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"Science fiction and science have always danced around each other. Science fiction is the subconscious of science."
- Greg Bear
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| Blue Collar Robot (Self-Repairing) | ||
| An autonomous robot required to find its own work. |
In this future, autonomous robots need to find work; how else can you afford spare parts, not to mention upgrades?
| Jon Venex fitted the key into the hotel room door. He had asked for a large room, the largest in the hotel and had paid the desk clerk extra for it... The room was bigger than he expected - fully three feet wide by five feet long...
There was the usual adjustable hook on the back wall. He slipped it through the recessed ring in the back of his neck and kicked himself up until his feet hung free of the floor. His legs relaxed with a rattle as he cut off all power below his waist. The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it, plenty of time to skim through the newspaper. With the chronic worry of the unemployed, he snapped it open to the want ads and ran his eye down the Help Wanted - Robot column... |
| Technovelgy from The Velvet Glove,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1956 Additional resources -
|
This newspaper knew its readers; there were even comics for robots:
Compare to the repair robots from The Well-Oiled Machine (1950) by H.B. Fyfe,
Self-Maintaining Circuit Monitoring and Repair from Gramp and his Dog (1952) by Frank Quattrocchi, the
self-repairing robot from Accidental Flight (1952) by W.F. Wallace, the
service drones from The Two Faces of Tomorrow (1979) by James P. Hogan and the repair drone from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson.
He even had a favorite strip, a fact that he scarcely dared mention to himself - "Rattly Robot," a dull-witted mechanical clod who was continually falling all over himself and getting into trouble. It was a repellant caricature, but could still be very funny.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Velvet Glove
More Ideas
and Technology by Harry Harrison
Tech news articles related to The Velvet Glove
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Harrison
Blue Collar Robot (Self-Repairing)-related
news articles:
- Out-Of-Work Blue Collar Robots Need Your Help
- Blue Collar Bot Pumps Gas Update
- Unemployed Robots Should Seek Work Autonomously
- Pi4-Workerbot Adapts Quickly
- Competing With Blue Collar Robots
| Optimus Robot Will Be A Good Nanny, Says Musk |
| LORIS Passive-Gripper Climbing Robot |
| Athena Smart Security Guard Robot With Face Recognition |
| SpaceHopper Microgravity Robot Lands On Its Feet |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
