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"Concepts of religion may now be goals of science and engineering."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Eager Beaver | ||
| Your friendly robot helper. |
The Eager Beaver is a specialist; it works in a hospital and has additional subroutines to assist hospital staff. However, when it fails to understand a command, it proffers a card with the following information.
| IMPORTANT NOTICE! This service automaton does not understand human speech. It has no
understanding at all, being merely a machine. But for your convenience it has been designed to
respond to a list of spoken orders. It will ignore anything else said in its presence, or (if any phrase triggers it incompletely or such that a circuit dilemma is created) it will offer this instruction sheet. |
| Technovelgy from The Door Into Summer,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1956 Additional resources -
|
To me, this provides evidence of real engineering effort and thought. This is not magically waving a wand and making a perfect robot with perfectly human understanding. This is a device; it has limits and states them clearly for the user.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Door Into Summer
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and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to The Door Into Summer
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
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'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
'... folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy.'
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'
'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.'
