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Which story: farm, robots, no humans?
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I am trying to find the name of a Ray Bradbury story I once read an excerpt from. Any help appreciated.

Robot-machines are running a farm. They vary in their intellect, and have specialised jobs. They do not get their daily radio signal from the town one day, which means that the farm comes to a standstill. The most intelligent robot-machine, the radio-operator, tells the other robots to remove him from his cubby-hole.....
Anyone know which story this is, please?

Thanks,

BettyB
 
Posts: 2 | Registered: 02 June 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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This message came from Barbara-MLG by way of ExLibris, the Lost Boards:
It sounds something like But Who Can Replace a Man, a short story by (I think) Clifford Simak (I can check that tonight). What happens in that one is that there has been some major disaster or war, and the robo machines at the fully automated farm realise that there are no men coming to supervise them and that they are free. They come to the conclusion that men are weak and faulty and machines are better able to govern themselves. So they set off across the land to live autonomously somewhere. One of them is disabled and left behind, without of course any emotion or regret. SPOILER! At the end of the story they find a dirty naked unarmed man alone. He tells them to get him food, and they obey, because that's what they were built for, regardless of all the conclusions they had reached before.
 
Posts: 2694 | Location: Dayton, Washington, USA | Registered: 03 December 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Thanks Dandelion. I did think it was a Ray Bradbury story, I'm sorry I was mistaken.

BettyB
 
Posts: 2 | Registered: 02 June 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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This reply came from Richard Horton by way of rec.arts.sf.written at Google Groups:
"Who Can Replace a Man?" is actually by Brian Aldiss, and I'm pretty sure that is the story in question.
--
Rich Horton
 
Posts: 2694 | Location: Dayton, Washington, USA | Registered: 03 December 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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