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"There's a tendency to think that maybe if we can just throw enough hardware at the AI problem, then evolution can take care of the rest. Certainly that's how God went about making us."
- Rudy Rucker
 |
| Ident Darts | ||
| Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that track individuals. |
Just a brief mention in the story.
| "You shouldn't be foning so soon," the doctor said as he studied his chart. "Mr. Garson Poole, owner of Tri-Plan Electronics. Maker of random ident darts that track their prey for a circle-radius of a thousand miles, responding to unique enceph wave patterns. |
| From The Electric Ant,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Mercury Press in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Dick was fascinated by the concept of recognizing people or tracking them via brain patterns - via electroencephalograph. In his 1965 novel The Zap Gun he writes about a door that opens only for the correct brain wave pattern (see Cephalic Pattern Door). Also, in his 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly, he wrote about a Cephalochromoscope (Cephscope), which offered recreational uses for brain waves.
There is a precursor to the idea of an autonomous machine that could track people based on their brain waves; see mechanical cobra from Roger Zelazny's Hugo-awardwinning 1967 novel Lord of Light.
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