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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
- Peter Watts
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| Automaton Lawyer's Clerk | ||
| An autonomous clerk to lawyers. |
A vexing question settled at last.
| Now Mr BABBAGE, I will tell you what I wish you would do. You have invented a Calculating Machine. Cannot you likewise invent an Engrossing Machine--an Automaton Lawyer's Clerk? The misery of the Clerk at present in use is, that his frame is composed of flesh and blood [...] But, ingenious Sir, could you construct an Automaton Clerk, all these inconveniences would be obviated.
 (The Automaton Lawyer's Clerk from Punch) Mahogany has no nervous system, springs and wires do nor vibrate with sensations; and to the Attorney's wrong and the Solicitor's contumely, the whole clockwork would be impassible. The machine could not contract matrimony and have to keep a family; and were you, Sir, its Parent, (which Heaven avert!) to fall into distress, it would not be called upon to maintain you. It would bear all kinds of indignity and ill-treatment without a murmur; it could call no meetings, write no letters to the newspapers. Like master and slave, it would be wholly unfeeling. It would work all day, and night too, if necessary, uncomplainingly, till it got out of order; and then it might be mended. Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble : this, I apprehend, exactly applying the Attorney's grand desideratum--I would advise you to call it THE PATENT INSENSIBLE LAWYER'S CLERK. |
| Technovelgy from The Lawyer's Clerk Question Settled,
by Staff of Punch. Published by Punch in 1844 Additional resources -
|
See also the lawyer robot from How-2 (1954) by Clifford Simak, the law clerk robot from The Midas Plague (1954) by Frederik Pohl, the robot judge from Harry Harrison's excellent 1959 short story Robot Justice, lawyer programs from David Brin's 1990 novel Earth and LEX from Greg Egan's 1991 short story The Moat.
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'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
