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"Fuzzy logic tries to get machines to think like people do, with inexact fuzzy terms."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| The Machine (M) | ||
| An autonomous robot able to alter its appearance and functionality at will. |
| The machine was a foot wide and two feet long: it looked like an oversized box of crackers. Silently, with great caution, it climbed the side of a concrete building; it had lowered two rubberized rollers and was now beginning the first phase of its job...
 ('The Unreconstructed M' by Philip K. Dick) Beam, holding the cigaret lighter, walked toward the M. A receptor stalk waved toward him and the machine retreated. Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed. For an interval, the device struggled with itself; then, reluctantly, the portable t-v unit again became visible. |
| Technovelgy from The Unreconstructed M,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Science Fiction Stories in 1957 Additional resources -
|
I don't have text references, but readers might compare the Shrike from Dan Simmon's 1989 novel Hyperion and the Aleph from Gregory Benford's 1983 novel Against Infinity.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Unreconstructed M
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Unreconstructed M
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
The Machine (M)-related
news articles:
- MorpHex MKII The Unreconstructed Hexapod
- Metal That Morphs
- Liquid Metal Terminator Development Hums Right Along
- Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
- Shapeshifter Robot Is Comprised Of Cobots
- FlexRAM Liquid Metal RAM And One Particular SF Movie Robot
| Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along |
| Robot Guard Dog On Duty |
| Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles |
| Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
