You can find this in The Complete Robot and I, Robot.
Powell and Donovan are back after “The Brain” creates a hyperspace drive ship: which they get stuck inside of and sent off into who knows where in hyperspace.
Another interesting look at the
Next up on the list is Evidence.
You 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!.
You 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.
You can find this in The Complete Robot and Robot Visions.
US Robots is getting sued after a proof reading robot that they placed at a university allegedly destroys a professors reputation.
Another good little story concerning the application of the
And our next robot story will be “Little Lost Robot”.
A really interesting book, well written and full of ideas for how you might find your own ikigai.
A lot of people could benefit from reading this book instead of wandering mindlessly from cradle to grave.
You can find this in The Complete Robot and Robot Visions.
Awwww . . .
. . . Susan Calvin becomes a mother.
Another good little story.
Next up is Galley Slave.
You can find this in The Complete Robot.
The U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men corporation are finally allowed to carry out a secret trial of a humanoid robot on Earth, and one of their employees volunteers his wife so he can hopefully get a promotion.
And so the wife is left with a robot housekeeper/man-about-the-house for 10 days while the husband is away trying to impress his bosses for said promotion. Once again, the
Another good story getting us used to the quirks of the
Next up in the robot stories is Lenny.
You can find this in I, Robot, The Complete Robot and Robot Visions.
The first full Susan Calvin, Robopsychologist, story is about a mind reading robot. Susan is called into action to try to find out what went wrong when it was made, but the robot gets to read her mind and things go off on a bit of a tangent.
A good little story exploring how reading human minds may conflict with the three laws.
And the next robot story is Satisfaction Guaranteed
You can find this in I, Robot and The Complete Robot.
A lot better than the last one. Powell and Donovan are back, this time they’re testing a new mining robot, on an asteroid, that has six robots slaved to it like fingers of a hand. Everything works great while they’re observing the robot, but as soon as they leave it to get on with things on its own no mining gets done, and they have 10 days to sort it out before they get the sack.
And now i’m off straight into the next robot story, Liar!: finally into the Susan Calvin stuff.
You can find this in I, Robot, The Complete Robot and Robot Visions
I just didn’t find this story making sense. It seems to me that if you got a thinking machine so confused like this it would just blue screen, end of story.
I think Isaac messed this one up.
Anyway, i is off to read the next robot story, Catch That Rabbit: hopefully it’ll make a bit more sense.