Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

Scary Grid Safety Robots

Robotic maintenance will become more commonplace, and you'll just need to get used to it. Even if it conjures up scary images from science fiction of the past.

I'm sure I've seen this before...

(Maintenance robot reaches out)

Yes, it's from a work by Philip K. Dick.

(Maintenance robot reaches out)

Madness, he thought. The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture; vicious unseen mechanical entities that flit at the edges of our vision, that can go anywhere, that are in our very midst. And there may be an unlimited number of them. One of them following each of us...
(Read more about the robot tracking devices)

Learn lots more about the future of maintenance robots - Compare to the blue collar robot from The Velvet Glove (1956) by Harry Harrison and the repair drone from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson.

Compare to the repair robots from The Well-Oiled Machine (1950) by H.B. Fyfe, the Christmas Bush Motile Robot from Rocheworld (1985) by Robert Forward, the maritime robots from Mare Nostrum (2022) by Bruce Sterling and the maintenance drone (holon) from The Mountain in the Sea (2022) by Ray Naylor.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/21/2025)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")

Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.' - Harl Vincent (1934)

Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.

Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...' HG Wells, 1898.

Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves
'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you...' Jerome K. Jerome, 1893.

	Web TechNovelgy.com

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story
'Betty's slapdash style.'

Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (NASA Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.

Could Crystal Batteries Generate Power For Centuries?
'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'

India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking
'It is necessary... for your own protection.'

Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'

Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving?
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'

Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'

Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'

Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.

Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'

BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'

Google's Nano Banana Pro Presents Handwritten Math Solutions
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'

Edible Meat-Like Fungus Like Barbara Hambly's Slunch?
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'

Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'

Woman Marries Computer, Vonnegut's Dream Comes True
'Men are made of protoplasm... Lasts forever.'

Natural Gait With Prosthetic Connected To Nervous System
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories