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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
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| Bot | ||
| The first use of this contraction for "robot". |
As far as I know, this is the first use in science fiction for this very common contraction.
| You see, sir, i was killed a lot deader than you were, my whole body was destroyed, when they got my ship the only part of me that the ’bots were able to get into cold-sleep was my head, shoulders and a part of my spine... |
| Technovelgy from We All Died At Breakaway Station,
by Richard Meredith. Published by Amazing Stories in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the first use of the word robot from R.U.R. (1920) by Karel Capek.
Hard to believe, but this familiar contraction was so new that in 1977, Gregory Benford felt he needed to explain it in his story Homemaker:
The robot squats mutely.
‘Bot?’ Gerald asks. ‘
Slang for robot. You ask him.’
‘What's your name, little bot?’
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and Technology from We All Died At Breakaway Station
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- The Future Of Elon Musk's Neuralink
| Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army |
| Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto |
| HandelBot Helps Two-Handed Robots Learn Piano |
| Woven Fiber Electronic Skin For Robots |
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'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
