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Comment by hugs | Hacker News Reader

By that definition, a clothes dryer with a humidity sensor is a robot. (And I'm fine with that!)

My favourite robot is a dishwasher.

Mostly because it is so different from what some people naively imagine when you asked them to think of a design for a robot to wash dishes.

I have to try that question on people sometime. Sounds like fun.

Also, reminds me of this:

   Status: Alive

http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Amana

The dishwasher is missing the thinking part... It only ever does the exact thing ordered to it.

Bashing one's head against the wall in a day long debugging session for some hard bug usually cures people of the opinion that "computers only ever do what we tell them to do" is a serious limitation on their range of behaviours in practice.

The combinations on my dishwasher can fit in a 12 line lookup table.

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