Justifying bioroids

[the-red-scare]

I want bioroids in my setting. Bioroids are cool.

Can anyone think of a scenario in which bioroids are common enough that everyday people are familiar with the various models and have preconceived notions of their abilities and personalities, and a bioroid PC could reliably run into another of her model from time to time, but in which bioroids are typically neither indentured to their corporations/guardians nor slaves?

I don't need a justification for the creation and use of bioroids themselves, or a rationale of why bioroids specifically are useful rather than humans, robots, or AIs.

The only thing I can think of is government subsidizing them for some reason. Not enough parents would want to buy bioroids as children, and any business venture would expect their money back.

[Pectus Solentis]

Originally Posted by the-red-scare

I want bioroids in my setting. Bioroids are cool.

Can anyone think of a scenario in which bioroids are common enough that everyday people are familiar with the various models and have preconceived notions of their abilities and personalities, and a bioroid PC could reliably run into another of her model from time to time, but in which bioroids are typically neither indentured to their corporations/guardians nor slaves?

I don't need a justification for the creation and use of bioroids themselves, or a rationale of why bioroids specifically are useful rather than humans, robots, or AIs.

The only thing I can think of is government subsidizing them for some reason. Not enough parents would want to buy bioroids as children, and any business venture would expect their money back.

See Five Star Story. There are so many Bioroids who are called 'Fatima'.

[Stormcrow]

Maybe bioroids just want to procreate as humans do.

[the-red-scare]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Maybe bioroids just want to procreate as humans do.

I suppose that could work with the right assumptions about bioroid psychology and a long enough time since they were first created. Doesn’t really have the feel I’m going for (where I do want bioroids to still be kind of… weird), but it’s something.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by the-red-scare

Not enough parents would want to buy bioroids as children, and any business venture would expect their money back.

Why not? you don't have to spend 9 months pregnant, you don't have the risk of birth defects, You get exactly the gender you want. You can make sure they don't have the family predisposition for obesity or short-sightedness. You can make sure they look they way you want. You can give them a predisposition towards art, math, athletics, or any of a number of traits. I can see many parents choosing that over rolling the dice.

Yes, most of that can be achieved with with a designer baby and an exowomb, but bioroids may be easier or cheaper to accomplish it with, or legally work out less troublesome, or some other reason.

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You could also have a corporation that builds bioroids that are free but statistically are 60% likely to work for the corporation, doing what the corporation wants them to because they enjoy it and its good pay.

[the-red-scare]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Why not? you don't have to spend 9 months pregnant, you don't have the risk of birth defects, You get exactly the gender you want. You can make sure they don't have the family predisposition for obesity or short-sightedness. You can make sure they look they way you want. You can give them a predisposition towards art, math, athletics, or any of a number of traits. I can see many parents choosing that over rolling the dice.

I’ve never met a parent who wanted offspring but didn’t want kids. The part where they are physically and mentally children is a lot of the appeal, speaking as a parent myself. I just don’t see large numbers of parents looking at their 2 year old 6’ 200 lb. gymnast-bodied bioroid (or catgirl, or whatever) with quite the same sense of parental satisfaction.

Not saying it’s impossible, but at scale?

You could also have a corporation that builds bioroids that are free but statistically are 60% likely to work for the corporation, doing what the corporation wants them to because they enjoy it and its good pay.

This is plausible, but what’s stopping competitors from offering better deals and getting free bioroids?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by the-red-scare

I’ve never met a parent who wanted offspring but didn’t want kids. The part where they are physically and mentally children is a lot of the appeal, speaking as a parent myself. I just don’t see large numbers of parents looking at their 2 year old 6’ 200 lb. gymnast-bodied bioroid (or catgirl, or whatever) with quite the same sense of parental satisfaction.

?

Consider wealthy people who are 80-something but can't really look at their 60-something natural kids as caretakers. Then go into the future and add 40 years to each age.

A 120-something who can get a fully capable 20-something who nonetheless feels something like parental devotion towards his elderly parent and you've got a reason for skipping over the cute years.

[Fnordianslip]

If you have a sci-fi setting with colonized planets, spacers, etc, bioroids would make sense as people adapted to different environments who might run into each other anywhere. Similarly, in a near future severe climate change impacts sort of campaign you might have all kinds of bioroids adapted to different extreme environments. Or, maybe Japan or a European country experiencing population declines says, screw it, this economy needs to be bolstered with young economically active people. If our humans aren't making new ones, we will! The human population decline works particularly well in a Transhumanesque campaign where there isn't extreme life extension. Most families start just having zero, one, or two kids as education and healthcare become more accessible globally. Populations start declining and there isn't immigration happening to prop up economies anymore. Companies or states might start making bioroids just to ensure new workers are entering the economy.

[Daigoro]

Maybe bioroids are created as children that childless foster parents raise until they reach majority.

Another option is that governments and corporations create them for indentured labour or military service, but they are emancipated at the end of their service term, say 10 or 15 years. They could even be paid normal wages for their term.

Thirdly, they could be being produced in one country where they have fewer rights, and they've escaped to another where they have full human rights. Otherwise, the status quo changed significantly in the past, giving them all emancipation that they didn't have when they were created.

Finally, they could be being produced for doctrinal reasons- by a religious group, a post-human group, a bioroid CEO, or a political group.

But bolstering the labour market in some sector seems like the most likely scenario. There would be various arrangements that allow the bioroid corporations to make money off their product while still allowing personhood to the bioroids. They could fill the niche of modern day labour-hire or staffing agencies.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by the-red-scare

I’ve never met a parent who wanted offspring but didn’t want kids. The part where they are physically and mentally children is a lot of the appeal, speaking as a parent myself. I just don’t see large numbers of parents looking at their 2 year old 6’ 200 lb. gymnast-bodied bioroid (or catgirl, or whatever) with quite the same sense of parental satisfaction.

Not saying it’s impossible, but at scale?

You CAN build bioroids as little children and grow them up from there, depending on the technology. I suppose you want the adult bioroid entering the world wholly formed. There is indeed a documented desire for babies rather than teenagers.

This is plausible, but what’s stopping competitors from offering better deals and getting free bioroids?

Soft obstacles and statistics. You get to raise, educate, and build these people. You install a bit of loyalty in them, teach them things that make them specifically useful to you and not as useful to your competitors, encourage ties between them and people in your company and company locations, and accept that there is some loss. Or be functioning in a monopoly environment in the first place.

The program probably makes the most sense if an industry is banding together to pool the costs, and if the industry is suffering from a worker shortage in the first place.

The other thing you can do is have them come attached with a non-compete clause. You do anything you want except work for our competitors. That toes the line on slavery, but it still gives them an abundance of ways out. If you want to make that even softer, if the competitor hires them they have to pay a "build fee" to the company that built the bioroid in the first place.