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"In science fiction one can say a great many things that are unpalatable, … because it's expressed as science fiction you can slip it past their defenses."
- Frederik Pohl

Self-Guided Tractors  
  A farm vehicle that drives itself.  

Five miles above the sunlight tube, the sky was a patchwork of small squares, split by a central wedding ring of lake and by tributary rivers, a sky alive with the tiny red glints of self-guided tractors.
From At the Bottom of a Hole, by Larry Niven.
Published by Galaxy Magazine in 1966
Additional resources -

SF fans at the movies are ready with their favorite example of autonomous combines - take a look at these beauties from the recent 2015 hit movie Interstellar.


(Autonomous combines in Interstellar)

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 field minder from Who Can Replace A Man (1963) by Brian Aldiss, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the robot crab from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson and the agricultural robot pest controller from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from At the Bottom of a Hole
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven
  Tech news articles related to At the Bottom of a Hole
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven

Self-Guided Tractors-related news articles:
  - Rowbot Small Autonomous Farm Robot
  - Once A Jolly Swagbot Camped By A Billabong
  - The Hands-Free Hectare
  - CNH Industrial Autonomous Tractor Concept Video
  - Multi-Robot Farming On Highly Sloped Land

Articles related to Robotics
ESTHER Tennis Robot V. Fact (1934) And Fiction (1952)
EELS Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor For Enceladus
Helpful Robots In Science Fiction
SayCan with PaLM - Google's Robot Helper

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