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"Money to me is freedom, and freedom is essential. Money allows me to say that I will now devote my life to being me, rather than putting on my shoes and tie, and going to an office every day."
- Robert Silverberg
 |
| Field-Minder | ||
| An agricultural robot. |
It's lonely work out there in the fields; fortunately, the human beings give orders.
| The field-minder finished turning the top-soil of a two-thousand-acre field. When it had turned the last furrow, it climbed on to the highway and looked back at its work... the land was bad. Like the ground all over Earth, it was vitiated by over-cropping or the long-lasting effects of nuclear bombardment.
It went slowly down the road, taking its time. It was intelligent enough to appreciate the neatness all about it. Nothing worried it, beyond a loose inspection plate above its atomic pile which ought to be attended to. Thirty feet high, it gleamed complacently in the mild sunshine.
 ('But Who Can Replace A Man' by Brian W. Aldiss) |
| Technovelgy from But Who Can Replace A Man,
by Brian Aldiss. Published by Infinity in 1958 Additional resources -
|
It was able to communicate with robots in charge of warehouses; it could print out a card with its requirements.
This robot will probably need the services of the agricultural robot pest controller from the 1985 movie Runaway by Michael Crichton.
Compare to the automatic cultivators from Piracy Preferred (1930) by John W. Campbell, the conscious farm machines from The Hidden Colony (1935) by Otfrid von Hanstein, the robot farmer from The Turning Wheel (1954) by Philip K. Dick, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the self-guided tractor from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven and the robot crab from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson.
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| Humanoid Robots Spotted In Homes Performing Household Chores |
| Bambot Open Source Cheap Delivery Robot |
| Robot Collective Acts Like A Smart Material |
| Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You |
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'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
