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"We'd have most of what we predicted of the conquest of space, if we hadn't ignored parasite control."
- Larry Niven

Automat  
  Unusual name for an intelligent robot; short for "automaton"?  

This is an unusual word; in the early part of the Twentieth century, the word "automat" was most commonly used for a place where what we would call automatic vending machines would provide packaged or plated food in exchange for coins.

“So be it. Scarecrow,’’ he said, holding his features impassive; for he was half afraid that the weird mechanical mind of the automat had somehow gained abnormal wisdom through its derangement, and could read his face.
Technovelgy from Mad Robot, by Raymond Z. Gallun.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1936
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