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"[Science fiction] has become big business, where books are merchandised and promoted and distributed and placed on sale like slabs of bacon or cans of soup."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Learning Robot | ||
| A robot that learns from its own experiences. |
Callahan is a research cybernetician; he creates little wheelies - robots able to move around and learn about their environment.
| "...they're supposed to have complete freedom of choice. I want their graphite-gel circuits to experience anything... they're machines with flexible memory circuits and feedback controls, and they're very impressionable."
"...they're motivated first by a random device and then they learn. The lines of connection in the graphite-gel that turn out the most successful remain like a printed circuit and then if occasion arises, they overprint them. My whole idea is to get away from a machine with a set of prearranged instructions, and let them teach themselves by trial and error."
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| Technovelgy from Callahan and the Wheelies,
by Stephen Barr. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1960 Additional resources -
|
Here's another quote from the story that gives more details:
Compare this idea with the Thorsen memory tube from Robert Heinlein's 1956 novel Door Into Summer.
...in the actual living animal brain, the whole system of synapses, neurons and connecting fibers was there to start with, and repeated activity would produce useful patterns, but with the wheelies' undifferentiated mass of semi-conducting graphite-gel it was more like the lining up of polarized particles in a magnetic field.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Callahan and the Wheelies
More Ideas
and Technology by Stephen Barr
Tech news articles related to Callahan and the Wheelies
Tech news articles related to works by Stephen Barr
Learning Robot-related
news articles:
- Robot Learns To Smile
- DiGORO Robot Learns By Watching Humans
- Robots Learn Language Via Random Syllabic Babble
- Baxter Robot Learns From Fellow Workers
- Robot Teaches Itself To Walk
| No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix |
| Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional |
| DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers |
| Robot Snakes No Longer Stopped By Stairs |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
