Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Ever since reading "My Robot Buddy" when I was eight, I have dreamed of having just such a Buddy. A Robot Buddy. You know, someone that would keep me company that I could kick around and would do all my chores for me. A helper. A servant.

Okay, a slave. I wanted a Robot Slave. I still do, really.

My computer has sort of filled that niche, but it doesn't have legs (yet), and it doesn't really do anything on its own, you know, not being self-aware and all.

And there's the ethical dilemma. For a Robot Slave to be truly useful, it has to be self aware (sentient, whatever), and at the point an entity becomes self-aware, I don't feel comfortable having it as a slave. So I'm back to the whole "buddy" thing.

Which, really, I've grown out of.

So here's the trick - getting a self-aware being(in this case, a robot) to do your bidding of its own free will. You know, without the threat of Electro-Magnetic Pulse or electrical starvation hanging over its metal head. To have it serve you because, I don't know. Because it loves you.

Now, I don't want to limit myself to just one cybernetic acolyte (and because it is probably illegal somehow), it couldn't be romantic love. I'm thinking more of the adoration of a cult toward its leader. That's what I want. A Robot Cult that serves me unquestioningly.

An army of metal men who live only to cut my grass, clean my house, cook my food, and build underground bunkers. Perfect.

Except I really don't know how to make robots. And the only kind you can buy are those vacuum cleaner Roombas. I'd feel pretty ridiculous entertaining other geniuses in my lair with nothing but a horde of humming floor-discs to do my bidding.

And there's no way an Aibo could build me an underground bunker. Not even if I had, like, fifty of them.