I'm writing this sci-fi series called First Contact Finders. Well, the first novel was easy, because I could adapt everything just to fit the story, including this android John, who looks exactly like a human, except for he had to be totally dumb, so he's acting will be more interesting, like here in this dialogue: "Please specify your conclusion 'there are no traces of technology'." The android asks. "Have your detectors found anything?" "No." Sammy's getting impatient. "Think a little, you moron! Where would such a telepathic signal come from?" The tension in his head changes again and increases its intensity. Sammy's adrenalin is growing. He tries not to panic. He subconsciously feels which way the inner emotions are dragging him and he tries to block them by thoughts of something similar, but harmless. "My database lacks the required context." John replies. "Exactly! They won´t have a name for it, if they don´t know it and haven´t seen it at least several times. Which means it's not any kind of technology, because they would shit themselves from our weapons a long ago... there must be something else going on.” I explained the android can be dumb in 23th century, because they got him for the mission just with basic firmware. It was a scum made by one jealous colleague. But in the next story, he has to be updated with some kind of personality. Still looking like artifical inteligence as many times as possible. Any suggestions? Almost all robots in stories represents some autistic behaviour, so Kryten from Red Dwarf series is enjoying cleaning and doing dishes, a maid from Outer Limits series is happily screwed by her owner, but then get jealous and want to kill him. I don't want to do that, because it looks really lame if you have to read that stuff. So "robotic" behaviour can be also about remembering all things, misjudging complicated context, but how about the way of responding, how about the character. Elvis Presley? Bruce Willis? John Rambo? Jim Carrey? How should fake person look like?
Like most other non-human characters, androids in fiction represent an aspect of human character. Emotion is one of the least understood elements of human behavior - we understand how it behaves, but understanding it mechanistically often eludes us. Therefore, many writers choose to model androids as lacking emotion, and androids therefore become a projection of human intellect instead. To a social scientist, that may resemble autism. However, you can model your androids to emphasize other aspects of humankind. Perhaps their makers modeled emotion too well, at the cost of logic being overridden. Or perhaps because they can virtually be immortal due to durable. replaceable construction, they are compulsive risk takers. There is no "should". It's all about what traits you need for your story, or for the point you wish to make.
I like the point "modeled emotion too well". He might respond with the same emotion even if should be offended or something! Compulsive people get at risk only if they care about stuff, android have no real feelings and in the story they can't have their own will, because that would be dangerous But of course, he will risk his life if they tell him so. That will be funny
I have an android character in one of my stories. I will just say that it essentially serves as a body guard, recording device and mobile search engine. I've thoroughly enjoyed tinkering with the character because it can be used as a tool to reveal the depth of other characters in the story.
Ummm intresting the c. your describing sounds like a cross between Data from Star trek and Kryten from Dwarf maybe one of the following could happed. 1.You could send your human c. to another planet on say leave and one of the more dodgy c. buys an illegal chip [just for fun] and for a prank puts it into your bot making him more intelegent but later on he is caught acsessing the ships computer and planning a rescue mission to save some of his old human "friends" that are being held hostage by some bad guys on a distant planet.That's a bit r2d2 ish i know but there's a novel right there. 2.You could have the same type of thing but they find a old non working robot that is the same as your bot they take it back to the ship fire it up it go's crazy,they kill it but before it "dies" it gives the other bot his memories via some kind of bluetooth type thing or it could pysically remove it's own chip and force it into your bot and c. traits.It turns out the other bot was used as a hitman or a bot that "sleeps" till it is sent instructions to do whatever the previous owners programmed it to do. 3.If you want to go for a comedy angle you could do 1. and make the robot gay or really annoying or even OCD or just incredibly strange. 4.You could take robot to planet it could get kidnapped by a group of scientists and hacked into they could improve your bot [ like an upgrade ] and then make the bot do some crime or hijack your ship and go on some life saving mission. 5.You could find a box of old looking chips and put them in and the bot becomes more intelegent and more human but is based on a historical c. like Sherlock Holmes or a famous comedian i like this one a box with chips each with a diffrent name they try various ones then vote on which one they liked. 6.He could be damaged in some way and while reparing/rebooting a part of his memory is re activated. 7.He could be doing a menial task [ like kryten ] and accidently find an instruction manual he could read it and reboot him self from dumb mode to smart mode.He could have various settings that either he finds or a human and they/he tries them out.The settings could be funny,ie it could have settings like "nanny" "mechanic" "cook" "cleaning" "pilot" etc because it's basicaly a bot that was made so it could human work you could kill off a minor c. and replace him/her with the bot thats using the previous dead persons job setting. It depends how much storyline you want to give the bot if you watch red dwarf when kryten came into the show he was basically a cleaning droid he had very little personalitty it was only after Lister messed about with him/educated him that he became more human. Hope that helps going back to number 7.He could be super intelligent but act dumb.
