Non-organic extraterrestrial

A Non-organic extraterrestrial (a.k.a. NOE) is a fictional idea which refers to an alien whose bodily structure is not composed of bioorganic materials (i.e. mechanized or electronic). While the origin of the concept is unknown, it was popularized by the 1984–1987 television show The Transformers and then later by the 2007 film.

NOEs in Transformers

In the film Transformers, Optimus Prime explains to the main character, Sam Witwicky, that they (the Autobots) are "autonomous robots from the planet Cybertron." This would imply that they are robots with a kind of artificial intelligence, making them sentient "beings." But even so, they still must learn, just as humas do. One example of this is when Sam asks Optimus Prime how he knows English and he replies that he "learned it on the World Wide Web" (the extent of their learning capacity is never detailed, but the length of their existence on Earth—only a few days—may show that they learned English fairly quickly).

NOEs in other popular fiction

:* In the Terminator films the Terminator robots appear (originally) as having no organic elements to their structure, being merely chrome-colored, metal skeleton-esque machines. Two exceptions of this were the second and third robots who took human form by grafting human flesh to their metal bodies.

:* In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the on-board computer (called HAL 9000) "consciously" locked a member of the mission out of the craft—[...] him—in an act of almost human emotion. Although HAL was only meant to be an artificial intelligence, it developed a kind of "personality," despite its being a computer.

See also

:* Artificial intelligence

:* Autonomous robot

:* Cognitive robotics