Slashdot linked an article from the Guardian on Robots Without Cause today. From the article teaser: In the face of this wizardry, Stuart Jeffries has only one question: why?

Making gadgets is fun. Tinkering with them and taking them apart is also fun. The gadgets don't have to be useful to be interesting: they just need to be cleverly wrought. I understand the why in the building. Sometimes the exercise of skills involved in the doing is reason enough to do a thing.

But while I comprehend the fascination of building a four-slice toaster, I have less understanding of why a person would want to buy such a thing. Unless, perhaps, the person belongs to a large family, all the members of which really like two slices of toast with their breakfast.

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