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Captain Cyborg becomes a film critic

Reads his inane dribblings on Spielberg's AI

Is there no end to Captain Cyborg's talents? Self-publicist supremo, confused lecturer, technology Cassandra and now film critic to boot.

Yes, Kevin Warwick has cropped up in today's London Evening Standard offering his "expert" opinion on the intelligent life-forms featured in Steven Spielberg's new Film AI.

It's almost too terrible to bear. The film features "gigolo robots, teddy bears that can walk, talk and think and even plastic, human-looking nannies". And all these are completely feasible according to Kev - who has got other people to build a series of robots that have completely failed each time to fulfil their most basic function. However, a robot that could be mistaken for a human, that is programmed to love irrevocably. Well that's just made-up nonsense, a waste of effort, says Kev.

And if Kevin Warwick is an expert in anything, it's in made-up nonsense.

In the brief intro in the paper to Captain Cyborg, it makes mention of his reed switch "implant" but fails to mention that it was only put a few millimetres under the skin for less than a week. It mentions the new magic chip as well - and a date in which it will be implanted. At last! The autumn. Is that a UK autumn? That means that he has to do it by the end of October. (or November - when does Autumn end, exactly?)

What is outstanding though is that not only will the chip have to record and replay nerve impulses by then, it will also have to be able to transmit them to a computer which can store them. It will also have to enable not only movement but pain and emotion to be recorded. It will also have to allow his wife - with a similar "implant" to feel his body's reactions. Do you get the feeling that our Kev may have got a little carried away while in the media spotlight?

Yep - because he's done it again. Apparently the chip will also allow him - get this - to have the hearing of a bat :-). It doesn't get much better, does it?

As for Kev's review: "It is a good story, but it is a fairy story. It is pure Pinocchio. In a way, it is a big step back from Kubrick's 2001 and the creation of Hal, who really thought like a computer. He tells it well, and tries to deal with some interesting topics - like love and whether a robot can kill himself..."

At which point we zoned out as he ran through his usual pantomine of tedious robot observations - the vast majority of which have been taken from other well-known sci-fi movies. If you want to read them, go here. ®

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