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Androids are synthetic humans, or human-like beings. Cyborgs, in contrast are part biological part machine entities. Robots are pure machines. Our descendants might be any of these. Or they might just be biological entities. And perhaps the most likely form our species' progeny will be purely biological entities, simply our animal descendants evolved past the point at which they might be considered human. This is the likely case if we destroy our civilization and science and imagination. We are creatures of war, after all and war on a global scale would destroy us or reduce us to a primitive state eventually.
But if humanity retains its ability to create, future humans might reproduce their likeness of mind and body in artificial entities: androids. In some ways, androids represent less imaginative forms of progeny than robots or cyborgs. After all, humans have themselves for examples, and creating androids represents a duplication of a human organism at some level. Of course androids might be endowed with improvements or alteration compared to humans such as perfect memory, increased cognitive abilities and greater imaginations (imagine that!), but essentially they must remain within some likeness of humanity to be considered true androids. Cyborgs, and especially robots could take on any form, and be endowed with truly non-human intelligences and abilities.
Androids however capture many peoples imaginations in ways that the more alien cyborgs and robots do not. Perhaps this is a failing on our part, or perhaps it is a reflection of our most basic biological drive to reproduce. Whatever the reason, this affinity is likely to make androids our direct descendants, if we retain our technology and imagination long enough to create them. What will they be like? Will they destroy us? What part of them might be considered alive? AndroidChild seeks to shed light on these questions.
