The inspiration for our plastic pal who's fun to be with. (© iStockphoto.com, 18percentgrey)

It’s been another busy week in the TechStuff labs here at HowStuffWorks.com. Chris and I are working on the preliminary design of our TechStuff Automaton. After much debate, we decided the name “Killbot 2000″ had a slightly negative connotation. The current working title of the project is now “Sir Hugs-A-Lot.” I’m not certain that we’ve added quite as many spikes and lasers as we’ll need, but it’s still early in the project.

Between our plans for world domination and eating lunch at the local pizzeria, we managed to record and publish some episodes of TechStuff this week. On Monday, we talked about our podcasting process. We’ve had several listeners ask us how we go about creating our show. This episode will give you an idea of our process. We also give some tips to people interested in starting their own podcasts. Surprisingly, the most important things to remember aren’t technical — they’re procedural.

On Wednesday, we responded to listener mail from Alexandra about artificial intelligence (AI). Chris and I give our own interpretations of what the term means. We also give examples of some early examples of AI. Alexandra said that she enjoyed the show Knight Rider with the artificially intelligent car called KITT. I posed a puzzle to our listeners by making an odd reference about driving to Congress. We received a message from Frank G. that identified the reference correctly: William Daniels, who provided the voice for KITT, starred in the musical “1776″ as John Adams. And because a promise is a promise: Kudos to Frank!

And for your enjoyment, here’s a short clip from the classic Knight Rider:

And another from 1776:

Learn more about podcasting and artificial intelligence at HowStuffWorks.com:

How Podcasting Works
Are we 10 years away from artificial life?
Will artificial intelligence invade Second Life?