From: utzoo!decvax!cca!HPM@S1-A@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.space
Title: Earthworms don't need light
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3327
Posted: Fri Sep 17 12:00:13 1982
Received: Tue Sep 21 09:25:53 1982

From: Hans Moravec 
There are currently a couple of factories in Japan that run unattended
part of the time, usually the night shift.  In those, the lights are
turned off, since the robots don't work by vision anyway.  The easiest
methods for automating most of the dirtmoving, processing, and construction
would use short range radars for terrain and object tracking - or some
other active system - and would probably work better without that huge
radio noise generator in the sky.      Don't sell robotics short, it is
presently vigorously alive, and by the time the transportation is ready,
the automatic machinery for unattended operation 90% of the time will be
too.