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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Automatic Truck | ||
| A cargo-carrying vehicle that autonomously drives to the selected destination. |
Pretty early description of an autonomous truck (I don't know of an earlier one).
| Then there was a roar and a crash and a burst of daylight.
The two fugitives jumped up and ran, knocking
over several astonished people who were waiting for packages; their destination was an open door with daylight
beyond. Out there was a row of trucks with
laundry packages dropping into them from overhead
chutes. They were automatic trucks such as are used
for making deliveries beyond the pneumatic-tube zone.
They leaped into the foremost truck. Quentin set the switches on impulse for Bay Shore, because that was not where he wanted to go, and they both rolled back into the closed portion of the vehicle. The truck started slowly, gathered momentum, and automatically made its way out of the city. After fifteen minutes of eternity, they looked out. The truck was moving swiftly along a country road. Twilight was gathering rapidly. "We'd better jump out and let it go on," Quentin suggested. |
| Technovelgy from Mechanocracy,
by Miles J. Breuer. Published by Amazing Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the electrotruck from The Corkscrew of Space (1956) by Poul Anderson. Also, see the entries for the automatic automobile from David H. Keller's 1935 story The Living Machine, the Camden Speedster from Robert Heinlein's serialized 1941 novel Methuselah's Children and the Automatic Control Car from Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (1976).
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Mechanocracy
More Ideas
and Technology by Miles J. Breuer
Tech news articles related to Mechanocracy
Tech news articles related to works by Miles J. Breuer
Automatic Truck-related
news articles:
- Self-Driving Truck Corridor From Manitoba To Mexico?
- Patented! Google's Autonomous Delivery Trucks
- Otto Autonomous Robot Trucks Run Into... Legal Snag
- Volvo's Autonomous Truck
| Xiaomi Self-Driving Self-Balancing Scooter |
| AV-STEP To Permit Sale Of Vehicles Without Steering Wheels Or Pedals |
| 'Robovan' Name Already Taken - Elon, Try These |
| Tele-Driving Offers Jobs For Tele-Drivers, Not AIs |
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
