THEY ARE
GROWING
SMARTER...
AND MORE
LIKE US
A
LONG A WINDING DIRT
ROAD, just west of the Lincoln
Gap in Bristol, Vt., sit two big
yellow houses on a sprawling
property featuring ten solar
panels, a dock overlooking a
sunlit, trout-filled pond, and
porches adorned with rocking chairs. In the smaller of
the two houses lives Bina-48,
one of the most renowned and
highly sought after humanoid
robots in America.
She (or “it,” depending on
your preference) is truly a sight
to behold. She wasn’t given a
body; rather, she’s a bust with
an exceedingly human-like
head, neck and shoulders, all
modeled after a real woman
PHOTOGRAPH BY COREY HENDRICKSON
by Lucas
Kavner
named Bina Rothblatt. Her face
looks quite real for a moment,
until you get closer, and you
discover it’s not at all.
Her house also serves as the
headquarters of the Terasem
Movement Foundation, an organization dedicated to the idea
that in the very near future we
will be able to transfer the details of our minds — our memories, our beliefs, our thoughts
and feelings, making up what
Terasem calls a “mindfile” —
into another “biological or
nanotechnological body,” like a
computer, or a robot.
Bina-48 is a very visceral
representation of a much larger
question that experts in arti-