Graziano G. Ravizza Presents:

ROBOTOYS

From an idea by G. G. Ravizza & G. Pisaneschi

Texts by Graziano G. Ravizza

Illustrations by Roberto Ronchi

English translation by Alessandro Drenaggi

Colouring by Pamela Brughera e Roberto Ronchi

Digital Character Development by Alessandro Amati

SoundTrack by Davide Gatti

Special Thanks to Paolo Borella, Julian Smart (Anthemion Software)

Copyright © 2011 by G. G. Ravizza

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

in any form or by any means,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

Based on First ePub Edition v.0.3-04-AO-PDF, September 2010

Revision August 2011

ISBN: 978-88-6435-011-0

Visit the RoboToys web sites:

www.robotoys.info

RoboToons Publishing - Varedo (MB) - www.robotoons.com

LEVEL 0x000 PROLOGUE

« WELCOME BACK, FOLKS. As I anticipated before the commercial break, tonight we are very happy to have Professor Knudsen as our guest, who will introduce us to the amazing world of INTELLIGENT ROBOT VIDEO GAMES! Good evening, Professor! » « Good evening to you and of course to all of you kids who are watching us »

applause

« Professor Knudsen, as many of you probably know, is one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, and I’d like to ask him the first question straight away. In your opinion, could these new robotoys on the market be harmful to the kids’ development? »

« I don’t think so. At this point, all our little viewers know very well that technology has spread out in every aspect of their lives: at home, we have automatic washing machines connected to the Web, all school classes are now equipped with interactive OLED boards and, if they have to meet with their sweethearts, they send them an MMS or they meet in a 3D video chat room: nobody uses paper notes anymore » smiles

« Luckily our little friends are less intimidated by technology than what we may be, being born in a different time » « All right, Professor Knudsen, but you still haven’t answered my question: are these new robot video games everybody is talking about harmful or not? »

« Robot video games are the natural evolution of classical video games. Rather than being harmful to the kids, they awaken the fears of a few slightly bigoted adults because of the matter concerning the pills and souls » chuckles

« Nonetheless, these new robot video games are neither positive nor negative: they are simply mechatronic devices that, after all, don’t pollute, aren’t cancer-producing (at least as far as we know), aren’t flammable and, luckily, aren’t easily ingestible by children » « But what about the violent scenes? Zombies exploding in rivers of blood? Deadly weapons blasting a building with a single blow? Murderous cars running over pedestrians, the more you run over, the more points you earn? Isn’t it possible that our kids may emulate such violent behaviours? »

« But, before you answer me… stay right in front of your 3D Holo-screen and throw away your neuroremote, folks. There are two more minutes of…

COMMERCIALS » theme song

theme song applause « And we’re back with Professor Knudsen. My last question before the commercials was a little challenging, but I know the Professor won’t have any trouble answering it. So, Professor, we were talking about violent scenes in kids’ video games. Regarding the fact that zombies exploding in rivers of blood and similar butcheries fill children’s Xlash video games. We were talking about those deadly weapons that can blast a building, people, women, children and even cats in a single blow. We quoted those VG in which murderous cars run over pedestrians and the more you run over, the more points you earn. Professor, isn’t it possible that such violent and bloodthirsty behaviours may be emulated, copied by our kids in real life? »

« Thank for your question. This was, most definitely, the issue with video games in the last millennium.There were concerns that video games could encourage aggressive behaviours in kids, even though many studies were carried out proving otherwise. Traditional video games are simulations on the screen, so one may go over the top. Robot video games are different; you play with your robospider in your room, but you can’t blow up the room and the building in which you live; in real life this is not possible. It’s for this reason that new robot video games should be accepted with less concern by mums and parents in general »

« I agree with you, Professor Knudsen, our kids’ parents will definitely appreciate the fact that these new video games have been designed with less violent content with respect to traditional ones. However, earlier on, I happened to hear the mother of a child who is here with us tonight expressing this concern: these robot toys that walk around the house seem intelligent, their behaviours are so realistic that one is led to believe that they can actually think. Isn’t it possible that this aspect will carry some dangers, for us humans I mean? »

« No. We have to stop believing these machines are capable of actually elaborating thoughts. Truly, these devices react in the correct manner to stimuli, but they aren’t able to think at all. They are only the products of the A.I. technology that was born in the last millennium.

A long time ago, when your parents weren’t even born yet, in 1997, a machine, that is, a computer – a mix of microchips and software – was able to defeat the world champion, the best of them all in a chess game. It was a fair game, no tricks, no little men hidden on the inside: and, after all, no little men capable of defeating Garry Kasparov actually existed. However, this machine, called Deep Blue, didn’t think, didn’t elaborate thoughts and, more than likely, it didn’t even know it was playing chess.

Deep Blue was just receiving the positions of the pawns, castles and queens as inputs and then, it made its circuits work so that it could very, very rapidly picture millions of possible moves and, in the end, it would come up with the right one. There was no trace of intelligence in all of this: there only was an impressive speed of calculation.

From that moment, as we know, machine and robot development has never ceased. We, of a certain age, have seen the birth of charming little electronic dogs that were even able to sing, and in awe we looked at the first unsteady steps of anthropomorphous robots: the ones that can stand on two legs as we do.

After that, robotic machines have spread to every home under the form of thousands of products until finally arriving to today’s robotoys.

However, none of these machines is intelligent as we understand the word, none of these machines can actually elaborate thoughts or think. Do you know, my dear kids, what Hans Moravec, a famous scientist of the last century, would say? This scientist said that robot intelligence was going to surpass ours before 2050. His guess was obviously wrong. Try to ask your robot lawn mower, your dad’s automatobile, or your favourite robotoy “what does it think” of all this.

None of these machines will obviously answer you as, still to this day, computers, robots and robotoys can not think… »

...Is professor Knudsen right? It is really true that machines can not think?

If you think that machines can think, or if you do not think that machines can not think, read RoboToys Chapter 0x001.

You'll have plenty to think about ... The RoboToys Chapter 0x001 is already available on the web!

www.robotoys.info

RoboToys (c) 2011 Graziano G. Ravizza