Markup View

Author: FrodoGoofballCoTV

Oct 9th 2011 at 8:08:22 AM

Some thoughts:

[[AC: {{Film}} - Animated:]]
* In ''WallE'', most robots have a specific function.  Wall-E himself is designed to process trash, despite having an AI capable of falling in love.

[[AC: {{Film}} - Live Action:]]
* In ''StarWars'', there are assassin droids, protocol droids, starship navigation droids, etc.  However, most droids are more than capable of many tasks, they're just designed for one primary purpose.
* ''BladeRunner'' features some of the most humanlike robots ever conceived (in fact, one might argue they're not really robots but GattacaBabies used as slaves under the pretext of technology), but in their profile, each is listed as being designed for a specific role in society.

[[AC: RealLife:]]

In RealLife, robots designed for a specific job are TruthInTelevision, because robots capable of handling many jobs have proven more difficult to design than simple robots that only do one thing better than a human.  It's often the software, rather than the hardware, that's the challenge.
* Automatons are entertainment robots that appear to be capable of many tasks, but on close examination are actually repeating the same movements over and over again, until they are turned off and reprogrammed.  Newer models can store many minutes of action, so it's not always easy to tell (They [[DeceptivelyHumanRobots can seem startlingly lifelike]], as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LepI9g62N7o here]]).
* Industrial robots, often used in the auto industry, as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkNVhtOCcrE here]], usually have a very specific function, such as a robot that only does spot welds or only applies a certain color of paint.  Of course, if necessary, they can be taken offline, equipped with different tools, and reprogrammed for a different task, but that usually only happens when the assembly line is tasked with a new model.
* Some military / police robots are also specialists, such as a robot that locates and either deactivates, removes, or sets off car bombs, as seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KauGGwSZTOs here]].