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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
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This very short story offers an early fictionalized account of a teleoperated robot. In use, the operator sees with the perspective of the robot's vision.
In the story, roboticist Dr. Alvin Peabody, who describes himself as "scrawny and fluffy-headed," seeks a date with another researcher in the field, Muriel Winthrop.
When he gets to the restaurant, he meets the beautiful Miss Winthrop, "tall and youthfully curved, filling [her] coat to snugness." However, after a few minutes of conversation, he finds that Miss Winthrop, too, has sent a robot!
She is disappointed with him, expecting a "refined, scholarly-looking gentleman of about forty, with spectacles." When he, in turn, learns that she is no tall ice princess, but rather "quite small," "red hair," and finally "nose turns up, with freckles" he can no longer contain himself. He offers to meet her at the restaurant in fifteen minutes - "make it ten," she breathed.
Ah, love at second sight.
Simple examples of this kind of robot already exist; see the PEBBLES teleconferencing robot for homebound school children and the InTouch medical rounding robot for doctors.
In case you don't think that robots could look enough like people to fool you (at least temporarily), take a look at Repliee Q1.
Compare also to the rolov from the 1953 story Roll out the Rolov! by Christopher Anvil. Compare to eccentric projection from The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1974) by James Tiptree, Jr..
Compare also to the manufactured wife from A Wife Manufactured to Order (1895) by Alice W. Fuller, the
robotess from R.U.R. (1920) by Karel Capek, the
psychophonic nurse from The Psychophonic Nurse (1928) by David H. Keller, the
mechanical bride from The Mechanical Bride (1954) by Fritz Leiber, the
maid-robot from The Midas Plague (1954) by Frederik Pohl and the
Nanny from Nanny (1955) by Philip K. Dick. Comment/Join this discussion ( 4 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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