23. I, Robot

I, Robot. Isaac Asimov. 1950. 304 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: I looked at my notes and I didn’t like them. I’d spent three days at U.S. Robots and might as well have spent them at home with the Encyclopedia Tellurica.
Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982, they said, which made her seventy-five now. Everyone knew that. Appropriately enough, U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc., was seventy-five also, since it had been in the year of Dr. Calvin’s birth that Lawrence Robertson had first taken out incorporation papers for what eventually became the strangest industrial giant in man’s history. Well, everyone knew that, too.

Premise/plot: I, Robot is a collection of interconnected stories dealing with humanity's volatile (ever-changing) relationship with robot technology. The framework is a narrator (a reporter) interviewing people and accessing files and records. There are recurring characters in some of the stories. But not all the stories are connected tightly with one another. Each story really focuses on the advancement of robot (technology) and how that evolution effects humanity. Is the advancement of robots endangering humanity? Are the three laws enough? Are there good, valid reasons to fear robots? Or do the robots truly just want to protect humanity?

The stories are "Robbie," "Runaround," "Reason," "Catch That Rabbit," "Liar," "Little Lost Robot," "Escape!" "Evidence," "The Evitable Conflict." 

The three laws are
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

My thoughts: I had LOW expectations. I was surprised by how much I liked the stories. But even more surprised by how much I liked the writing in these stories. I was expecting premise-heavy, plot-driven action. I wasn't expecting there to be depth and substance. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is character-driven. (It's not really.) But it is thoughtfully written. 

Some of the stories (aka chapters) were previously published in magazines during the 1940s. 

Quotes:

“Fifty years,” I hackneyed, “is a long time.”

“Not when you’re looking back at them,” she said. “You wonder how they vanished so quickly.”

She went back to her desk and sat down. She didn’t need expression on her face to look sad, somehow.

“How old are you?” she wanted to know.

“Thirty-two,” I said.

“Then you don’t remember a world without robots. There was a time when humanity faced the universe alone and without a friend. Now he has creatures to help him; stronger creatures than himself, more faithful, more useful, and absolutely devoted to him. Mankind is no longer alone. Have you ever thought of it that way?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. May I quote you?”

“You may. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons.—Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner better breed than we are.”
I tried to nudge her gently with words, “We’d like to hear some of the things you could tell us; get your views on robots. The Interplanetary Press reaches the entire Solar System. Potential audience is three billion, Dr. Calvin. They ought to know what you could tell them on robots.”

Slowly, the robot obeyed. His photoelectric eyes focused reproachfully upon the Earthman.

“There is no Master but the Master,” he said, “and QT-1 is his prophet.”

“Huh?” Donovan became aware of twenty pairs of mechanical eyes fixed upon him and twenty stiff-timbred voices declaiming solemnly:

“There is no Master but the Master and QT-1 is his prophet!”

“I’m afraid,” put in Cutie himself at this point, “that my friends obey a higher one than you, now.”

“The hell they do! You get out of here. I’ll settle with you later and with these animated gadgets right now.”

“No,” said Powell bitterly, “he’s a reasoning robot—damn it. He believes only reason, and there’s one trouble with that—” His voice trailed away.

“What’s that?” prompted Donovan.

“You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason—if you pick the proper postulates. We have ours and Cutie has his.”

“Then let’s get at those postulates in a hurry. The storm’s due tomorrow.”

Powell sighed wearily. “That’s where everything falls down. Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them. I’m going to bed.”

“Oh, hell! I can’t sleep!”

“Neither can I! But I might as well try—as a matter of principle.”

The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: “No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.”

Oh, well that’s too bad. I mean, your field-engineers are swell, but can’t we get you into this? Didn’t you ever have a robot go wrong on you? It’s your anniversary, you know.”

And so help me she blushed. She said, “Robots have gone wrong on me. Heavens, how long it’s been since I thought of it. Why, it was almost forty years ago. Certainly! 2021! And I was only thirty-eight. Oh, my—I’d rather not talk about it.”

I waited, and sure enough she changed her mind. “Why not?” she said. “It cannot harm me now. Even the memory can’t. I was foolish once, young man. Would you believe that?”

“No,” I said.

“I was. But Herbie was a mind-reading robot.”

“What?”

“Only one of its kind, before or since. A mistake,—somewheres—”

© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews