I, Robot
My English teacher gives us quarterly individual reading assignments that are the most boring thing I have ever done in a classroom setting. The book I pick is great, and I get invested in it, but when I need to stop every 5 words to transcribe a vocabulary word (that I already know, but I need 100 of these damn things) and need to take a while after I read a cliff-hanger to summarize what I read and write a "personal reaction" to it I can't help but feel that my experience as a reader is being dramatically stifled.
So, really the only book that works with this type of extremely staccatoed analysis is a collection of short stories, and to give myself an incentive I'll be using this site as a conduit for getting this done. So, I'll be throwing up analysis of each of the 9 short stories in Asimov's most famous work, concluding with a review of the movie and an overall reaction to the book. These are all probably going to be really short considering the length of the subject matter, but I will do the best that I can. I hope you enjoy.
So, really the only book that works with this type of extremely staccatoed analysis is a collection of short stories, and to give myself an incentive I'll be using this site as a conduit for getting this done. So, I'll be throwing up analysis of each of the 9 short stories in Asimov's most famous work, concluding with a review of the movie and an overall reaction to the book. These are all probably going to be really short considering the length of the subject matter, but I will do the best that I can. I hope you enjoy.
Robbie
In the year 1996, the Weston family has a mute robot named Robbie acting as a nursemaid for their daughter Gloria. Gloria has a genuine emotional attachment to Robbie, which scares her mother. Since Gloria is basically being raised by a robot, her mother fears that she'll have a hard time communicating with other people. The parents agree to get rid of the robot, and this plunges Gloria into a state of depression. To help Gloria get over this, they decide to go to New York city. Gloria thinks they are going there to find Robbie and accidentally breaks a really big talking robot in a museum in an attempt to do just that. After going to every possible tourist attraction, Mr. Weston has the idea to take Gloria to the factory where Robbie was made. They do, and Robbie is there working on an assembly line. Gloria rushes to him, and after Robbie saves her life, Ms. Weston lets go of her prejudices.
This story raises an interesting and currently relevant issue involving youth and social interaction. I would draw a parallel between Gloria being raised by Robbie, and some people's addiction to the internet. Social behavior is something that's being closely studied, and there's a correlation between the advent of computers and texting, and lack of social skills in adolescents. This story predicted an important concern, so I turn to it for advice on how to handle this issue.
This story says that this lack of social skill should be embraced, and is a good parenting strategy. The way that the conflict is resolved is a reunification of Robbie and Gloria, and I neglected to mention that Robbie being at the factory (except for Gloria almost getting crushed by a tractor) was staged by her father. While promotion and embrace of this kind of interaction is a solution to the problem, it definitely isn't the best we can do, so while I give this book points for social commentary, I don't think it's particularly useful.
This story raises an interesting and currently relevant issue involving youth and social interaction. I would draw a parallel between Gloria being raised by Robbie, and some people's addiction to the internet. Social behavior is something that's being closely studied, and there's a correlation between the advent of computers and texting, and lack of social skills in adolescents. This story predicted an important concern, so I turn to it for advice on how to handle this issue.
This story says that this lack of social skill should be embraced, and is a good parenting strategy. The way that the conflict is resolved is a reunification of Robbie and Gloria, and I neglected to mention that Robbie being at the factory (except for Gloria almost getting crushed by a tractor) was staged by her father. While promotion and embrace of this kind of interaction is a solution to the problem, it definitely isn't the best we can do, so while I give this book points for social commentary, I don't think it's particularly useful.
Runaround
On the planet Mercury, 2 men named Donovan and Powell are sent to set up a base for power collection and relay with a robot called Speedy. One of the men orders speedy to go get Selenium from one of the nearby selenium pools in order to power a fuel cell (or something like that) and once they realize that Speedy hasn't come back yet, they go out looking for him to find that he's acting drunk and running in circles around the pool.
Since Speedy is really expensive, his 3rd law (self preservation instincts) has been strengthened, and the pool presents a threat. Under normal circumstances he would have obeyed the second law (that he must obey any command), but since he's at this kind of equilibrium between the two, he can't make up his mind about what he needs to do, so he starts running around in rough circles and acting drunk. They get Speedy to break out of this by having Powell risk his life and forcing Speedy to act on the 1st law of robotics that overrides the other 2.
It is with Runaround that I realize the problem with academic analysis of Asimov. In most sci-fi that isn't allegorical, the story is a human story with the sci-fi being the context or device through which the story is presented. In Back to the Future, the story isn't about the time machine. Sure, the time machine is important to the story, but the story has little to do with it. Marty McFly could've traveled back in time in any number of ways and it wouldn't have affected what the story was at it's core.
Alien is another good example of this. Sure it takes place on a spaceship, but that isn't particularly important to the core idea that something unexplained and strange is picking people off one by one. It's scary, but it could've happened on a ship in the ocean, or an office block, or a hospital. The fact that it's in outer space informs the story, but at it's core, you could change the setting to be whatever you wanted it to be and still have the characters and story be engaging.
I could do this all day, but my point here is that good sci-fi storytelling isn't slave to the sci-fi. The fact that it's speculative fiction isn't the point of the story, first and foremost it is a story about people informed by the setting those people happen to be in.
The stories in I, Robot were originally published in sci-fi periodicals in the 1940s. The readers there don't care about the story, they care about the sci-fi, so the premise of the story is showcasing a sci-fi idea, and the story and characters are designed with that in mind. It's an unconventionally backwards storytelling system that I usually see reserved for fan-fiction. And for that reason, I'm hesitant to call this good storytelling.
The big problem with this story from a critical perspective is that almost all of the story is dedicated to figuring out what's wrong with Speedy. Not solving the problem, but figuring out how to solve the problem. Asimov is here to showcase his idea and that's what he did. The objective he set out to achieve was fulfilled, but from a storytelling standpoint, it becomes tedious and hard to follow.
Since Speedy is really expensive, his 3rd law (self preservation instincts) has been strengthened, and the pool presents a threat. Under normal circumstances he would have obeyed the second law (that he must obey any command), but since he's at this kind of equilibrium between the two, he can't make up his mind about what he needs to do, so he starts running around in rough circles and acting drunk. They get Speedy to break out of this by having Powell risk his life and forcing Speedy to act on the 1st law of robotics that overrides the other 2.
It is with Runaround that I realize the problem with academic analysis of Asimov. In most sci-fi that isn't allegorical, the story is a human story with the sci-fi being the context or device through which the story is presented. In Back to the Future, the story isn't about the time machine. Sure, the time machine is important to the story, but the story has little to do with it. Marty McFly could've traveled back in time in any number of ways and it wouldn't have affected what the story was at it's core.
Alien is another good example of this. Sure it takes place on a spaceship, but that isn't particularly important to the core idea that something unexplained and strange is picking people off one by one. It's scary, but it could've happened on a ship in the ocean, or an office block, or a hospital. The fact that it's in outer space informs the story, but at it's core, you could change the setting to be whatever you wanted it to be and still have the characters and story be engaging.
I could do this all day, but my point here is that good sci-fi storytelling isn't slave to the sci-fi. The fact that it's speculative fiction isn't the point of the story, first and foremost it is a story about people informed by the setting those people happen to be in.
The stories in I, Robot were originally published in sci-fi periodicals in the 1940s. The readers there don't care about the story, they care about the sci-fi, so the premise of the story is showcasing a sci-fi idea, and the story and characters are designed with that in mind. It's an unconventionally backwards storytelling system that I usually see reserved for fan-fiction. And for that reason, I'm hesitant to call this good storytelling.
The big problem with this story from a critical perspective is that almost all of the story is dedicated to figuring out what's wrong with Speedy. Not solving the problem, but figuring out how to solve the problem. Asimov is here to showcase his idea and that's what he did. The objective he set out to achieve was fulfilled, but from a storytelling standpoint, it becomes tedious and hard to follow.
Reason
Reason continues to follow Donovan and Powell as they train a new robotic coordinator named Cutie. After having been taught the truth about the relay station, Cutie rejects it and reasons out the power generator is a supreme being that made humans as a prototype for the later robots to come. Cutie then convinces the other robots that his religion is true, creating the cult that does the bidding of "the Master."
The next electrical beam that the station is going to fire is going to go through some kind of disruptive phenomenon, and Donovan and Powell have been locked out of the control room by Cutie. If Cutie learns the truth he'll let them have access to the control room again, so the race is on to convince Cutie that he's wrong (which they fail at doing). Then in the end it's revealed that Cutie took the precautions necessary to avoid the space stuff because that was the Master's bidding, and Donovan and Powell leave the station with the realization that it doesn't matter what the robots believe because they are doing their jobs just as well as they would be if they were right.
This is probably the best story in the book. As a story it develops itself, creates a sense of tension, and keeps me invested. The main success of this story is it's lack of dependency on Asimov's 3 laws to create it's inciting action. Instead it's just a story about what might happen if a free-thinking robot completely dependent on reason was brought into existence. Now, it's a very cliche story, but at the time this was ground-breaking stuff, and in many respects it still is.
Not only does this book talk about the dangers of robotics, but also religion. Saying that's a touchy subject is probably the world's biggest understatement, but this book has taken an interesting perspective: Sure, it might be incorrect, but when you get down to it, it isn't hurting anybody. I have to agree with Issac here. We hear so many stories in the news about religious fanatics decapitating people and enforcing ancient legal codes that we begin to think those religions are fundamentally bad when, for the most part, spiritualism is generally not such a terrible thing.
If I had to get irritated by something, It'd be the sheer stupidity of Powell and Donovan in this story. They spent the last one (and they're going to spend the next one) deducing a robots behavior based on wording of phrases and non-specified philosophical laws, yet they spend most of the story trying to fix Cutie instead of working with him. It just seems a bit out of character, but a more casual reader probably wouldn't care.
The next electrical beam that the station is going to fire is going to go through some kind of disruptive phenomenon, and Donovan and Powell have been locked out of the control room by Cutie. If Cutie learns the truth he'll let them have access to the control room again, so the race is on to convince Cutie that he's wrong (which they fail at doing). Then in the end it's revealed that Cutie took the precautions necessary to avoid the space stuff because that was the Master's bidding, and Donovan and Powell leave the station with the realization that it doesn't matter what the robots believe because they are doing their jobs just as well as they would be if they were right.
This is probably the best story in the book. As a story it develops itself, creates a sense of tension, and keeps me invested. The main success of this story is it's lack of dependency on Asimov's 3 laws to create it's inciting action. Instead it's just a story about what might happen if a free-thinking robot completely dependent on reason was brought into existence. Now, it's a very cliche story, but at the time this was ground-breaking stuff, and in many respects it still is.
Not only does this book talk about the dangers of robotics, but also religion. Saying that's a touchy subject is probably the world's biggest understatement, but this book has taken an interesting perspective: Sure, it might be incorrect, but when you get down to it, it isn't hurting anybody. I have to agree with Issac here. We hear so many stories in the news about religious fanatics decapitating people and enforcing ancient legal codes that we begin to think those religions are fundamentally bad when, for the most part, spiritualism is generally not such a terrible thing.
If I had to get irritated by something, It'd be the sheer stupidity of Powell and Donovan in this story. They spent the last one (and they're going to spend the next one) deducing a robots behavior based on wording of phrases and non-specified philosophical laws, yet they spend most of the story trying to fix Cutie instead of working with him. It just seems a bit out of character, but a more casual reader probably wouldn't care.
Catch that Rabbit
This one has Powell and Donovan in it and has to do with a Robot that starts dancing when something goes wrong. I'm not going to bother summarizing this one properly for the sole reason that I think it's terrible. It has all of the same problems that Runaround had, except it somehow manages to be even more confusingly complicated and doesn't seem to have a good enough point to make it worth my time figuring out what the hell they're talking about. Tack on a pair of characters that are unintentionally ignorant bastards, and I had a really hard time reading this. If you're interested, be my guest, but otherwise it was boring and irrelevant.
Liar!
In this story, a robot named Herbie is made that through some fluke in the manufacturing process gave it the ability to read people's minds. In theory this could be excellent, but since Herbie needs to conform to the 3 laws of robotics, and accordingly can't harm a human, he ends up lying to everyone to keep from hurting their feelings. Once Herbie is confronted by the realization he's doing more harm than good, he gets psychologically beaten to death, and the knowledge of how his brain works is lost.
This story is notable because it features the Character Dr. Susan Calvin, who is our framing device for all of of the stories in this book. In the book's introduction and un-named reporter (who I will affectionately name Fred) is interviewing an Elderly Dr. Calvin about her work as a robo-psychologist, and during the interview she tells all of the stories that happen in the book. She seemed wise and smart, and completely broke my expectations for how gender would be handled in this kind of work from the time, so I was really looking forwards to meeting Dr. Calvin as a younger woman... and suddenly the sexism of the period comes back.
It's Dr. Calvin who overloads Herbie's brain at the end of the story, and she does this out of spite. Herbie told her that the guy she liked liked her back, and when this is revealed to be a lie, she creates a logical conflict that Herbie breaks himself trying to decipher. This is not a bad way to end the story, but I can't help but notice how much this story is influenced by gender politics. The 3 lies that Herbie tells give the 3 characters a feeling of power, a feeling of pride, and a feeling of love. Dr. Calvin's was the love lie, and the other 2 lies are told to men. Stereotypically, these 3 appeals to the ego are very gender-ed, and it doesn't surprise me, but I still feel a little disappointed.
Still, Calvin has some good characterization. Since she reacts to her revelation through anger and not disappointment, it shows that she is unforgiving. She is kind and collected, but will fight back when confronted and get revenge when defeated. I really like her character and I wish the other stories in this book were as human as this one.
Like in Reason, the strength from this story comes from a much less nerdy hypothetical situation than gets presented in the rest of the book, but unlike in Reason, the story is purely a psychological thriller. Instead of building a problem around some form of physical danger, this story revolves around trauma that comes from being lied to about really important things, and while this isn't a particularly thrilling psychological thriller like an Alfred Hitchcock film, it does deliver suspense, uncanneyness, and a morally ambiguous ending that I thought I got my money's worth from.
This story is notable because it features the Character Dr. Susan Calvin, who is our framing device for all of of the stories in this book. In the book's introduction and un-named reporter (who I will affectionately name Fred) is interviewing an Elderly Dr. Calvin about her work as a robo-psychologist, and during the interview she tells all of the stories that happen in the book. She seemed wise and smart, and completely broke my expectations for how gender would be handled in this kind of work from the time, so I was really looking forwards to meeting Dr. Calvin as a younger woman... and suddenly the sexism of the period comes back.
It's Dr. Calvin who overloads Herbie's brain at the end of the story, and she does this out of spite. Herbie told her that the guy she liked liked her back, and when this is revealed to be a lie, she creates a logical conflict that Herbie breaks himself trying to decipher. This is not a bad way to end the story, but I can't help but notice how much this story is influenced by gender politics. The 3 lies that Herbie tells give the 3 characters a feeling of power, a feeling of pride, and a feeling of love. Dr. Calvin's was the love lie, and the other 2 lies are told to men. Stereotypically, these 3 appeals to the ego are very gender-ed, and it doesn't surprise me, but I still feel a little disappointed.
Still, Calvin has some good characterization. Since she reacts to her revelation through anger and not disappointment, it shows that she is unforgiving. She is kind and collected, but will fight back when confronted and get revenge when defeated. I really like her character and I wish the other stories in this book were as human as this one.
Like in Reason, the strength from this story comes from a much less nerdy hypothetical situation than gets presented in the rest of the book, but unlike in Reason, the story is purely a psychological thriller. Instead of building a problem around some form of physical danger, this story revolves around trauma that comes from being lied to about really important things, and while this isn't a particularly thrilling psychological thriller like an Alfred Hitchcock film, it does deliver suspense, uncanneyness, and a morally ambiguous ending that I thought I got my money's worth from.
Little Lost Robot
I'm beginning to notice a pattern.
In this story, Dr. Calvin is sent to try to find one specific robot in a group of robots that have a modified 1st law, and, like Runaround, the story is too complicated for me to follow. That's all I have to say.
In this story, Dr. Calvin is sent to try to find one specific robot in a group of robots that have a modified 1st law, and, like Runaround, the story is too complicated for me to follow. That's all I have to say.
This is where I decided to stop. There are 3 more stories in the book that I've made the executive decision not to read because I don't like the writing style, and overall the book is just poorly constructed.
I feel disappointed. This is the book that pretty much everything in the notably dorky but fascinating field of robo-ethics is based on, but the parts of the book that have made it so notable are horrible stories that I don't want to write about. Asimov is a good author, I'd even say that he was great, but the stories all fall flat because of the conflicting goals.
The stories are written with the sole intention of conveying the 3 laws of robotics, yet, because of the nature of storytelling, all of the conflicts are designed to showcase how the 3 laws of robotics could be a terribly impractically dumb idea! Granted, the only story where the 3 laws become a problem without them having been altered in some way is in the remarkably fantastic Liar!, but my point still stands. I now understand the choice to start off with Robbie, it sets up that robots are safe and useful to society, but then the rest of the book is dedicated to debunking this theory as thoroughly as it can.
Which is why it's so surprising that we've built the field of robo-ethics around this idea. If the book spends all of its time trying to say why it's presenting something that doesn't work, we should take its word for it.
The real irony of this situation is that the 3 laws of robotics aren't applicable to the real world of computer science. Asimov's robots are powered by a "positronic brain" that functions like a human brain except much faster and within certain parameters. While AI is getting good, it hasn't gotten to the point where robots are questioning why they have to take orders, and arguably they never will because any emotion a robot shows is a programmed response. Robots will never rise up because they don't, and probably never will, have the capacity to realize that we treat them like slaves, making the 3 laws of robotics redundant and unnecessary in practical application.
Also, it's just generally bad speculative fiction. It raises remarkably interesting and thought provoking problems about what the future might hold, but then chickens out of finding a solution to the problem without negative ramifications. Who knows, maybe Issac's right and the blind embrace of technology in place of human interaction depicted in Robbie is the only realistic answer to the now very real problem of internet addiction, but it feels really disingenuous to say that even if I am critiquing the father of theoretical robotics.
I'm not going to ignore how influential this book is, but it just seems surprisingly weak when compared to it's status as one of the best sci fi books ever.
I feel disappointed. This is the book that pretty much everything in the notably dorky but fascinating field of robo-ethics is based on, but the parts of the book that have made it so notable are horrible stories that I don't want to write about. Asimov is a good author, I'd even say that he was great, but the stories all fall flat because of the conflicting goals.
The stories are written with the sole intention of conveying the 3 laws of robotics, yet, because of the nature of storytelling, all of the conflicts are designed to showcase how the 3 laws of robotics could be a terribly impractically dumb idea! Granted, the only story where the 3 laws become a problem without them having been altered in some way is in the remarkably fantastic Liar!, but my point still stands. I now understand the choice to start off with Robbie, it sets up that robots are safe and useful to society, but then the rest of the book is dedicated to debunking this theory as thoroughly as it can.
Which is why it's so surprising that we've built the field of robo-ethics around this idea. If the book spends all of its time trying to say why it's presenting something that doesn't work, we should take its word for it.
The real irony of this situation is that the 3 laws of robotics aren't applicable to the real world of computer science. Asimov's robots are powered by a "positronic brain" that functions like a human brain except much faster and within certain parameters. While AI is getting good, it hasn't gotten to the point where robots are questioning why they have to take orders, and arguably they never will because any emotion a robot shows is a programmed response. Robots will never rise up because they don't, and probably never will, have the capacity to realize that we treat them like slaves, making the 3 laws of robotics redundant and unnecessary in practical application.
Also, it's just generally bad speculative fiction. It raises remarkably interesting and thought provoking problems about what the future might hold, but then chickens out of finding a solution to the problem without negative ramifications. Who knows, maybe Issac's right and the blind embrace of technology in place of human interaction depicted in Robbie is the only realistic answer to the now very real problem of internet addiction, but it feels really disingenuous to say that even if I am critiquing the father of theoretical robotics.
I'm not going to ignore how influential this book is, but it just seems surprisingly weak when compared to it's status as one of the best sci fi books ever.