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"Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Prime Command | ||
| A universal order or principle carried out by every robotic device. |
Yes, sometimes what seems like a good idea backfires. The robots are just trying to be nice.
| [But the robots mean well - it's their prime command:]
"It didn't mean anything to you that the robots have practically taken over our whole society — that they've been making us more and more dependent on them all the time?" |
| Technovelgy from Robots Are Nice?,
by Gordon R. Dickson. Published by Galaxy in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the Noninterference With Other Worlds from In the Deep of Time (1879) by George Parsons Lathrop, the Relations with Extraterrestrial Life from Ogre (1944) by Clifford Simak, the law of contact from Orphans of the Void (1952) by Orville Shaara, the Prime Directive from With Folded Hands (1947) by Jack Williamson, the treatment of extramundane aborigines from Symbiotica (1943) by Eric Frank Russell and alien self-government from Co-Operate or Else (1942) by A.E. van Vogt.
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Tech news articles related to works by Gordon R. Dickson
| Robots Repair And Modify Themselves |
| Robot Janitors Get To Work |
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| Robot Rabbits Entice Pythons |
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'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
'This robot is a creature... It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!'
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
