Machine Dreams: 22 Human-Like Androids from Sci-Fi

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The Buffybot, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

The fifth season of the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" introduced the "Buffybot," a cheerful robotic replica of the slayer, Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). A local vampire who was obsessed with Buffy forced a self-styled evil genius to build the bot, which later takes Buffy's place after she is killed saving the world. The bot's exceptional strength enables it to match Buffy's vampire-slaying prowess, but it falls somewhat short in delivering spontaneous witty quips as the vampires turn to dust, and while it can function independently it is incapable of feeling emotion or thinking for itself.

Annalee Call, "Alien Resurrection"

(Image credit: Fox)

In "Alien Resurrection" (20th Century Fox, 1997), the fourth movie in the "Alien" franchise, Winona Ryder appeared as Annalee Call, a member of a spaceship crew who is revealed to be an auton — a synthetic human. She can interact directly with the control systems of the spaceship, which helps to save the crew at a crucial point during their battle with the xenomorph aliens.

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Mindy Weisberger
Mindy Weisberger
Live Science Contributor

Mindy Weisberger is a science journalist and author of "Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control" (Hopkins Press). She formerly edited for Scholastic and was a channel editor and senior writer for Live Science. She has reported on general science, covering climate change, paleontology, biology and space. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to LS, she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post, How It Works Magazine and CNN.