Robot

“ Its legs will be attached to four separate, free-moving levers which make a different electrical contact for every position. Each electrical contact, or control switch, will cause the robot body to do one specific thing, such as move a leg, utter some particular sound through its voice box, or move just one finger. Can you visualize that, Alice?"
Alice nodded.
"Okay. Now, one leg has to be used for nothing but voice sounds. That leaves three legs for control of the movements of the robot body. In body movement there will be simultaneous movements and sequences. ”

“ The Makers themselves were not fully aware of the potentialities of the robot brain, and therefore did not risk deranging it. So the pressure reached a peak and leveled off, and for all of the days of the robots' lives, they felt it never-ending, awake and aware, each of them, for fifty-five years. ”

“ Of course, it is very doubtful that a Frankenstein monster or a Rossum robot will soon be constructed with nerves, flesh, and blood like an animal body. But we know that many types of robot machines can even now be constructed out of hardware—wheels, motors, wires, electronic tubes, etc. They can handle many kinds of information and are able to perform many kinds of actions, and they are stronger and swifter than man. ”

“ The robot took one hand away tentatively. With slow caution it forced its weight against the acceleration, up into the opening. One slip, one misstep, and the hatch cover would have slammed down on its upturned eyes and ears and voicebox, smashing them beyond repair. ”

“ It will fashion any object you desire from surrounding matter—solid objects, air molecules, anything within a thousand yards of it—if you but type out the name and description of the desired object on its keyboard. Thus, if you wish an automobile, take the robot to a deserted road and type on its keyboard the word, "automobile." By influencing the sub-atomic forces of the dirt in the road, the empty air over the road, perhaps the grass along the side of the road, the robot will make you an automobile. ”

“ Because the ordinary robotic device is a specialist; it can, at most, do two or three things—usually only one. And if you eliminate the thing that a particular robot does, or change it a little, you have to rebuild the tools and re-arrange them before reprogramming the whole line. ”

“ A robot couldn't feel important, or anything else. A robot [Pg 11] was nothing but steel and plastic and magnetized tape and photo-micro-positronic circuits, whereas a man—His Imperial Majesty Paul XXII, for instance—was nothing but tissues and cells and colloids and electro-neuronic circuits. ”

“ Hughes Aircraft’s “Mobot” is a good example, and it is obvious that the robot’s bones, muscles, and nerves are available. All they need is the brain to match.
While we wait fearfully for more robots which look the way we think robots should, the machine quietly takes over controlling more and more even bigger projects. The computer does a variety of tasks, from the simple one of cutting rolling-mill stock into optimum lengths to minimize waste, to that of running an electronic freight yard in which cars are classified and made up automatically. ”

“ But we cannot make Robots to follow us. The machines produce only shapeless clods. The skin will not adhere to the flesh, nor the flesh to the bones.
Third Robot
Eight million Robots have died this year. Within twenty years none will be left. ”

“ Now here’s the thing about robots (and some maids, for that matter) : it’s not at all clear to them what is trash and what is valuable. They (the robots) wander around your house trying to suck things up, but on their way they might leave tire-treads on your manuscript, knock over your priceless vase, or slurp up your collection of antique coins. And sometimes it gets caught on the pull-cord for the blinds, causing the robot to go in circles while pulling the shutters open. ”

“ For the porcupine-like machine the small man had seen the night before had improved the dark hours by digging itself well underground and now from a dozen or more sources was releasing waves of sound that brought a good half of the shells from the robot batteries crashing uselessly down in the woods. ”

“ These include robotics, smart sensors, mission operations, computer systems, software, data management, database systems, management services, human-machine systems, engineering, and system engineering. Robotics. The principal equirements associated with robotics which call upon the disciplines of CS&T include visual perception, manipulator control, and autonomous control. This latter category includes problem-solving and plan generation -the ability of a robot device to plan and to pursue its own macroscopic course of action. ”

“ And the machinery itself was guided, handled, operated—even, in some instances, constructed—by other, more intricate machines. They were fashioned in pseudo-human form—thinking, logically acting, independently acting mechanisms: the Robots. All but human, they were—a new race. Inferior to humans, yet similar. ”

“ The first thing he did in the robot body was look around for the bone. Rapid as the flicker of a film."
"Yes, I know," I said dryly. "I found the same thing. No consciousness of transfer or any other sensation. With the scanner-transferer it takes place in less than a ten thousandth of a second. Every electrical pattern of the brain complex is lifted out as an infinitesimal segment and transplanted into the colloid dielectric complex without alteration."
"Like a television eye scans a scene, in a way," the doctor added. "But let's go out to my laboratory. I'll show you my body." ”

“ He gestured widely, taking in the dozens of robots with their shiny, cylindrical bodies and pipestem arms and legs laboring in his fields. "Get all your people together and go hide in the wood, fast." ”

“ Robots have been seen as replacements for manned systems rather than extremely complicated and capable machines suitable for a set of tightly defined tasks. Robotic systems, or taskable machines as some are beginning to refer to them, hold promise for the future simply because they represent the intersection of a myriad of fast-moving technology areas such as information technologies, communications, microelectronics, micro-electromechanical systems, simulation, and computer-aided design and manufacturing. ”

“ He stood gazing down at me, almost a ton of metal and wiring and electrical energy, his dull red eyes unwinking against his lead gray face. A man! Slowly the consequences of this rebellion took form in my mind. This wasn't in the books. There were no rules on how to deal with mind-reading robots!
Another dozen or so androids wheeled around the corner, glanced over at us, and went on. Only about half of them were Morrison models; the rest were the assorted types you see around any city—calculators, street sweepers, factory workers, children's nurses. ”

“ All Robots turn quickly, automatically to attention, facing Radius, who is standing. On the words: “The rule of the Robots,” they stand there with their arms vibrating high in the air. They form in two lines, turn to audience and march mechanically to the footlights. As they are about to step over the footlights, as if into the audience, all LIGHTS go out. The Robots immediately step back from the Curtain line as the Curtain falls. ”

“ If the computers of the various robots were electrically interconnected the psychological impact on the observer would be more along the lines of a single system which was expanding itself, rather than producing distinct offspring. ”

“ It is essential to reassure the nation that fully autonomous robots will be only gradually introduced, that most existing jobs will not be replaced but rather enhanced, and that automata employed on the SMF will not be completely beyond human control. ”

“ Automated assembly of advanced devices is perhaps no more difficult than the automated assembly of satellites, which already will have been accomplished during an earlier phase of SMF evolution. The most crucial technologies to be developed for the manufacture of second- and third-generation robots and teleoperators are space-adaptive sensors and computer vision. ”

“ The only thing robots couldn't do, it seemed, was sit in foxholes. That was one place where Phil recalled no mechanical competition. ”

“ My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. ”

“ How will humankind deal with what has been termed, with some justification, "the last machine we need ever build?" How might people's lives be changed by a replicative universal constructor system capable of absorbing solar energy and raw dirt and manufacturing, as if by magic, a steady stream of finished building materials, television sets and cars, sheet metal, computer components, and more robots - with little or no human intervention required? ”

“ “What I’ve got here are my own constraints. I’m challenging myself, using found objects and making stuff that throws all this computational capacity at, you know, these trivial problems, like car-driving Elmo clusters and seashell toaster-robots. We have so much capacity that the trivia expands to fill it. And all that capacity is junk-capacity, it’s leftovers. There’s enough computational capacity in a junkyard to launch a space-program, and that’s by design. Remember the iPod? Why do you think it was so prone to scratching and going all gunky after a year in your pocket? ”

“ For one thing, the most complicated positronic brain small enough to fit into a human-sized skull is hundreds of times less complex than the human brain. It can't pick up all the overtones, therefore, and there must be some way to take advantage of that fact."
Laszlo looked impressed despite himself and Lynn smiled grimly. It was easy to resent Breckenridge and the coming intrusion of several hundred scientists of non-robotics specialties, but the problem itself was an intriguing one. ”

“ Technology decisions are, to a great degree, dictated by specific mission goals, thus powerfully impeding NASA utilization of modern computer science and automation techniques. Unlike its pioneering work in other areas of science and technology, NASA's use of computer science has been conservative and unimaginative. The overall importance of machine intelligence and robotics for NASA has not been widely appreciated within the agency, and NASA has made no serious effort to attract bright, young scientists in these fields. ”

“ Hallemeier
Damn it, why?
Busman
What did you do it for?
Fabry
Why didn't you say anything?
Dr. Gall
I did it in secret. I was transforming them into human beings. In certain respects they're already above us. They're stronger than we are.
Fabry
And what's that got to do with the revolt of the Robots?
Dr. Gall
Everything, in my opinion. They've ceased to be machines. They're already aware of their superiority, and they hate us. They hate all that is human.
Domin
Perhaps we're only phantoms!
Fabry
Stop, Harry. We haven't much time! Dr. Gall! ”

“ But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of its operations mathematically certain through its power of correcting its possible errors? What shall we think of a machine which can not only accomplish all this, but actually print off its elaborate results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention of the intellect of man? ”

“ Perhaps, in the future, when machines have attained to a state of perfection—for I confess that I am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility of machinery—then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. ”

“ The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is so perfect, the engineer is nobody. ”

“ If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine -- any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door -- using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe. ”

“ The difference between "machines" and "engines" is obviously this, that machines need more workmen and greater power to make them take effect, as for instance ballistae and the beams of presses. Engines, on the other hand, accomplish their purpose at the intelligent touch of a single workman, as the scorpio or anisocycli when they are turned. ”

“ His situation, insofar as he was a machine, was complex, tragic, and laughable. But the sacred part of him, his awareness, remained an unwavering band of light.
And this book is being written by a meat machine in cooperation with a machine made of metal and plastic. The plastic, incidentally, is a close relative of the gunk in Sugar Creek. And at the core of the writing meat machine is something sacred, which is an unwavering band of light.
At the core of each person who reads this book is a band of unwavering light.
My doorbell has just rung in my New York apartment. ”

“ The machine process pervades the modern life and dominates it in a mechanical sense. Its dominance is seen in the enforcement of precise mechanical measurements and adjustment and the reduction of all manner of things, purposes and acts, necessities, conveniences, and amenities of life, to standard units. ”

“ The sensitive person’s hostility to the machine is in one sense unrealistic, because of the obvious fact that the machine has come to stay. But as an attitude of mind there is a great deal to be said for it. The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug – that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes. ”