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
"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Robots Learn With Cameras | ||
| Robots learn new actions by recording them with a camera, doing away with expensive programming. |
In the story, robots were multi-purpose, but had to be programmed to do particular work. That was the job of men like On-Punch-Card O'Brien - the greatest Instigator on Robot Row.
| “This Instigator’s business is silly,’’ said the [Dit-Dot] Kid. “Figure it yourself. You buy a robot and take it home. It’s got to do jobs around the house; it’s got to go out and get a job of work to pay for itself. So you have to hire an Instigator to cut input cards to make the robot go through the right motions. You need a hundred and fifty to two hundred input cards, at three dollars the card. You can’t machine-cut those input cards, because distances and heights are different in every home in the land and in every office where your robot goes to work.
“But suppose your robot gets fired, or you move to a new house? You have to go back and pay an Instigator all over again to cut new input cards to run the robot. Another six hundred bucks. No wonder the robot economy breaks so many people." “The way you can go broke is what makes robot-owning fun,” said Marie. He gave her one of those looks of disgust. “We’ve got a sick robot economy,” he chided her; “my invention helps cure that. You attach my camera to your robot. It takes 3-D pictures of the act you want it to perform. Only instead of film, it prints right here on this magnetic drum. Binary-coded information. You can run the robot right off the digital information on the drum. When your robot needs to learn a new set of movements, you simply re-record. The camera costs maybe a thousand dollars and lasts the life of the robot — ” “Wonderful!” breathed Marie. “Clever." She patted his hand. |
| Technovelgy from The Instigators,
by Raymond E. Banks. Published by Science Fiction Stories in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Will there ever be another way to program robots, other than by instruction sets created by human beings?
“Maybe.”
“Listen, jerk. Today I cut the Little One for you, understand? I don’t want to ever have to cut that Big One.”
The Kid stood up, brushing his hand-punch confetti off his lap. “You can’t stop progress,” he said.
One-Punch-Card got red. “Lemme tell you an important thing. Kid. The Instigator's Guild won’t ever allow another system of Instigating the robots. They’ll cut the Big One for anybody that comes too close. Don’t you know that?”
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Instigators
More Ideas
and Technology by Raymond E. Banks
Tech news articles related to The Instigators
Tech news articles related to works by Raymond E. Banks
| Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout! |
| Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize |
| Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner |
| Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On |
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
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
