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"I've come across more and more people who've actually tried reading science fiction and can't make it make sense."
- Samuel R. Delany

Oat-Tropic Circuit  
  A robotic feature that caused electronic animals to move toward offered food.  

Goal-seeking behavior in autonomous robots is enhanced with this sensor.

Rick ... had reached his sheep now; it lay ruminating, its alert eyes fixed on him in case he had brought any rolled oats with him. The alleged sheep contained an oat-tropic circuit; at the sight of such cereals it would scramble up convincingly and amble over.
Technovelgy from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick.
Published by Doubleday in 1968
Additional resources -

See also the creditor jet-balloon from Lies, Inc. and the homotropic news vending machine from The Game Players of Titan, both by Philip K. Dick.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  More Ideas and Technology by Philip K. Dick
  Tech news articles related to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick

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