I realized not long ago that many Dippers today have never played the game with a human games master. They only know the judge and related computer adjudicated versions of Diplomacy. That thought led me to wonder, �When will artificial intelligent devices (e.g. RoboDippers) become viable players in either computer adjudicated or even FTF Diplomacy games? Imagine sitting down to a table of Diplomacy with players that look like R2D2 or one of those cute little humanoid robots you in see in Japanese ads? Could it happen here? I grew up on a diet of science fiction fed by the likes of Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury, Ellison, Greene and Norton. In fact, in the 1960s I helped introduce Heinlein and Asimov to Diplomacy; and I hotly debated the relative merits of �science� and �fiction� with Ellison at one of the earliest sci-fi cons; so the idea of robots of some kind playing Diplomacy didn�t seem strange to me. The question was, �How good would they be?� When I raised the question of �Whether robots would replace humans at DipCons in the next 20 years?� with other hobbyists the consensus seemed to be: Artificial intelligence at the tactical level (e.g. making the best or correct choice out of a variety of options has been mastered; The creation of an artificial personality that can master negotiating has not; Can a computer or robot know the difference between right and wrong, and is that relevant in a game like Diplomacy? I was thinking of Asimov�s basic law that robots cannot harm humans and the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and Hal were as vivid today as they were in the 1960s. The quirkiness or �unpredictability� factor was also an issue. And finally, I wondered, �Is Diplomacy a zero-sum-game or a non-zero-sum �game?� When I asked that on Facebook I got a lot of replies. You can read them yourself. For the moment it seems human Dippers are reasonably safe from RoboDippers. Isn�t that good to know? Larry Peery ([email protected]) If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the envelope above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.