I, Robot

Specifications

Asimov, Isaac, I, Robot, Bantam Books, printed 2004, originally published 1950.

Reading

This was read from about 05/21/2007 to 05/24/2007. This is a library book.

Review

This book is not at all like the movie (a warning). It is a series of short stories, covering the period of time from the creation of the robot to the point where the robots are in charge of everything, which Asimov thinks is from 1998 to 2057.

It has to be kept in mind that this was first published in 1950, well before the computer revolution as we know it, so it is not consistent with reality. It should be kept in mind that the electronic computer was first invented in 1938 by John Atanasoff. Machine language was invented in the late 1940's (49 if I recall correctly) by John Von Neumann. Before that, computers had to be rewired for each problem that was to be solved.

Also, the thought was that computers would never be profitable because the entire world would only need about four or five.

For that reason, Asimov invented something called a "positronic brain" which is roughly equivalent to a micro-processor today. He foresaw the problem robots would cause in manufacture, and that labor would appose robots (which happened). What he didn't see is that robots outproduced the human workers by so much that one country (Japan) accepted robots, and this forced the rest of the world to accept them or be left behind economically.

The robots built act like people in every respect, except they are hardwired to obey the "three robotic laws" which are:

1. A robot must not harm any human being, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it.

3. A robot must protect its own existence.

These are applied in order - meaning, if there is a choice between the first and second law, the first takes precedence etc.

The first story is about Robbie, a childcare robot built before robots were made illegal. It depicts a very young girl how has a robot (who cannot talk) as a nanny. The robot takes good care of the girl, but the mother is very anti-robot, therefore, the mother eventually force the father into getting rid of the robot. The girl never recovers - every time the mother thinks things are improving, it turns out the girl is only thinking that maybe she's allowing the robot back. Finally, the father manages to get the girl into a factory where Robbie is, and she ignores everything to get to him.

This story is about ignoring the child in child rearing.

The second story, which takes place after robots on Earth were outlawed. The anti-robot crowd (of fundamentalist - technological fundamentalists, not religious) has organized itself into the Society of Humanity. This is the second attempt to use robots to mine minerals from Mercury, which is viewed as the hardest planet to visit. They have new robots, but there are some old ones left from the first attempt. They send the new one out to get some needed minerals, and it doesn't come back, but rather just circles around a pool of minerals.

The problem is that the robot needs to get the mineral according to the second law, but cannot because the mineral is in an area that is detrimental to the robots. Therefore, it is caught in a dilemma between the second and third law. The second says it must get the mineral, but it can't because of the third law. But if it is destroyed, it can't get the mineral. Therefore, it just circles the mineral.

They finally have to uses some of the old robots to get the new one. This story is about the conflict between the second and third law.

The third story is about a robot on an energy gathering satellite (around the sun). The problem is a new executive robot has been sent there. It has decided that people are inferior, so they are not needed. The robot announces to his human counterparts that they are obsolete, and comes up with some sort of religion in which all robots are created by the "master," really the power transmission unit. The humans are an obsolete version, and are held under house arrest away from the controls.

The problem is that they need to get to the controls because a solar storm is threatening the beam to Earth. If they don't correct for the storm, the Earth will get fried. But the executive robot won't allow it, preaching some sort of religion of the master to the other robots. The humans try to get to the controls, but can't. Finally, they resign themselves to frying a piece of the Earth. After the emergency, they get on the radio to assess the results. Nothing happened. The robot managed to direct the beam correctly, even with its stupid religion, which among other things denied the existence of Earth. Therefore, the robot is accepted. The robot thinks its obeying "the master" but in reality it is doing what people want it to.

This is a discussion of religion, really. Does it really make any difference what people believe, as long as they do what they are supposed to do.

The fourth story is about a special set of robots that are made as seven separate robots. That is, they are one unit which communicates at the positronic brain level. They are, really, seven robots that are really one robot. These are set up to be used at a mining asteroid. The problem is that they are not getting ore whenever they are not being observed. They are observed the robots walking in lock step, following the leader section.

They finally observe that the problem occurs when the robots need to react to an emergency. The "robopsycholgist" is worried that they look like they might be planning a revolt.

Finally, the problem is eliminated when one of the robots it taken out with a blaster. What happened is that computer was overloaded with six subsidiary robots, but not with five. Problem solved.

This is about not jumping to conclusions. The lock step was just the computer "twitting its fingers."

The fifth story is about the only mind reading robot ever built. The robot reads minds, and every trusts the results. It tells one person that they will be made the leader, so they react like this. Some woman is told that a man is in love with her, etc. In the end, none of it is true, because the robot is telling everyone what they want to hear, and since it can read minds, it knows exactly what to say.

This is a discussion of those people who try to tell others exactly what they want to hear in order to advance their position. The result is failure.

The sixth story is about a robot on a station which is developing an interstellar drive. The problem is that, without the knowledge of the administration, the project has had some robots built which has an imperfect first law. That is, the second half of the first law is missing. Then, one technician gets frustrated, and tells a robot to "get lost." The robot does - there is a shipment of robots stopped there to drop off two robots. The robot just gets mixed in with 62 identical robots. So they know the robot is there because there are 63 robots where there should be 62, bit which one. They need to design a test to tell which one is odd one because that one has an imperfect first law. It is shown that that is dangerous because the robot might stand by when a person was in danger.

There are several tests, but all 63 pass all the tests, since the one that doesn't belong is "hiding out." Finally, it is determined that the bad one knows some physics, so they put people into danger, but the only the robot that knows physics knows it can actually do anything, so it pulls out from the crowd.

This is a discussion of the first law. Even the slight change, "or by inaction allow a human to come to harm" is important.

The seventh story is about the creation of an interstellar drive. A competitor has blown a computer by giving it the data for interstellar drive (there are only a very few computers in this universe - less than ten.) Therefore, they presented the data to the U. S. Robot, the computer manufacturing. The idea, it is thought, is that the they want U. S. Robot to feed the date into their computer, and therefore destroy it.

The tell the computer that there might be some problems with the data, then feed it in a little at a time, thinking that at the point the computer would break, they could simply not have the computer accept the data. The computer takes it all, and designs an interstellar ship. It is built over two months.

The problem is that they really don't know what to make of it. There are no controls, just blank rooms. Two test pilots enter the ship to look it over, and it takes off. Actually, the computer is controlling it. It jumps hundreds of light years, but the pilots think they died during the transition. They do find food and water - actually, beans and milk only.

Finally, they return, and it is suspected that the computer is playing a joke, since it has the personality of a child. (In a few years, the bugs are worked out, and they have a drive.)

I think this is mostly a humorous interlude.

The eighth story is about a politician. It is suspected that he must be a robot because no one has ever seen him eat or sleep. He was involved in a bad automobile accident at one point, but appears to have had not long term problems. His opponent in the elections is making the accusation, and makes that a central part of his campaign. The politician ignores it.

Finally, on the day before the election (or close to it) the politician is at a speech. (even the politician calls it a "stupid speech.") Someone on the front row heckles him, and he invites the person to the stage. There the heckler continues with things like, "we don't want a robot to be elected" type remarks. So the politician agrees to hit that person, since a robot cannot hit a human. The heckler gets hit, and wins the election, since this "proves" he is not a robot. (The first law prevents a robot from hitting a person.)

The robopsychologist, however, doesn't care if the robot is in charge. She concludes that the man in the accident just created a robot to complete his life. When the challenge was made, he created a second robot (all illegal) which was the heckler. Therefore, she thought, the robot could hit the other despite the second law because he was just hitting another robot. She kept quiet, though, except to present this privately to the politician. It is never determined whether he was or not, even after his "death" because he has his body "atomized," but it is hinted strongly that he was.

This is a discussion of the difference between robots and people in this universe. One cannot find an test to positively determine is a person is not a robot because the three laws are, really, just the laws that good people follow.

The ninth and final story is on a grand scale. The politician above is not in charge, and he finds some discrepancy with the performance of the computers. This has a good discussion of war. That is, war is used to solve some problem, but it doesn't, really. What really happens is that fighting continues until the issues involved are totally irrelevant. That is, there was war in Europe to decide which house (ruling families) would control Europe right up until ruling families became irrelevant due to democracy, etc.

At this time, the Earth is divided into five or six "regions" and nationalism is at an end. Each region has one big computer (remember, at this time people thought only four or five computers would be needed for the entire Earth).

The discrepancy means the computers made a mistake. Or did they. At first, it is suggested the computer made a mistake, but on investigation, everyone who carried out the mistakes, and was blamed for them, were members of the Society of Humanity, which was trying to destroy the computers. But they claimed they did what the computers said. At first it sounded like there might be a conflict between the computers and humanity, but later it looked like the Society of Humanity was causing the problem. The leader wanted to outlaw the organization, but the robopsychologist suggests not.

The psychologist suggested that even if the Society of Humanity was not following orders, the computer would know this, and would take that into account, so by not following orders, the computer would get what it wanted. It is suspected that the computer was really discrediting the Society by systematically getting all its people out of leadership positions.

I suspect this short story is talking about giving up civil rights for safety (actually, very relevant today). That is, it is easier to just take into consideration how people will react, and therefore get what you want without anyone having to give up any rights.

This last point is well made, and relevant today. That is, today you see the United States simply attacking other countries that it disagrees with. Yet, it would be just as easy, and cheaper, to simply make it more acceptable to other countries to strive for peace with the United States. For example, in Iraq, the United States has paid more than $20,000 per person to wage war there. It would have been cheaper to simply pay them off.

Similarly, Al-quida attacks the United States for a mere million dollars, and the United States response by spending hundreds of billions of dollars. They got a payoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars per dollar spent.