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"None of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Hired Girl Robot | ||
| The amazing floor-cleaning robot! |
| What Hired Girl would do (the first model, not the semi-intelligent robot I developed it into) was to clean floors . . . any floor, all day long and without supervision. And there never was a floor that didn't need cleaning. It swept, or mopped, or vacuum-cleaned, or polished, consulting tapes in its idiot memory to decide which. Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray on its upper surface, for someone brighter to decide whether to keep or throw away. It went quietly looking for dirt all day long, in search curves that could miss nothing, passing over clean floors in its endless search for dirty floors. It would get out of a room with people in it, like a well-trained maid, unless its mistress caught up with it and flipped a switch to tell the poor thing it was welcome. Around dinnertime it would go to its stall and soak up a quick charge-this was before we installed the everlasting power pack. There was not too much difference between Hired Girl, Mark One, and a vacuum cleaner. But the difference-that it would clean without supervision-was enough; it sold." |
| From The Door Into Summer,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Unknown in 1956 Additional resources -
|
This bot has an amazing set of specs:
(Thanks to an anonymous reader for reminding me about this one.)
Heinlein identifies autonomous operation as the most important feature.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Door Into Summer
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Heinlein
Tech news articles related to The Door Into Summer
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Heinlein
Hired Girl Robot-related
news articles:
- iRobot Scooba And Heinlein's 'Hired Girl' Robot
- RIDC-01 Robot Maid Will Not Replace Rosie In Our Hearts
- Romi Robot Orwellian Vacuum Cleaner
- Tondon Robot Autonomous Floor Cleaner
- ReadyBot Robot Picks Up Like Heinlein 'Hired Girl'
- SmartPal V Robot Picks Up, Vacuums Rec Room
- iRobot's Five Million Home Robots
- Mahru-Z Robot Maid
- Dyson 360 Eye Robot Vacuum Cleaner
- PLEN2 DIY Robot Cleaner Steals Your Heart
- Aeolus Robot Brings Jetson's Rosie Closer
| I Can't Resist Worm Robots |
| TinyMobileRobots Are Sewer Sentinels |
| Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air |
| MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses |
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'The world ... is drenched in unfamiliar information all the way to the horizon.'
'He saw one hiss by him as he rounded the corner, trailing a short whip antenna...'
'It may be organic damage. It may be permanent. Time'll tell, and only after you are off Substance D for a long while.'
It's the polite thing to do, and has been the polite thing to do for about four generations.
