I created the "Produce
Consume Robot" as a scale model prototype of a cybernetic
organism to succeed humans as the dominant species of earth
and beyond. His functions, including parroting "produce...
consume..." ad infinitum and performing repetitive menial
motions, have been distilled from otherwise frivolous human
behaviors to support maximal expansion of The Economy. Until
mass-production is fully operative, the prototype
Produce Consume Robot will stand as a mascot for our society
and a role model for our children.
In the process of
making the Produce Consume Robot I learned some interesting
lessons for creating robots to succeed us. For example, it
became clear that it was necessary to create a mind/body
separation. If the brain and body were powered from
the same source, surges in the power consumption of the body
would reset the brain, causing the body to flail out of
control and break off the arms.
Furthermore, the Produce
Consume Robot was originally intended to be entirely
deterministic. He would listen to his master and, on command,
he would repeat back exactly what he heard and move about.
However, by some manner my robot
developed what I heretofore term "free will". Instead of parroting what he hears, he
takes what he hears and turns it into a sample for a free
expression jam. Further observation revealed that it only
happens when he is moving (possibly limited attentional resources for multitasking).
I have yet to fully determine what the source of free will is, but my best
guess would be an induction between the body and the mind
circuitry. Maybe the soul?
Additionally, I found the induction
of free will that accompanied attaching the mind to the body led to an
increased expression of consumption behavior that slowly drained the
mind power until the body flailed out of control and broke off the
arms. I discovered it was possible to prevent this catastrophic
breakdown with a fail-safe switch I've termed "federal regulation"
that prevents the twisting of the body from overextending beyond the
critical point in
its revolution.
I modeled the
Produce Consume Robot as closely as possible to its human counterpart,
the Produce Consume Human. Sensory feedback signals from the periphery
(SPDT momentary pushbutton switches) terminate in the
sensory-motor
cortex (NAND gates wired to flip-flop). The sensory-motor cortex
projects to the posterior
cerebellar cortices (DPDT relays), which
control the direction of limb/torso motor output. A frontal timing
circuit (tlc555) controls the flashing of the eyes and the timing of
speech produced from the left hemisphere
Broca-Wernicke's chip
(extracted from a Radioshack picture frame recorder). Sensory-motor
connections between the body and the mind are predominantly connected
via a central signaling pathway resembling the human
spinal cord that
runs down the midline of the back.
