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"None of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Robot Cab Driver | ||
| You think you have problems? Robots have the worst problems of anyone. |
In his short story A Present For Pat, Philip K. Dick tells the story of Eric Blake, who runs into all sorts of problems as a result of bringing a Ganymedean Weather Deity back from a trip to the moons of Jupiter.
On his way back from a bad day at the office, Eric asks his robot cab driver what it would do with the kind of problems that human beings have.
| "What would you do," Eric asked the robot cabdriver, "if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?"
"Robots have no wives," the driver said. "They are nonsexual. Robots have no friends, either. They are incapable of emotional relationships." "Can robots be fired?" "Sometimes." The robot drew his cab up before Eric's modest six-room bungalow. "But consider. Robots are frequently melted down and new robots made from the remains. Recall Ibsen's Peer Gynt, the section concerning the Button Molder. The lines clearly anticipate in symbolic form the trauma of robots to come." "Yeah." The door opened and Eric got out. "I guess we all have our problems." "Robots have worse problems than anybody." The door shut and the cab zipped off, back down the hill. |
| Technovelgy from A Present for Pat,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Startling Stories in 1954 Additional resources -
|
Classic Dick. This is a great short story collection.
However, the idea of a robot driving a car is much older. Consider The Automatic Motorist by W.R. Booth.
Compare to the autocab from Between Planets (1951), by Robert Heinlein.
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and Technology from A Present for Pat
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and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to A Present for Pat
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Robot Cab Driver-related
news articles:
- RobuCAB Robotic Taxi
- RUTH Robot Is 'Inspecting' Your Car
- Autonomous Cars Will Own Themselves
- Do You Really Want Your Car To Talk To Pedestrians?
- TeslaBot Uber Driver (2024) And The Automatic Motorist (1911)
| Humanoid Robots Spotted In Homes Performing Household Chores |
| Bambot Open Source Cheap Delivery Robot |
| Robot Collective Acts Like A Smart Material |
| Robot Gas Station Attendant Pumps Gas For You |
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I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.'
'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
