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"...science fiction is sort of like a sociological genome. It's a huge range of possible futures, most of them useless; some vital. You never really know in advance."
- Peter Watts

Automatics  
  Machinery capable of running some aspect of a space ship's operation on its own.  

As far as I know, this is the first use of this handy expression.

Snap and I were in control of the ship. For temporary periods the automatics would handle the gravity-shifters. I could operate them here from the turret. We had a downward velocity toward the Moon; five hundred miles below us, no more, was the base of that diabolical gravity ray which was so swiftly pulling the twenty-five Grantline ships to their destruction!
Technovelgy from Wandl, The Invader, by Ray Cummings.
Published by Astounding Stories in 1932
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Science Fiction in the News

Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'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?'

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'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'

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