Farting Robots and Shitting Ducks

The first of a new, biweekly column on science from the author of The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace and Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender Wars
by Margaret Wertheim

I'VE SIGNED THE PETITION, SIGNATURE NUMBER 134,042, so clearly I'm not the only one mourning the passing of Futurama. Though, frankly, and I am sure this is not an irrelevant statistic, I have yet to meet another soul aside from my husband who actually watched the show. Too bad, because Futurama, a hyperkinetic hybrid of The Simpsons and Star Trek, is one of the most brilliant sci-fi parodies ever conceived. If there were any doubts about Matt Groening's genius, Bender blew them away.
Bender is of course a robot -- but one in a class of his own. In classic science fiction, the function of the robot (or its fleshy facsimile) is rational reflection (think Data and Mr. Spock). Though Spock is a Vulcan, his persona is strictly machinic, an android in spirit if not technically in flesh, while his Next Generation counterpart, Lieutenant Commander Data, is unambiguously pure construct. A Mensa Dream Team, cool, calm and calculating at every turn, are the guys you can call on when the dilithium drive melts down and the space-time matrix ruptures. Bender, he'd be down the back of the bus chugging beers. If Data is the silicon sibling of the icy Vulcan Spock, all quiet reason and prim restraint, Bender is the titanium twin of Homer Simpson, belching and farting his way through time and space. With this venal, indulgent sensualist, Groening thumbs his nose at the whole tradition of artificial intelligence: Fuck chess, pass the nachos.
For much of the past half-century, robotics research has focused on tasks requiring concerted mental acuity -- navigating a maze, for instance, or precise mechanical assembly -- but a new generation of researchers are beginning to turn their attention to more "mundane" corporeal functions such as walking and scuttling. And yes, some of the finest minds in the field are currently trying to make robots that fart and shit and pee.
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