NextFest
June 29th, 2005
Wired magazine’s NextFest, held in Chicago last week, was billed as an opportunity to preview the future. Or possibly not, if this report at Ars Technica is anything to go by:
Ten things I learned about the future at the Wired NextFest
[…]3. The elderly Japanese people of the future will be so desperately lonely for companionship that they’ll purchase slightly creepy android replicas of the drug-addled but brilliant sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Why the Japanese, and why Phillip K. Dick? It’s a long story, and I’m not sure I fully understood it all when the android’s makers explained it to me. I think I probably read the wrong books growing up as a kid, or maybe I now watch the wrong TV shows.
I tried to convince the PKD android guys that if they were going to be in the business of making robotic replicas of famous, drugged-out writers, they should also consider offering a Hunter S. Thompson model. That way, at least the Japanese would have a choice of companions. I know if I were Japanese, I’d collect both models and watch them fight over a half gram of mescaline.
On a more serious note, I think the PKD robot would’ve been a lot cooler and significantly less creepy if they’d have glued his hair on, instead of leaving the wires in the top of his head exposed. But hey, PKD was an odd guy, and maybe he would’ve wanted it that way.
[Via Slashdot]
June 30th, 2005 at 5:53 am
If a wannabe PKDick robot approached me, although I’d want to first study it, and doubtless blog on it, throwing it out after doing my best to destroy it utterly would likely still be on my top ten list.
He’s not among my top choices of top huggleable sf author icons.
June 30th, 2005 at 7:03 am
If not PKD, which SF author do you think would make a suitable model for a companion robot?
July 4th, 2005 at 4:57 am
They’re pretty much married or taken, so discretion intrudes upon any possible public expression here.
:-)
The flip question one might also wish to exercise some discretion upon is which writerish robots one might want to sic on someone who annoys you….