Illustration: “Newsbot” © 2007 by Carl Goodman
“Dr. Fudiki, can you help us?” asked Mr. Yakito from the Advanced Robotics Laboratory in Japan.
“I’m not sure. I have never observed emergent behaviour like this before. You say that you have already rebooted the machines and uploaded the original programs?”
Yakito nodded. “We tried three times. Then we called you. They are supposed to be building washing machines, but instead… well, look for yourself”
“It looks like some kind of rocket!” replied Fudiki.
“I know! Even stranger is the amount of memory that is being built into the machine. You could practically store all of human knowledge in there. That’s no washing machine.”
“On the upside, maybe the robots will build something new that you can sell?” mused Fudiki.
Yakito looked thoughtful and began to nod. “Maybe…”
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