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This could lead to Total Robot Domination!!!

Monkey

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OK, so maybe not :D

This article - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18684016/?GT1=9951 -suggests that fruitflies have the basis for free will, leading researchers to believe that other animals and *gasp* humans may actually be free to make their own choices, rather than being controlled entirely by environmental factors.

Anyone with pets or children already know that much.

The interesting part is that they are trying to use this study to create intelligent robots...

[The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."]

Woohoo!

["Seriously though," Brembs said that programming robots with aspects of free will "may lead to more realistic and probably even more efficient behavior, which could be decisive in truly autonomous robots needed for planetary exploration."]

Bring on the Terminators!

:D
 

Pthom

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Pretty cool, Monky. Thanks for sharing.
I moved this up here to Science Fact because well, it is.

I was aware they were making robots along the lines of insects and caterpillars and such, for the mechanisms--but not that they might consider the neural systems, too. You can bet the military establishment (DARPA and the rest) is all over this one.