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"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
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| Metamen | ||
| A human brain placed in a purely mechanical, robotic body. |
This is a very early description of this concept; I thnk that those who are looking forward to uploading to a mechanical body should pay careful attention to the feature list.
| It was tall, ten feet from the soles of its metal feet to the top of its cone-shaped head. It moved with a mechanical precision and it looked like a demented parody of a man. It thudded to a halt, and from its twin scanning-lenses ruby lights flickered and pulsed.
"Doctor Lasser?" Its voice was cold, inhuman, like the sounds made by vibrating plastic and electrical current... "Decision of Comain." The thing raised its articulated arm and held out a thin sheaf of papers. "Take them." Lasser took the papers from the metal hand and stood waiting while the thing turned and thudded from the room. "That was a metamen," Lasser said grimly. "The Matriarch probably sent it as a reminder to obey the predictions of Comain..." "Those things," whispered Curt sickly, "men?" "The brains of men in mechanical bodies. Mostly those who have died by accident, or those who deliberately chose the potential immortality of a robot-like life to inevitable death. They are the guards of Comain, the servants of the Matriarch, emotionless, unfeeling perfect servants and police. |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Monarch,
by E.C. Tubb. Published by Ace Books in 1958 Additional resources -
|
Metamen could also be cool fighting 'bots:
Tall, with articulated limbs and a cone-shaped head... the para-beam seemed to emit from an orifice in their chest and the ruby light of their scanning eyes flared like the fires of hell.
What would it be like to be a metamen?
They could probably communicate between themselves by radio, They could see by means of the scanning eyes, hear via their diaphragms, even speak by transmitted electrical impulses, but they could never feel. They would never know true emotion, because emotion is controlled by the glands and they had no glands. They were prisoners, trapped in their mobile hells, a few pounds of protoplasm served by machinery instead of living flesh.
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Tech news articles related to The Mechanical Monarch
Tech news articles related to works by E.C. Tubb
| Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army |
| Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto |
| HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano |
| Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots |
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'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
'... folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy.'
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'
