have a function that will allow people to have sex with them to the point that some people will get them only for that function?

Hecking yes, even if only because people will be trying to sexy times their androids whether they're built for it or not and "I bought an android to do my housekeeping" is a lot easier to explain to one's friends and family than "I bought an android to do", even if everyone knows what the real reason is.

That is why we have e-commerce and order by mail.

Edited by Belisaurius on Jul 25th 2018 at 10:27:40 AM

Well, primitive sex bots/dolls already exist and people are buying them despite those issues, so...

I can see the multi-function bots becoming a thing to some extent, but I always find it pretty silly when sci-fi shows depict all robots as convincingly human and "fully functional" regardless of what they're made for. Household bots and personal assistants, sure, but even random street cleaners and construction workers... really?

Yeah that never made much sense to me either. Skip the complexities of being a human as much as possible and just build it for the task. It would help simplify its design to a fair degree.

"...a sex bot is a lot harder to buy casually (and a hell of a lot less convenient to store/hide) than, say, a vibrator or a fleshlight."

Harder perhaps (was that a pun?), but oh so much more satisfying...