Hacker Cinema
Runaway
1984 · Film · 100 min
Directed by Michael Crichton
In the near future, a police officer specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots... and his son becomes a target.
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17 comments on Hacker News
This immediately reminded me of the 80s robot/scifi movie Runaway with Tom Selleck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_(1984_American_film)
(Completely off-topic, I really like the explanation Selleck's character gives for why he's the expert: paraphrasing, "I was interested in robotics, read some stuff, and suddenly I was the one in the department who knew the most about this stuff")
More on-topic: Can robots be used to reduce the number of Swatting incidents? Like a quiet robot that peeks in the windows of a "suspect" house after a 911 call?
I expected farm-pest-control robots to look more like the ones in the film "Runaway" (1984) than a big laser turret you drag over a field.
Closest to Broken Sword I can think of would be Runaway series by Pendulo Studios, All three episodes are awesome.
Anything published by Wadjet Eye is amazing - Blackwell series, Gemini Rue, Shardlight, Primordia, Technobabylon, Strangeland.
The Book of Unwritten Tales 1, 2 and prequel are my absolute favorites.
Harvey and Edna 1 and 2 are close behind. Deponia is supposed to be good, but I couldnt stand the protagonist :(. The Whispered World and A New Beginning were ok, but very German.
Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle is great. Its a prequel to So Blonde, havent played, made by lead designer of Broken Sword.
A Vampyre Story is hilarious.
The Longest Journey 1 and 2.
Secret Files series.
Syberia, altho it was too French/weird for me.
>Like Blake and Mortimer series, or The Adventures of Tintin.
you can try Jack Orlando: A Cinematic Adventure, except its located in US, but similar art style?
I too have seen the. Classic robot dystopia film Runaway.
I too have seen the. Lassic robot dystopia film Runaway.
I mean, there are already prototypes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVWayhNpHr0
It's only a matter of time. A building is planned, the step-by-step orchestration is QA'ed by a qualified engineer, and a set of robots go to work to build a whole building. Construction jobs will be phased out.
Also, in the movie Runaway - which actually predicted police areal drones as well, almost 30 years ago (but the concept of a drone did not exist yet, so it was called a "floater").
I know a lot of farmers that would respond very well to having "laser weed killer" as a product. I get the feeling the video feed would be amazing. Throw in pest killing and you own the market.
Although I keep thinking the movie Runaway (1984) is going to be a much truer representation of reality than I would like.
Here I was thinking of the film Runaway (1984). It had farming robots which eliminated pests with grippers and grinders -- pick up a caterpillar, drop it into the grinder. I like that a bit better than the laser solution.
Not all of the *cides could be replaced with these, but certainly you could identify undesired plants and insects that way, and destroy them. Insects may be fast enough to require lasers, but who knows? Non-desired plants could simply get snipped and fall to the ground. Fungi ... could at least be identified and marked on a map for later spraying.
I think all of this is do-able (and a lot better place to start for self-driving AI than the lofty goal of cars, given the restricted domain, lower speed, reduced danger ...), but the real question is: can these robots price out lower than the *cides they might replace?
Reminds me of the 1984 Tom Selleck movie Runaway (trailer: https://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi1803551001)
As a kid, the acid spewing mechanical spiders in Runaway [0] always really terrified me.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
Which reminds me of Runaway (1984): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
It's not objectively the best Sci-Fi I've seen, but I have a soft spot for Crichton's film "Runaway" which has some of that in it.
We appear to be building the things that creeped me out 30 years ago. I remember watching a robot bug inject sedative into a person in the '84 movie "Runaway" [1] and feeling chills go up and down my spine (I was working on stepping motor controllers at the time and it didn't feel so far fetched). As others have noted here, other's might use this for more nefarious purposes.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
Awesome. This comment reminds me of the 80's movie Runaway (directed by Michael Crichton).
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/?ref_=nv_sr_4
Fascinating, I thought it was the finned bullet but this doesn't seem to be that. There was an interesting, if somewhat forgettable, movie staring Tom Selleck called 'Runaway' which posited "tracker" bullets and use the of quad copters for remote surveillance.
I expect the next step will be fabrics that fluoresce in the visible spectrum when hit by IR or UV laser light to help warn people they are being 'designated.'
And this is why we can't have nice things.
Seriously I think a wonderful investment right now might be to buy 1,000 Phantom's and just put them in a warehouse so that when they are banned you can resell them for 10x the markup. I am still waiting for the taser drone.
In an unrelated note, in the 1984 movie Runaway [1] the protagonist uses a quadcopter equivalent to go in and scout a 'hostile' robot situation. I could easily see this sort of deployment by police becoming common. If it stops them from coming in guns blazing it will be a good thing.
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
I couldn't help but think of the first 'action' scene in this hilariously bad Tom Selleck movie, which involves a runaway harvesting robot: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
(That will only be of interest to HNers if you get a kick out of watching wildly inaccurate futurist visions. And Gene Simmons.)