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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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| Autonomous Digging Machine | ||
| A mechanical device able to excavate on its own. |
This is a very early reference to the idea of an autonomous machine, or robotic device, able to carry out a general task without direction.
| When I looked again, the busy handling-machine had already put together several of the pieces of apparatus it had taken out of the cylinder into a shape having an unmistakable likeness to its own; and down on the left a busy little digging mechanism had come into view, emitting jets of green vapour and working its way round the pit, excavating and embarking in a methodical and discriminating manner. This it was which had caused the regular beating noise, and the rhythmic shocks that had kept our ruinous refuge quivering. It piped and whistled as it worked. So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all. |
| From The War of the Worlds,
by H.G. Wells. Published by Harper and Bros. in 1898 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the original robot from Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.) (1920) by Karel Capek.
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Science Fiction
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'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
'Do you know what window washing used to cost by the hour?'
'Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack.'
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
'From the tower's huge octagonal base radiate wide silvery strips...'
'It was about five feet long... a black bullet head and red camera eyes.'
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
