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"I did more research, and realized I almost would rather be a biologist than a writer, because there was incredible stuff going on!"
- Greg Bear
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| Living Machines | ||
| Robots that are able to learn. |
An interesting early treatment of the distinction between automated machinery and mechanisms that are capable of learning.
| "Man is not a machine in the purely
mechanical sense, though many of his
functions are demonstrably mechanical.
The ability to reason, however it has
evolved, whatever it may be at bottom,
whether a bewildering complexity of reflex actions or not, lifts man above the
dignity of — a machine. Does this imply
the impossibility of creating machines
(mechanical brains) that can profit by
experience, go through the processes
which we call thought? No; but it does
imply that such machines (however created) are no longer mere mechanisms.
There is here a dialectical process to be
reckoned with. Machines that 'learn'
are living machines."
Living machines ! I mouthed that phrase over and over to myself — and mouthing it I looked at the cylinders with increasing dread. They were machines. |
| Technovelgy from The Mentanicals,
by Francis Flagg. Published by Amazing Stories in 1934 Additional resources -
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'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.'
