In his 1959 short story Robot Justice, Harry Harrison wrote about a far more evolved robotic trash can that takes planetary cleanliness to an even higher level; it is even able to detect such unhygienic behavior as spitting on the sidewalk..
Even as the saliva hit the spotless sidewalk, a waste can twenty feet away stirred into life. It rotated on hidden wheels and soundlessly rolled towards him.
A flexible arm licked out and quickly swabbed the sidewalk clean. Then the can squatted like a mechanical Buddha while a speaker rasped to life in its metal insides. A tinny mechanical voice addressed Carl.
"Carl Tritt, you have violated Local Ordinance #bd-14-668 by expectorating on a public sidewalk. The sentence is two days.
(Read more about the Robotic Trash Can)
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Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'