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"If we're going to be consistent and advocate freedom of speech we have to advocate freedom of encrypted speech too. The genie is out of the bottle, cryptologically."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Automatic Air Mail Plane | ||
| A pilotless airplane for delivery of cargo. |
The same device that was used in automatic automobiles was placed in airplanes. However, the evil machinations of rival companies caused these new devices to go crazy.
| Then the automatic airmail planes changed from peaceful carrier pigeons to predatory hawks. They chased other planes, deliberately colliding with them. They plunged to distraction against mountainsides and skyscrapers. |
| Technovelgy from The Living Machine,
by David H. Keller. Published by Wonder Stories in 1935 Additional resources -
|
I can't find an earlier reference to the idea of an autonomous airplane (note that this is different from the idea of an automatic pilot).
As one of the characters remarks "It was a dangerous thing to do. A machine is alright and a brain is alright, but God never intended the two to be hitched together."
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| Tesla Electric 'Giga Train' Operational In Germany |
| San Francisco Autobus |
| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
| Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight |
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'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'
'...great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a rectangular frame.'
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
