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"[Science fiction is ] That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Mechanical Teacher | ||
| A computer device able to teach children. |
| Margie went into the classroom. It was right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday, because her mother said little girls learned better if they learned at regular hours.
The screen was lit up, and it said: "Today's arithmetic lesson is on the addition of proper fractions. Please insert yesterday's homework in the proper slot." |
| Technovelgy from The Fun They Had,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Children's Magazine in 1951 Additional resources -
|
The mechanical teacher is further described, after being repaired:
The mechanical teacher was adjusted to fit the needs of each individual child.
Readers may also compare the mechanical teacher with the accelerated schooling made possible by a group of artificially intelligent machines (the City Fathers) from James Blish's 1957 story Cities in Flight.
...there it was again, large and black and ugly, with a big screen on which all the lessons were shown and the questions were asked.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Fun They Had
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and Technology by Isaac Asimov
Tech news articles related to The Fun They Had
Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov
Mechanical Teacher-related
news articles:
- Universities Irrelevant By 2020
- Saya Humanoid Robot Teacher
- Korean Robot Teaching Assistants
- AI Chatbots Teach English Online
- Affective Autotutor, Emotion-Sensing Teaching Software
- Projo Robot Teaching Assistant
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| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
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Science Fiction
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
