Robot Visions — Isaac Asimov

Robot Visions -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in Robot Visions.

A not too intelligent robot is sent into the future to see if time travel is possible, and it is instructed to report back what it finds: if it actually gets back.

So, spoiler, it does get back and tells the humans about it’s visions of the future.

You’ll have to read the story if you want to know more.   It’s good though.

Next up is Robot Dreams.

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The Bicentennial Man — Isaac Asimov

The Bicentennial Man -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot, The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories and Robot Visions.

This novella was later rewritten into a full novel, The Positronic Man, so you can either read both or just one of them.

Originally, U S Robots would sell robots to customers, but later changed to simply leasing them so they could maintain total control over what happened to their robots, recall them, modify them, replace whole model lines completely, etc..   But what ever happened to those that they sold and were never traded in for an upgrade?

This is the story of one such robot.

Another super good robot story.

Next up in the robot line is Robot Visions.

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. . . That Thou Art Mindful of Him — Isaac Asimov

. . . That Thou Art Mindful of Him -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot and The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories.

U.S. Robots are under threat and need to find a way to stay afloat. &npsp; So the George series is created to solve the problem.

George Nine and George Ten get to work and save the day, but at what cost?

A really good ending to this one.

Next up is The Bicentennial Man.

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Feminine Intuition — Isaac Asimov

Feminine Intuition -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot, The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories and Robot Visions.

Susan Calvin has finally retired and handed over to one of her best understudies, Clinton Madarian.   Clinton decides that what the world needs is a girl robot, so he gets one built, Jane.

Clinton and Jane are travelling back to U.S. Robots with very important information when their air car gets destroyed by a meteor.   But it seems that Jane told one other person and they then have to get Susan back into the office to find out who.

Another good story.

Next story is . . . That Thou Art Mindful of Him

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The Evitable Conflict — Isaac Asimov

The Evitable Conflict -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot, Robot Visions and I, Robot.

The Earth is now divided into regions, each with a “Machine” managing their economies.   However, things aren’t playing out as one would expect and the Machines are all doing very odd things with their respective economies.

Stephen Byerley, who is now World Coordinator has invited, a now very old, Susan Calvin around for a fireside chat about what’s going wrong.

This is another good story giving us a premonition of the Zeroth Law that is to come in the future.

Next up is Feminine Intuition.

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Risk — Isaac Asimov

Risk -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot.

Another interesting look at a use case for human vs robot.   Yes, even in the future with all the great advances in AI, there are some things which only a human can do.

But the water gets muddied in that is the human being asked to do it because a human life is then considered to be of cheaper value than a robot, or is there a genuine reason why only a human can do it and a robot truly couldn’t?

The future is going to be filled with lots of conundrums like this, me thinks.   The future is going to be so much fun.

Next up in our robot journey is Escape!.

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Little Lost Robot — Isaac Asimov

Little Lost Robot -- Isaac AsimovYou can find this in The Complete Robot, Robot Visions, I, Robot and Robot Dreams.

A robot with a modified first law is told in the most strongest terms to “get lost”.   And, so, that’s exactly what it does do, in amongst 62 normal first law robots.

Susan Calvin is called in to identify the robot, and she’s very unimpressed when she finds out that US Robots have been making dodgy robots with dodgy first laws.

Great little story.

Next robot story will be Risk.

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