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"To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Autonomous Truck | ||
| A truck that drives itself and unloads itself. |
| The truck was massive, rumbling under its tightly packed load. In many ways, it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception -- there was no driver's cabin. The horizontal surface was a loading stage, and the part that would normally be the headlights and radiator grill was a fibrous spongelike mass of receptors, the limited sensory apparatus of this mobile utility extension.
Aware of the three men, the truck slowed to a halt, shifted gears and pulled on its emergency brake. A moment passed as relays moved into action; then a portion of the loading surface tilted and a cascade of heavy cartons spilled down onto the roadway. With the objects fluttered a detailed inventory sheet. The truck had begun to move away; abruptly it stopped and backed toward them. Its receptors had taken in the fact that the three men had demolished the dropped-off portion of the load. It spun in a grinding half circle and came around to face its receptor bank in their direction. Up went its antenna; it had begun communicating with the factory. Instructions were on the way. |
| Technovelgy from Autofac,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy in 1955 Additional resources -
|
Here's a look at the illustration that accompanied the original story:
(Autonomous truck from Autofac)
And from Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies (1992) by Greg Egan:
A bakery’s robot delivery van speeds past me, and I curse my solitude; without elaborate preparations, it takes at least two agile people to make use of them: one to block the vehicle’s path, the other to steal the food. Losses through theft are small enough that the people of the attractors seem to tolerate them; presumably, greater security measures just aren’t worth the cost - although no doubt the inhabitants of each ethical monoculture have their own unique “reasons” for not starving us amoral tramps into submission.
Compare to the electrotruck from The Corkscrew of Space (1956) by Poul Anderson, the tractatruck from The Moon is Hell (1950) by John Campbell, the planetruck from The Slave Ship to Andrigo (1951) by Ross Rocklynne and the automatic truck from Mechnocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breurer.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Autofac
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Autofac
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Autonomous Truck-related
news articles:
- Embark Autonomous Trucks Still Need Humans
- Dockworkers Protest Driverless Trucks
- No Autonomous Trucks? Wait, What?
- Rivian Actually Making Electric Self-Driving Trucks
| 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.'
