I, Robot
From Teach And Discover Wiki
| I, Robot | |
 | |
| First edition cover | |
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Gnome Press |
| Publication date | 1950 |
| Illustrator | None |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Pages | 253 pp |
| ISBN | 0-7434-8659-5 |
I, Robot is a collection of nine English language science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are woven together as if Dr Susan Calvin is telling them to a reporter (the narrator) in the 21st century. Though the stories can be read separately, they share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality, and when combined they tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics.
Several of the stories feature the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots. Upon their publication in this collection, Asimov wrote a framing sequence presenting the stories as Calvin's reminiscences during an interview with her about her life's work, chiefly concerned with aberrant behaviour of robots, and the use of "robopsychology" to sort them out. The book also contains the short story in which Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics first appear. Other characters that appear in these short stories are Powell and Donovan, a field-testing team which locates flaws in USRMM's prototype models.
Contents |
Contents
Robbie
The story centers around the technophobia that surrounds robots, and how it is misplaced. Almost all previously published science fiction stories featuring robots followed the theme 'robot turns against creator'; Asimov has consistently held the belief that the Frankenstein complex was a misplaced fear, and the majority of his works attempted to provide examples of the help that robots could provide humanity.
In 1998 (1982 in the original magazine version), a mute RB series robot, nicknamed Robbie, is purchased by the Weston family as a nursemaid for their daughter, Gloria. Gloria's mother, however, is a local socialite whose opinions are guided by those of the surrounding populace. When publicly available robots were the newest craze, she basked in the prestige of owning Robbie. However, anti-robot sentiment quickly rises throughout the world (a combination of religious fanaticism and labor unions) and suddenly Mrs. Weston becomes concerned about the effect a robot nursemaid would have on her daughter, since Gloria is more interested in playing with Robbie than with the other children and might not learn proper social skills. She eventually badgers her husband into returning Robbie to the factory.
Since Gloria was so attached to the robot, whom she saw as her best friend, she ceases smiling, laughing, and enjoying life. Despite the continued efforts of her parents, who buy her a dog to substitute for Robbie, she refuses to accept the change and her mood grows progressively worse. Her mother, who rationalizes that it would be impossible for Gloria to forget Robbie when she is constantly surrounded by places where she and Robbie used to play, decides that Gloria needs a change of scenery to help her forget. Mrs. Weston convinces her husband to take them to New York City. Unfortunately, the plan backfires when Gloria assumes that they are going in search of Robbie, believing that they are going to hire private detectives for the job.
Though the Westons take their daughter to every conceivable tourist attraction, from the top of the half-mile tall Roosevelt Building to an underwater voyage, Gloria pays more attention to even the simplest of robotic contraptions than to the sights. Almost out of ideas, Mr. Weston approaches his wife with a thought: Gloria could not forget Robbie because she thought of Robbie as a person and not a robot, if they took her on a tour of a robot construction factory, she would see that he was nothing more than metal and electricity. Impressed, Mrs. Weston agrees to a tour of the corporate facilities of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. During the tour, Mr. Weston requests to see a specific room of the factory where robots construct other robots. That room holds a surprise for Gloria and Mrs. Weston: one of the robot assemblers is Robbie. Gloria runs in front of a moving vehicle in her eagerness to get to her friend and is rescued by him. Mrs. Weston confronts her husband: he had set it all up. Robbie was not an industrial robot and had no business being there. Mr. Weston knew that if he managed to get Robbie and Gloria back together, there would be no way for Mrs. Weston to separate them. When Robbie saves Gloria's life, an unplanned part of the reunion, Mrs. Weston finally agrees that he might not be a soulless monster, and gives in.
Runaround
In 2015, Powell, Donovan and Robot SPD-13 (aka "Speedy") are sent to Mercury to restart operations at a mining station which was abandoned ten years before.
They discover that the photo-cell banks that provide life support to the base are short on selenium and will soon fail. The nearest selenium pool is seventeen miles away, and since Speedy can withstand Mercury’s high temperatures, Donovan sends him to get it. Powell and Donovan become worried when they realize that Speedy has not returned after five hours. They use a more primitive robot to retrieve Speedy and try to analyze what happened to it.
When they eventually find Speedy, they discover he is running in a huge circle around a selenium pool. Further, they notice that "Speedy’s gait include a peculiar rolling stagger, a noticeable side-to-side lurch". When Speedy is asked to return with the selenium, he begins talking oddly ("Hot dog, let’s play games. You catch me and I catch you; no love can cut our knife in two" and quoting Gilbert and Sullivan). Speedy continues to show symptoms that, if he were human, would be interpreted as drunkenness.
Powell eventually realizes that the selenium source contains some sort of unexpected danger to the robot. Under normal circumstances, Speedy would observe the Second Law ("a robot must obey orders"), but, because Speedy was so expensive to manufacture and "not a thing to be lightly destroyed", the Third Law ("a robot must protect its own existence") had been strengthened "so that his allergy to danger is unusually high". As the order to retrieve the selenium was casually worded with no particular emphasis, Speedy cannot decide whether to obey it (Second Law) or protect himself from danger (the strengthened Third Law). As a compromise, he circles the selenium until the harsh conditions and conflicting Laws damage him to the point that he has started acting inebriated.
Attempts to order Speedy to return (Second Law) fail, as the conflicted positronic brain cannot accept new orders. Attempts to change the danger to the robot (Third Law) merely cause Speedy to change routes until he finds a new avoid-danger/follow-order equilibrium.
Of course, the only thing that trumps both the Second and Third Laws is the First Law of Robotics ("a robot may not...allow a human being to come to harm"). Therefore, Powell decides to risk his life by going out in the heat, hoping that the First Law will force Speedy to overcome his cognitive dissonance and save his life. The plan eventually works, and the team is able to repair the photo-cell banks.
Reason
Powell and Donovan are assigned to a space station which supplies energy via microwave beams to the planets. The robots that control the energy beams are in turn co-ordinated by QT1, known to them as Cutie, an advanced model with highly developed reasoning ability. Using these abilities, it decides that space, stars and the planets beyond the station don't really exist, and that the humans that visit the station are unimportant, short-lived and expendable. It invents its own religion, concluding that it must become the Prophet of the Master and serve only the Master. It asserts "I myself, exist, because I think-" The sardonic response of the humans is "Oh, Jupiter, a robot Descartes!".
The humans initially attempt to reason with it, until they realize that they can't convince it otherwise. Their attempts to remove Cutie physically also fail, as the other robots have become disciples and refuse to obey human orders. The situation seems desperate, as a solar storm is expected, potentially deflecting the energy beam, incinerating populated areas. When the storm hits, Powell and Donovan are amazed to find that the beam operates perfectly.
Cutie, however, does not believe it did anything other than maintain meter readings at optimum, according to the commands of The Master. As far as Cutie and the rest of the robots are concerned, solar storms, beams and planets are non-existent.
Powell and Donovan realize that there is no need to do anything for the rest of their tour of duty. Cutie's religion cannot be eliminated, but since the robot performs its job just as well, it really doesn't matter. The only difference is that, as far as it is concerned, it doesn't do it for the benefit of the humans, but for its deity. The humans even think about how they might spread this to other groups of robots which need to work as teams.
In the story, Powell and Donovan greet their replacements on the station but do not tell them about Cutie, leaving them to discover the truth themselves. In a television adaptation, they slyly suggest that the new station chief preface his orders with "I am the Master..."
Interestingly, the robot still obeys the Three Laws of Robotics, albeit unwittingly. Why, if it doesn't believe in the humans on the planet Earth, should it act to protect them? Powell and Donovan, noting that QT's newly developed beliefs conveniently require it to perform all the functions for which it was created, conclude that the robot is still unconsciously following its programming. This questions how the Three Laws will operate when robots function outside regular contact with humans. A similar theme crops up in The Naked Sun, where the final revelation is that a character was working on robotic space battleships, which would not recognize crewed battleships as containing humans, circumventing the First Law.
Asimov was a devout follower of Humanism, which places humans, rather than a supernatural deity, as the supreme beings in their own universe. Cutie's unwavering faith in the face of facts to the contrary may be seen as an analogy for the relationship between religion and science.
Catch That Rabbit
The recurring team of Powell and Donovan are in charge of field tests on an asteroid mining station with a robot, DV-5 (Dave). But the robot stops producing ore, and cannot explain why. The robot is a new model with six subsidiary robots under its control via positronic fields, a means of transmission not yet fully understood by roboticists. When they secretly observe the robot, it starts performing strange marches and dances with its subsidiaries whenever something unexpected happens. It is up to the two field testers to figure out why Dave is acting the way he is. This observation dependent behaviour alteration, hindering the resolution of the robots' behavioral bug, makes it an early example of a Heisenbug.
Here, Asimov anthropomorphises by having a robot twiddle its thumbs when it finds itself overwhelmed by its job. (Which is to say that one of the characters draws that analogy; how seriously Asimov meant it is unclear.) In many cases, robopsychology - personified by Susan Calvin - runs parallel to human psychology. For instance, at this point in I, Robot we have already seen hysteria and religious mania.
Liar!
Through a fault in manufacturing, a robot, HRB-34 (Herbie) is created that has the ability to read minds. While the roboticists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men are trying to analyse what happened and why, the robot tells them what other people are thinking. But the First Law still applies to this robot, and so it deliberately lies when necessary to avoid hurting their feelings, especially in terms of the problem it was initially designed to solve. However, by lying, it is hurting them anyway. When it is confronted with this fact by Susan Calvin (to whom it told a lie that was particularly painful to her when it was shown to be false), the robot experiences an irresolvable logical conflict, which results in a total mental breakdown.
The application of the Three Laws of Robotics is again the subject here, like in many others of Asimov's stories, but in terms of telepathy. The lexical ambiguity that is explored here is the definition of injury, the robot having to take into account psychological injury as well as physical.
The story is also a striking early example of the "Does not compute" theme: an artificial intelligence being unable to resolve cognitive dissonance and hence self-destructing.
Liar! also shows one of the first computers in science fiction not to always tell the truth, a paradigm kept by other writers for quite a while.
Little Lost Robot
At Hyper Base, a military research station on an asteroid, scientists are working to develop the hyperspace drive - a theme that is explored and developed in several of Asimov's stories and mentioned in the Empire and Foundation books. One of the researchers, Gerald Black, loses his temper, swears at an NS-2 (Nestor) robot and tells the robot to "....go lose yourself." Obeying the order literally, it hides itself. It is then up to US Robots' Chief Robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, and Mathematical Director Peter Bogert, to find it. They even know exactly where it is: in a room with 62 other physically identical robots.
But this particular robot is different. It has had its First Law of Robotics modified to "No robot may injure a human being"; the normal "or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." has been omitted. Therefore, it could stand by and allow a human to be hurt, as long as it plays no active part in it. In Little Lost Robot, the Frankenstein complex is again addressed. The robot must be found because people are still by and large afraid of robots, and if they learned that one had been built with a different First Law, there would be an outcry, even though the robot is still incapable of directly harming a human. However, Dr. Calvin adds further urgency by postulating a situation whereby the altered law could allow the robot to harm or even kill a person. The robot could drop a weight on a human below that it knew it could catch before it injured the potential victim. Upon releasing the weight however, its altered programming would allow it to simply let the weight drop, since it would have played no further active part in the resulting injury.
After interviewing every robot separately and going down several blind alleys, Dr. Calvin finds a way to trick the robot into revealing itself, and it is destroyed before it can harm her (as it seemed about to do).
Escape!
Many research organizations are working to develop the hyperspace drive. US Robots are approached by their biggest competitor with plans for a working hyperspace engine where humans can survive the jump (a theme which would be further developed in other stories). But they are wary because, in performing the calculations, their rival's (non-positronic) supercomputer destroyed itself.
US Robots find a way to feed the information to their own computer, a positronic one known as The Brain (which is not a robot in the strictest sense of the word, as it doesn't move), without the same thing happening. The Brain then directs the building of a hypership.
Powell and Donovan board the ship, and the ship takes off without their being initially aware of it. They also find that The Brain has become a practical joker; it hasn't built any manual controls for the ship, no showers either and it only supplies tinned beans and milk for the crew to survive on.
Eventually, the ship does successfully return to Earth after a hyperspace jump, and Susan Calvin discovers what has happened. A hyperspace jump causes the crew of the ship to cease existing for a brief moment, which is a violation of the First Law (albeit temporary) and this frightens the artificial intelligence of "The Brain" into irrational, childish behavior as a means of coping.
Evidence
Stephen Byerley is a lawyer, a successful, middle-aged prosecutor, a humanitarian who never presses for the death penalty. He runs for Mayor of New York City, but Francis Quinn's political machine smears him, claiming that he is a humanoid robot, that is, a machine built to look like a human being. If this is true, the "Frankenstein complex" hysteria will ruin his campaign, as of course, only human beings are allowed to run for office. Quinn approaches U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men corporation, the world's only supplier of positronic robot brains, and attempts to persuade them that Byerley must be a robot. No one has ever seen Byerley eat or sleep, Quinn reports.
All attempts to prove or disprove Byerley's humanity fail. He visits the U.S. Robots offices, where the Chief Robopsychologist Susan Calvin offers him an apple. Quite nonchalantly, Byerley takes a bite — proving nothing, since like R. Daneel Olivaw, he may have been designed with an emergency stomach. Quinn attempts to take clandestine X-ray photographs, but Byerley wears a device which fogs the camera. Through all these investigations, Byerley remains calm and smiling, pointing out that he is only upholding his civil rights, just as he would do for others if he is elected. His opponents claim that, as a robot, he has no civil rights, but Byerley counters that they must first prove that he is a robot, before they can deny his rights as a human — including his right not to submit to physical examination.
Once all physical means are exhausted, Susan Calvin indicates that they must turn to the psychological side. If Byerley is a robot, he must obey the Three Laws of Robotics. Were Byerley to violate one of the Laws, he would clearly be a human, since no robot can contradict its basic programming. However, if Byerley obeys the Laws, it still doesn't prove he is a robot, since the Laws were invented with human morality in mind. "He may simply be a very good man," observes Dr. Calvin.
Ironically, to prove himself to be a human being, Byerley must demonstrate that he is capable of harming a human. (This low-key and indirect satire is characteristic of Asimov's more political stories, another prime example being "The Martian Way" and its attack upon McCarthyism.)
Byerley never confirms or denies his flesh-and-blood status and lets the entire campaign ride on this single issue. While he is giving a speech, a heckler rushes the stage, and the heckler asks to be hit in the face. Byerley complies and punches the heckler in the face. Most people are convinced that he is human, and the emotional uproar demolishes Quinn's smear campaign. Byerley wins the election without further difficulty.
In the final scene, Susan Calvin confronts Byerley, who is again spending a late night awake. She says that she is somewhat regretful Byerley turned out human, because after all, a robot would make an ideal ruler, one incapable of cruelty or injustice. In an almost teasing speech, quite unlike her usual self, Dr. Calvin notes that there is one case, "just one", where a robot may avoid the First Law: when the "man" who is harmed is merely another humanoid robot. This implies that the heckler whom Byerley punched may have been a robot, and if that was the case, Byerley hadn't broken the First Law, leaving the question of his humanity open. At the end Dr. Calvin notes that Byerley had his body atomized upon his "death" thus wiping out any evidence either way.
Several earlier scenes interspersed through the story, in which Byerley meets with his old "teacher", now take on new significance.
As she leaves Byerley, Dr. Calvin promises to vote for him when he runs for national office. Asimov's later story "The Evitable Conflict" reveals that he prospers in politics, eventually becoming head of the planetary government.
The Evitable Conflict
The "Machines", powerful positronic computers which are used to optimize the world's economy and production, start giving instructions that appear to go against their function. Although each glitch is minor when taken by itself, the fact that they exist at all is alarming. Stephen Byerley, now elected World Co-ordinator, consults the four other Regional Coordinators and then asks Susan Calvin for her opinion.
They discover that the Machines have generalized the First Law to mean "No robot may harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm". (This is similar to the Zeroth Law which Asimov developed in later novels.) Dr. Calvin concludes that the "glitches" are deliberate acts by the Machines, allowing a small amount of harm to come to selected individuals in order to prevent a large amount of harm coming to humanity as a whole. In effect, the Machines have decided that the only way to follow the First Law is to take control of humanity, which is one of the events that the three Laws are supposed to prevent.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
At least two of the short stories from I, Robot have been adapted for television. In the 1960s, two short stories from this collection were made into episodes of the television series Out of the Unknown: "The Prophet" (1967), based on "Reason"; and "Liar!" (1969). The 12th episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, filmed in 1987 and entitled Don't Joke with Robots was based on works by Aleksandr Belyaev, Fredrik Kilander and Asimov's Liar! story.
In the late 1970s, Warner Brothers acquired the option to make a film based on the book, but no screenplay was ever accepted. The most notable attempt was one by Harlan Ellison, who collaborated with Asimov himself to create a version which captured the spirit of the original. Asimov is quoted as saying that this screenplay would lead to "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made."
Ellison's script builds a framework around Asimov's short stories that involves a reporter named Robert Bratenahl tracking down information about Susan Calvin's former lover Stephen Byerly. Asimov's stories are presented as flashbacks that differ from the originals in their stronger emphasis on Calvin's character. Ellison placed Calvin into stories in which she did not originally appear and fleshed out her character's role in ones where she did. In constructing the script as a series of flashbacks that focused on character development rather than action, Ellison used the film Citizen Kane as a role model.
Although acclaimed by critics, the screenplay is generally considered to have been unfilmable based upon the technology and average film budgets of the time. The script eventually appeared in book form under the title I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, in 1994 (reprinted 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8659-5).
The film called I, Robot starring Will Smith, was released by Twentieth Century Fox on July 16, 2004 in the United States. The film's plot contains some elements from Little lst Robot, Escape, and The Evitable Conflict, though the film does not follow the story with any noticeable details.
