halibut posted:What are they? According to the ever-reliabile Wiki article on robots "there is general agreement among experts and the public that robots tend to do some or all of the following: move around, operate a mechanical limb, sense and manipulate their environment, and exhibit intelligent behavior, especially behavior which mimics humans or other animals."
SithLordDarthRichie posted:They look humanoid in their standard form, and Soundwave's minions mimic animals (as did the Transformers themselves in the Beast Wars era). They operate mechanical limbs and move around, I would say they are robots. Clever sentient robots like Data, but robots nonetheless.
Moylesy posted:halibut posted:What are they? According to the ever-reliabile Wiki article on robots "there is general agreement among experts and the public that robots tend to do some or all of the following: move around, operate a mechanical limb, sense and manipulate their environment, and exhibit intelligent behavior, especially behavior which mimics humans or other animals." There you have the crux of the argument, the Transformers are sentient beings with complex emotions and do not mimic any other creature. R2-D2, Terminators, etc. were all created to perform specific duties (in the Terminators case mimicing human behaviour was paramount). As for Data, he was merely a robot who had a very high AI - even his emotion chip was just that, a chip. It's not unusual that the majority of stories based around Data centered on his desire to be human. Transformers, although they look like robots, are not.
