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"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."
- Larry Niven
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| Remote Control Taxicab | ||
| A cab that is piloted by a remote operator. |
Very early reference to this idea, an interesting counterpoint to the idea of an autonomous cab (which Dick talks about in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch [1965]) or a regular cab that is piloted by a robot (which Dick talks about in A Present for Pat [1952]).
| Beam started slowly back toward his lab. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind and turned in the direction of the business area. When a free-wheeling cab came by, he hailed it and clambered in.
“Where to, sport?” the starter at cab relay asked. City cabs were guided by remote control from one central source. |
| Technovelgy from The Unreconstructed M,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Science Fiction Stories in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the driverless drones from the 2007 novel Halting State by Charles Stross.
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| San Francisco Autobus |
| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
| Eviation Alice Electric Plane First Flight |
| Robotaxi By Cruise Premieres in Austin, Texas |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
