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" I sometimes suspect that we're seeing something in the Internet as significant as the birth of cities. It's really something new, it's a new kind of civilization."
- William Gibson
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| Robot Librarian Filer | ||
| A device that works as a librarian, automatically filing books in the stacks. |
Filer 13B-445-K, robot librarian, had interests unlike those of any robot before him.
| A Filer is an amazingly intelligent robot and there aren't many being manufactured. You'll find them only in the greatest libraries, dealing with only the largest and most complex collections. To call them simply librarians is to demean all librarians and to call their work simple. Of course very little intelligence is needed to shelve books or stamp cards, but this sort of work has long been handled by robots that are little more than wheeled IBM machines. The cataloging of human information has always been an incredibly complex task. The Filer robots were the ones who finally inherited the job. It rested easier on their metallic shoulders, than it ever had on the rounded ones of human librarians. |
| Technovelgy from The Robot Who Wanted to Know,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Pyramid Books in 1962 Additional resources -
|
It turns out that the robot librarian Filers could do more than just shelve books, or help you find one.
Compare to the automatic delivery library from The Lord of Tranerica Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources: Robot Librarian Filer-related
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Besides a complete memory, Filer had other attributes that are usually connected to the human brain. Abstract connections for one thing. If it was asked for books on one subject, he could think of related books in other subjects that might be referred to. He could take a suggestion, pyramid it into a category, then produce tactile results in the form of a mountain of books.
More Ideas
and Technology from The Robot Who Wanted to Know
More Ideas
and Technology by Harry Harrison
Tech news articles related to The Robot Who Wanted to Know
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Harrison
- Robot Librarians In The Stacks
- Meet Hugh, Your Robot Librarian
| Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car |
| Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots |
| Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar |
| Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin |
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'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?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
