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"...if you want to know what your future looks like, don't waste your time on Analog; read Time magazine. We are already saturated in the future. "
- Peter Watts
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| Butler-Valet Robot | ||
| A gentleman's servant, roboticized. |
| "I have your butler-valet combo here all fitted with the special custom-built adjustments you ordered..."
The man in the visored helmet inserted a convoluted length of iridium - an official Robot Master Key - into the back of the robot's neck. Two full clanking turns and the machinery purred. Eyebrow ridges clinked upward. Multi-linked lips pursed questioningly. "My fiancee, Josephine Lilly... designed it," Lester told him proudly. "Her idea of what a butler-valet combo should look like - sort of in the ancient English tradition..." |
| Technovelgy from The Jester,
by William Tenn. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the electrical valet from The Lord of Tranerica (1939) by Stanton A. Coblentz, the robant from The Impossible Planet (1953) by Philip K. Dick, the consumption robots from The Midas Plague (1954) by Frederik Pohl, the robutler from The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970) by Harry Harrison and the autobutle from The Godmakers (1972) by Frank Herbert.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Jester
More Ideas
and Technology by William Tenn
Tech news articles related to The Jester
Tech news articles related to works by William Tenn
Butler-Valet Robot-related
news articles:
- Toyota's Human Support Robot - Your Robot Butler
- A.L.O. Robot Butler Serves You At Aloft Hotel
| 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 diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
