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"Cyberpunk worked when the Internet was in its hand-wound crystal radio phase, when you had to be a sort of hobbyist to do e-mail, and it all had a very steep learning curve. Those days are over."
- William Gibson

Boppers  
  Self-reproducing robots; they did not obey Asimov's laws for robots (or any other man-made rules).  

These are the machines we fear; independent machines that make their own choices based on their own logic (which owes nothing to us).

In the shaft's great, vertical tunnel, bright beings darted through the hot light; odd-shaped living machines that glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. These were the boppers; self-reproducing robots who obeyed no man. Some looked humanoid, some looked like spiders, some looked like snakes, some looked like bats. All were covered with flickercladding, a microwired imipolex compound that could absorb and emit light.
Technovelgy from Wetware, by Rudy Rucker.
Published by Avon Books in 1988
Additional resources -

Compare these robots with the ultimate in sophistication (and servility) - C3PO, the droid from George Lucas' Star Wars.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Wetware
  More Ideas and Technology by Rudy Rucker
  Tech news articles related to Wetware
  Tech news articles related to works by Rudy Rucker

Boppers-related news articles:
  - Festo's eMotionButterfly, AirJelly And AirPenguin Robots

Articles related to Artificial Intelligence
LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy

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Science Fiction in the News

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‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.

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This is nothing new for science fiction fans!

Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons
'That little robot rabbit knew what it was talking about...'

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