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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Robot Psyche Tester | ||
| An automated psychiatric evaluation device. |
It's important to have objective information about your mental state. Who better to decide than a robot?
| The robot psyche tester whirred, integrating and gestalting. At last its color code lights changed from red to green.
"Well?" Hall demanded. "Severe disturbance. Instability ratio up above ten." "That's over danger?" "Yes. Eight is danger. Ten is unusual, especially for a person with your index. You usually show about a four... If you could give me more data-" Hall set his jaw. "I can't tell you any more." "It's illegal to hold back information during a psyche test," the machine said peevishly. "If you do that you deliberately distort my findings." |
| Technovelgy from Colony,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Compare this device with Sigrid von Shrink from Gateway (1970) by Frederik Pohl, the machine psychologist from James Blish's Cities in Flight, the mechanotherapist from Bad Medicine (a 1956 Robert Sheckley story), Dr. Smile, from Dick's 1964 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
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and Technology from Colony
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Tech news articles related to Colony
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- Airbnb Has AI Psychiatrist Looking At Your Facebook
- Algorithm Predicts Marriage Success (HAL 9000 Will See You Now)
- 'Seabreeze' Apple And UCLA Project To Beat Depression
| Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI |
| Brainoware Reservoir Computation Of Biological Neural Networks |
| Forward CarePod The AI Doctor's Office |
| Octopus Suckers Inspire Transdermal Patches |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
