Mass Market Paperback, 192 pages
English language
Published May 12, 1984 by Del Rey.
ROBOPSYCHOLOGIST Dr. Susan Calvin had seen it all when it came to robots. As a girl she had seen the early models -- mute and totally faithful. She joined U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. when they began adapting Earth robots for work in space -- and Earth men for work with the strictly logical robots!
She had driven the first -- and only -- mind-reading robot out of its mind, and coaxed the childlike Brain to invent the interstellar engine.
Finally, at the end of her career, she faced the final question: who was really in charge; and who should be?
IN THESE STORIES OF THE EARLY DAYS OF ROBOTS, ISAAC ASIMOV ESTABLISHED THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS AND DEMONSTRATED THE ABILITIES THAT HAVE MADE HIM ONE OF THE WORLD'S LEADING SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS. --back cover
I've read other Asimov and enjoyed his work immensely, but this one was.. Okay? Like, its a collection of short stories that center around the logic in the three laws of robotics, but the problem is that some of the logic the characters employ isn't exactly logical? It was rather annoying to be screaming at the book about an obvious solution where the book also seemed to pride itself on being cerebral.
Colección de relatos cortos en los que Asimov plantea las tres leyes de la robótica. Escritos en los 50, se nota de forma perceptible el paso del tiempo por ellos. Sin embargo, su importancia para el resto del universo, la concepción social que supuso de los Robots, las leyes y que los relatos están basados en la psicología y aspectos sociales de los robots, lo hacen un imprescindible (y origen) del universo de Asimov.
(Crossposted from my blog: daariga.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/i-robot/)
It did not take too long into I, Robot for me to realize why it went far beyond every other science fiction book I had read. Isaac Asimov fails miserably in convincing the 21st century reader about the mechanics and the so called positronic brain of his futuristic robots. In fact, he does not even try. However, that does not matter because the 9 short stories in this book explore something quite extraordinary: robopsychology, the analysis of the thinking and behavior of robots governed by the Three Laws of Robotics. Published in science fiction magazines between 1940 and 1950, these stories span the lifetime of the prime character, a Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. In each of these stories, Susan recalls an interesting problem or dilemma faced in robot-human interaction.
The stories are in chronological order of …
(Crossposted from my blog: daariga.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/i-robot/)
It did not take too long into I, Robot for me to realize why it went far beyond every other science fiction book I had read. Isaac Asimov fails miserably in convincing the 21st century reader about the mechanics and the so called positronic brain of his futuristic robots. In fact, he does not even try. However, that does not matter because the 9 short stories in this book explore something quite extraordinary: robopsychology, the analysis of the thinking and behavior of robots governed by the Three Laws of Robotics. Published in science fiction magazines between 1940 and 1950, these stories span the lifetime of the prime character, a Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. In each of these stories, Susan recalls an interesting problem or dilemma faced in robot-human interaction.
The stories are in chronological order of their timeline, starting off with simple robots used as nannies or servants at home. Due to social pressure, initially US Robots is not allowed to sell robots for employment on Earth. Instead they sell them for mining and maintenance tasks on asteroids, planets and spaceships. In these environments, typically some anomaly in robot behavior is observed. And by analysing the complex interplay between the three Laws of Robotics, the solution is figured out. Each of these is a clever puzzle that I felt highly relevant even today. In fact, I could easily analogize each into a real-time system or multi-threading or such computer science problem of today.
Towards the end of Susan’s life, in her last few stories, we are finally served robots on Earth, that are so intelligent that they run entire corporations or parts of Earth. With Asimov, the robot situation is never dystopian, like in Hollywood movies, thanks to the first Law of Robotics: a robot should not harm a human. Asimov really stretches imagination with the Machine, which acts as a benevolent administrator to hundreds of millions of humans. In this final story, I also see fragments of today’s Internet, search engines and the all-pervasive machine learning algorithms that we use with abandon.
These stories encompass new dimensions of vision and thinking about robots and our possible future life with them. It came as no surprise when I learnt that the term robotics itself was created by Asimov! The prose here is spare and elegant and the book is surprisingly easy to read considering its subject matter. Needles to say that I, Robot is a great introduction to Asimov and his Robot series and is a must read!
PS: The cover of the edition I read had this terrible Will Smith photo from his movie of the same name. (I have seen that atrocious movie and it has zero influence from this book.) It is quite pathetic how these book publishers are ready to make such vulgar covers of timeless classics, all for a quick buck!
