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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Galley Slave — Isaac Asimov

Galley Slave -- Isaac AsimovYou 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 “Three Laws of Robotics” in the real world.

And our next robot story will be “Little Lost Robot”.

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Satisfaction Guaranteed — Isaac Asimov

Satisfaction Guaranteed -- Isaac AsimovYou 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 “Three Laws of Robotics” throw up some interesting behaviour.

Another good story getting us used to the quirks of the “Three Laws of Robotics”.

Next up in the robot stories is Lenny.

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Liar! — Isaac Asimov

Liar! -- Isaac AsimovYou 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

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Catch That Rabbit — Isaac Asimov

Catch That Rabbit -- Isaac AsimovYou 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.

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Reason — Isaac Asimov

Reason -- Isaac AsimovYou 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.

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