Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"...a market economy is essentially a genetic algorithm for solving resource allocation problems..."
- Charles Stross
 |
| Automatic Control Car | ||
| An autonomous vehicle. |
Not the earliest description, but there are lots of imaginative details here from Clarke.
| As the beautiful old car cruised in almost perfect silence under the guidance of it's automatic controls, Duncan tried to see something of the terrain through which she was passing. The spaceport was 50 km from the city - no one had yet invented a noiseless rocket - and the four-lane highway bore a surprising amount of traffic. Duncan could count at least 20 vehicles of different types and even though they were all moving in the same direction, the spectacle was somewhat alarming.
"I hope all those other cars are on automatic," he said anxiously. Washington looked a little shocked. "Of course," he said. "It's been a criminal offense for at least a hundred years to drive manually on a public highway. But we still have occasional psychopaths to kill themselves and other people..." The big car was slowing down, it's computer brain sensing an exit ahead. Presently it peeled off from the parkway, then speeded up again along a narrow road whose surface rapidly disintegrated into a barely visible grass-covered track. Washington took the steering lever just a second before the END AUTO warning started to flash on the control panel. |
| Technovelgy from Imperial Earth,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Harcourt Brace in 1976 Additional resources -
|
Autonomous car engineers might also appreciate this last bit:
Compare to the automatic automobile from David H. Keller's 1935 story The Living Machine and the Camden Speedster from Robert Heinlein's serialized 1941 novel Methuselah's Children.
A little later, the car turned into a driveway which letter beautifully kept ones. There was a gentle beeping from the control panel, and a sign flashed from beneath the steering handle: SWITCH TO MANUAL.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Imperial Earth
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Imperial Earth
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Automatic Control Car-related
news articles:
- Tesla Promises Fully Autonomous Cars By 2018
- Tesla's New Autopilot, With Test Drive Video
- Tesla Autopilot Road Trip 2995 Miles, 57 Hours
- Fully Autonomous Vehicles In 2 Years - Musk
- Autonomous Cars In Snow? Ford, University Of Michigan Say Yes!
- Chris Brewer Speaks at Michigan Robotics
- China Bans Self-Driving Car Testing
- Amazing Tesla Autopilot Video
- Yandex Self-Driving Taxi Is Very Smooth
- The Details Of Tesla’s FSD Full Self-Driving
- Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
| Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology |
| Inmotion Electric Unicycle In Combat |
| Congress Considers Automatic Emergency Braking, One Hundred Years Too Late |
| The 'Last Mile' In China Crowded With Delivery Robots |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
