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<blockquote data-quote="tomBitonti" data-source="post: 6658919" data-attributes="member: 13107">Let's posit that sending a human doesn't make sense, but that sending an unsophisticated robot doesn't make sense either.A human is impractical for space travel, and doesn't handle the very long time frames very well.An unsophisticated robot, in either it mechanicals or its software, would be insufficient to the task of long term autonomous operation.My conclusion is that if a interstellar voyage were taken, it would require a hybrid of capabilities of people and robots.My question then is whether this is possible, either as a simple material question: Can we make machines, even ones which self repair, which can last a journey of hundreds to thousands of years; Or as a information processing question: Can we make a thinking device which will have both sufficient thought power to be adequate to the journey, and which would remain functional (== sane) for the duration.I think that the question of whether a generational ship would be able to maintain a stable society is a good question to ask, in that it might highlight problems of maintaining high intelligence over time.Thx!TomB</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tomBitonti, post: 6658919, member: 13107"] Let's posit that sending a human doesn't make sense, but that sending an unsophisticated robot doesn't make sense either. A human is impractical for space travel, and doesn't handle the very long time frames very well. An unsophisticated robot, in either it mechanicals or its software, would be insufficient to the task of long term autonomous operation. My conclusion is that if a interstellar voyage were taken, it would require a hybrid of capabilities of people and robots. My question then is whether this is possible, either as a simple material question: Can we make machines, even ones which self repair, which can last a journey of hundreds to thousands of years; Or as a information processing question: Can we make a thinking device which will have both sufficient thought power to be adequate to the journey, and which would remain functional (== sane) for the duration. I think that the question of whether a generational ship would be able to maintain a stable society is a good question to ask, in that it might highlight problems of maintaining high intelligence over time. Thx! TomB [/QUOTE]

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