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"...science fiction is sort of like a sociological genome. It's a huge range of possible futures, most of them useless; some vital. You never really know in advance."
- Peter Watts
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| TBR (Talk Between Robots) Circuit | ||
| A special means of communications used by robots to speak with each other. |
Henry is a companion robot; it works diligently to arrange appointments and perform other tasks for its master.
| "Fine! Well, get started on the other things, then."
"Yes, sir," said Henry, and assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits - the Talk Between Robots radio - as it arranged the appointments for its master. |
| From The Midas Plague,
by Frederik Pohl. Published by Galaxy in 1954 Additional resources -
|
I'm fascinated by the idea of robots that are able to communicate perfectly well in spoken English, but choose a private means of communication when talking with each other. It's as if they use a different language "below stairs" - out of the hearing of their masters.
Compare to mentanical communication from The Mentanicals (1934) by Francis Flagg and Autonomous Car Intercommunication from Sally (1953) by Isaac Asimov
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Midas Plague
More Ideas
and Technology by Frederik Pohl
Tech news articles related to The Midas Plague
Tech news articles related to works by Frederik Pohl
TBR (Talk Between Robots) Circuit-related
news articles:
- RoboEarth Lets Robots Learn From Each Other
- Machines Talk More To Each Other
- RoboEarth Cloud Engine Makes Local Bots Smarter
- Robots Take Our Jobs By Reading Our Instructions
- Robots Will Learn From Each Other
- When Computers Develop Their Own Language, Will They Talk To Us?
- MIT's C-LEARN Helps Robots Transfer Learning To Other Robots
- Should We Permit Computers To Create Their Own Language?
- Drones Communicate With Each Other Using Quantum Encryption
| Mouth Haptics Invented By Frederik Pohl In 1965, CMU Now Has Prototype |
| True Crime Live Podcasting In Fiction |
| Zoom Adds Real-Time, Live Translation |
| Will The Super Bowl Go To Pay Per View? |
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Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to 'help them out.'
'... you had your trademark Lucky Dragon Global Interactive Video Column outside.'
'It's an Indian Air Force drone; its solar cells could power an entire farm.'
'... we were supposed to be forming five unit composites first."
'We send our eyes on their appointed rounds, and they can hover or soar or back up...'
'Light from the sun hit those little spheres and bounced.'
'... the two pairs of waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
