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[katsmeat]

The chassis  that exist in the QC verse seem incredible pieces of kit, and comparatively cheap given what they can do.

An easy application would be telepresence - using a VR-rig to hook up to a chassis that's not equipped with an AI drive.  This would be incredibly useful. For example,  an engineer needs to inspect something at an oil site somewhere in the Canadian Arctic. Now they could spend 18 hours traveling there and another 18 traveling back. Or they could plug into an on-site chassis for half an hour, before going to lunch.  We've seen an AI get trapped in a cereal box.  How useful would a chassis like her's be for working in small, confined spaces?

Of course Clinton would be all over this kind of technology.  Though  I would guess staying at home and using a chassis for everyday social interaction would be generally viewed a very weird thing , done by only a handful of oddball individuals (as seen in the comic book/movie ''Surrogates'')/.  Possibly some AIs would be quite hostile to that, viewing  it as  something akin to blackface.

It's such an obvious application I can't see it not happening. If we've not seen it, it's because it's not that common (or Jeph hasn't thought of it)

[Neko_Ali]

Most disabled people wouldn't need a remote VR surrogate with the tech that is available. Witness Clinton and his cybernetic replacement hand. For those that don't have missing limbs and are unwilling to go through amputation and replacement they could easily have powered frames that allow them to move about freely. The only people who would need to remotely operate an android body to interact with others would be those with some sort of condition that would keep them isolated or under constant medical care or such.  I don't think a large portion of the population would live as eternal shut ins and only interact through a robot surrogate. At best they would be considered eccentric. Trust issues would be a thing, all it would take would be a single case of someone hacking a surrogate's controls and going on some criminal rampage, or even just acting horrible to people to seriously get people to question the usefulness and validity of dealing with someone via Surrogate.

As far as people operating a robot chassis as a drone puppet for work.. Well people do that already. There's no reason to think the practice wouldn't continue.

[Is it cold in here?]

Your concept sounds quite close to the PICAs in David Weber's Safehold series.

[DSL]

The real-world parallel would be drone aircraft.

[BenRG]

In The War of the Worlds, H G Wells' narrator speculated that the squid-like Martians were actually a distant evolutionary descendent of a humanoid species. He suggested that the growth of technology and the ability of technology to replace biological functions with far more efficient synthetic augmentation would trigger an evolutionary drift towards optimisation of the form to only those aspects of the biology that were critically needed. This was, in the Martians' case, the brain, the senses and the hands (which evolved into the clustered tentacles).

The Martians, Wells put it "... were heads, just heads".

What is the relevance to this thread? Wells went on to speculate about a form of life that would 'put on bodies' according to need, these bodies being distant conceptual descendants of something as simple as the bicycle or walking stick. This could be applied to the idea of this topic. Imagine a human reduced to its most indivisible component - the brain and possibly the spinal cord, that could be transferred between various specialised chassis depending on need and the being's wishes.

This sort of extreme transhumanism is not unheard of in sci-fi as others have pointed out. One example of this is Anne McCaffery's brainships where you have a class of starship whose CPUs are volunteer quadriplegics whose brains are disconnected from their largely-destroyed bodies and connected into a 'shell', an interface unit that is then plugged into any number of chassis ranging from small courier-class spacecraft to Citadel-sized space colonies. Interestingly, one of the 'pod people', Hyptia Cade, had an android body created that she could control using her ship's drone control subsystem. This enabled her to experience life outside of a hermetically sealed life support container for the first time in over a decade and even start a relationship with her pilot. Of course, the starship of which she was the organic CPU was another body that she used when required, its tractor beams, sensors, radio and engines replacing her hands, eyes, ears and legs.

[improvnerd]

See also: Daleks.

[Kugai]

Actually BenRG, Hypatias body was a full cybernetic one that she could control and 'Transfer' herself into via a short range wide band Comlink system.  Range outside the ship was limited though the exact figure is not given, but the body had full sensory input and the range issue could probably be solved over time and tech advancement.  Hypatia herself remained in the Ship Shell.

[BenRG]

I did say that the body was controlled by cyber-presence. I was just using Tia as an example of a transhuman who used different 'bodies' for different needs.

[WareWolf]

In The War of the Worlds, H G Wells' narrator speculated that the squid-like Martians were actually a distant evolutionary descendent of a humanoid species. He suggested that the growth of technology and the ability of technology to replace biological functions with far more efficient synthetic augmentation would trigger an evolutionary drift towards optimisation of the form to only those aspects of the biology that were critically needed. This was, in the Martians' case, the brain, the senses and the hands (which evolved into the clustered tentacles).

The Martians, Wells put it "... were heads, just heads".

What is the relevance to this thread? Wells went on to speculate about a form of life that would 'put on bodies' according to need, these bodies being distant conceptual descendants of something as simple as the bicycle or walking stick. This could be applied to the idea of this topic. Imagine a human reduced to its most indivisible component - the brain and possibly the spinal cord, that could be transferred between various specialised chassis depending on need and the being's wishes.

One of the "villain" races in E.R. Burroughs' Barsoom series was made up of big brained heads with spider legs that could induce specially made  headless bodies to put them on their necks so they could walk around. Yeah, they were way creepy, especially when one of them sexually assaulted one of the heroines.

[katsmeat]

One of the "villain" races in E.R. Burroughs' Barsoom series was made up of big brained heads with spider legs that could induce specially made  headless bodies to put them on their necks so they could walk around. Yeah, they were way creepy, especially when one of them sexually assaulted one of the heroines.

I always find remarkable how many villain alien species in old pulp SF are into (from their PoV) bestiality.

[WareWolf]

One of the "villain" races in E.R. Burroughs' Barsoom series was made up of big brained heads with spider legs that could induce specially made  headless bodies to put them on their necks so they could walk around. Yeah, they were way creepy, especially when one of them sexually assaulted one of the heroines.

I always find remarkable how many villain alien species in old pulp SF are into (from their PoV) bestiality.

Good point. Burroughs was only one example, but he did it all the time.

[Storel]

Because everybody knows human women are far more alluring than any other species!

[Loki]

TThn there is the Borg Queen, who apparently usually didn't use a body (but mostly when she was shown on-screen).

Graphical image:

(click to show/hide)

[WareWolf]

Because everybody knows human women are far more alluring than any other species!

Of course, Barsoomian females may be super hot and half naked, but they're not really human, since they lay eggs.

Burroughs was one weird dude.

[Zebediah]

And yet John Carter was dumb enough to believe that Carthoris was really his kid. The fact that his wife laid an egg wasn't enough to clue him in to the fact that they were genetically incompatible.

[Morituri]

Dude. 

Consider the alternatives.  Either your wife is a slightly exotic version of human that lays eggs, and your son is a fine healthy strapping boy .... which is a stretch for his Edwardian-era mind in the first place since they didn't get married in a Christian Church and anyway she's some sort of heathen...

Or your wife is an alien creature with which you've been committing bestiality, no more similar to you than those four-armed apes, has also been cheating on you with someone else, and you are all alone on a planet where you will never have a child.  At which point the Edwardian-era mind completely melts.

John Carter embraces the crazy to avoid the despair.

[WareWolf]

And yet John Carter was dumb enough to believe that Carthoris was really his kid. The fact that his wife laid an egg wasn't enough to clue him in to the fact that they were genetically incompatible.

I suppose he was thinking "well, that egg had to get fertilized somehow."

EDIT: Are we straying into the forbidden area of "discussion of private parts" here?

[Is it cold in here?]

(mod)I don't think so yet(/mod).

[Kugai]

(click to show/hide)

[Omega Entity]

Most disabled people wouldn't need a remote VR surrogate with the tech that is available. Witness Clinton and his cybernetic replacement hand. For those that don't have missing limbs and are unwilling to go through amputation and replacement they could easily have powered frames that allow them to move about freely.

These are actually already a thing.

[Storel]

Because everybody knows human women are far more alluring than any other species!

Of course, Barsoomian females may be super hot and half naked, but they're not really human, since they lay eggs.

Burroughs was one weird dude.

What do you mean, half naked? The women (and men) of Barsoom never wore anything but leather harnesses to hold their weapons and jewelry, despite the fact that its thinner atmosphere and greater distance from the sun make Mars much colder than Earth. I always imagined that native Barsoomians must have a layer of subcutaneous blubber, like Inuits, to keep them warm.

John Carter was able to adopt the local clothing styles because (a) they never mentioned in the books that he was part Inuit, or (b) he's just that tough.