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"I realized there was a heavy-duty change coming in biology, and I could write a really compelling novel about catastrophic evolution, punctuated equilibrium."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Robot Cab Driver | ||
| You think you have problems? Robots have the worst problems of anyone. |
In his short story A Present For Pat, Philip K. Dick tells the story of Eric Blake, who runs into all sorts of problems as a result of bringing a Ganymedean Weather Deity back from a trip to the moons of Jupiter.
On his way back from a bad day at the office, Eric asks his robot cab driver what it would do with the kind of problems that human beings have.
| "What would you do," Eric asked the robot cabdriver, "if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?"
"Robots have no wives," the driver said. "They are nonsexual. Robots have no friends, either. They are incapable of emotional relationships." "Can robots be fired?" "Sometimes." The robot drew his cab up before Eric's modest six-room bungalow. "But consider. Robots are frequently melted down and new robots made from the remains. Recall Ibsen's Peer Gynt, the section concerning the Button Molder. The lines clearly anticipate in symbolic form the trauma of robots to come." "Yeah." The door opened and Eric got out. "I guess we all have our problems." "Robots have worse problems than anybody." The door shut and the cab zipped off, back down the hill. |
| Technovelgy from A Present for Pat,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Startling Stories in 1954 Additional resources -
|
Classic Dick. This is a great short story collection.
However, the idea of a robot driving a car is much older. Consider The Automatic Motorist by W.R. Booth.
Compare to the autocab from Between Planets (1951), by Robert Heinlein.
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- Autonomous Cars Will Own Themselves
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- TeslaBot Uber Driver (2024) And The Automatic Motorist (1911)
| Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You |
| SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits |
| Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots |
| What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots? |
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
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'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
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'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
