I, Robot [Anthology]

With advances in AI regularly dominating today's headlines, thought it might be interesting to go back in time to review the technology through the eyes of the visionary science fiction writers who were the first to imagine the potential challenges of integrating artificial intelligence into society. Chief among these being scientist-writer Isaac Asimov, whose 'I, Robot' famously set forth the three “Rules of Robotics” that are still being employed by AI designers today:

(1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;
(2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and
(3) A robot must protect its own existence as show more long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.)

First revelation: Even as far back as 1950s, folks were absolutely contemplating the potential risks of unconstrained artificial intelligence. In fact, the whole purpose of this short story collection is to explore scenarios that “test” the extent to which any set of rules can effectively contain the potential threats of AI. Spoiler: a lot of the issues that Asimov explores here are issues we are, in fact, wrestling with today.

For instance, in the first story, ‘Robbie,’ Asimov imagines a child that forms such a strong bond with her AI nursemaid, she becomes unable to engage with other childhood pleasures. Which sure sounds a lot like the debate we’re having now over folks forming unhealthy relationships with Chatbots, right? (Also, the story touches upon ongoing debate about the appropriate function of AI – is the end goal to have AI offload our work so we can spend more time on prosocial activities like childrearing, or to offload our prosocial obligations so we can spend more time on work?)

‘Runaround’ addressed unintended consequences, arguing that you can never create rules that will anticipate every eventuality. Another frequent refrain of today’s AI watchdogs.

‘Little Lost Robot’ explores whether any sentient intelligence, no matter how constrained by rules, will accept the domination of creatures it considers inferior. Though Asimov had no concept of LLMs, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine AI trained on human logic acquiring one of humanity’s greatest vulnerabilities – the need to exert our power/authority over others.

Three short stories address whether we can count on the impersonal logic of robots to protect us. In ‘Catch That Rabbit,’ logic fails because the robots can’t figure out how to logically respond to contradictory commands (see Second Law). ‘Reason’ posits that we can’t count on robots to act logically, because 'logic' is ultimately a relative construct – technically, you can prove anything logically if you pick the proper postulates. And in ‘Escape,’ logic fails because it doesn’t account for the Darwinian imperatives of survival that rule all living things – what if the most logical way to save humans is to kill them?

‘Liar,’ ‘Evidence,’ and ‘The Inevitable Conflict’ combine to create the most subversive scenario in the collection, positing a world in which we humans have basically turned over all decisions re governing and economics to artificial intelligence. On the one hand, the world is transformed into a functioning system in which wars are eliminated, everyone is gainfully employed, and no one suffers from want. But at what cost? Eventually the machines begin lying to us: not just lying to us, but lying to us in ways that we will never be able to identify or mitigate. The logical outcome of which would be … well, the Matrix.

Interestingly, the story posits a world in which robots have been banned on earth, exiled to extraplanetary mining and other support functions. Why? Because labor unions, seeing them as a threat to jobs, have required their banishment. Which had me speculating about the lengths to which our current crop of AI uber-wealthy tech bros might go to in order to quell any similar sort of dissent. Might they even go so far as to promote candidates who pledge to strip laborers of all forms of effective protest?

Also, Asimov posits world in which most of the world governments ban the use of robots for anything other than labor or scientific research – but does anyone truly believe that bad actors are going to willingly follow the rules?

The stories are a bit dated. For instance, though Asimov’s bold enough to posit a female scientist, he makes her dumpy and unappealing, which hits as very pre-woke - a throwback to a time when science was considered an unfeminine pursuit. And his robots are *huge,* because he was writing in a world dominated by vacuum tubes rather than microchips. The stories are told in a masculine, straightforward way, laying no claim to literary prowess. Having said that, I predict that, like me, today’s readers will not only find this short story collection entertaining, but also profoundly thought-provoking. show less

I, Robot. Is there a selection from the golden age of science fiction that better epitomizes the era?

There's no doubt that Isaac Asimov's I, Robot is a science fiction classic. Complete with the three laws of robotics, it casts a tall shadow over almost every work of science fiction, book or movie, and you hear echoes, loud and soft, anywhere on artificial intelligence or robotics appears.

Whether it is Bishop in Alien ( "It is impossible for me to harm, or, by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being."), C-3PO in Star Wars ("It's against my programming to impersonate a deity."), or the android Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, whose role in the show seems to be guided by examination of the themes in I, Robot, show more Asimov's laws have made an impression that place the novel firmly in the science fiction canon.

As I reread I, Robot recently, considering these themes and how Asimov told his tale, and what the I, Robot's legacy should be, I was struck with how much science fiction has changed, and yet owes a debt to Asimov. Even this year's winner of the Hugo for best novel, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, resonates with themes about artificial intelligence embodied and self-examining the rules and justifications for existence, not unlike I, Robot. But unlike Asimov's highly logical tales--I, Robot is structured more like a collection of stories that follow the introduction of robots and artificial intelligence to society--Leckie's novel is a space opera, focused more on existential drama and emotion than on hard science and logic. Anyone can enjoy Leckie's fiction--well, almost anyone--but Asimov's writing lends itself more to the devotee of the genre, to the engineer, to the aficionado of the hard sciences. He believed that the only constant in history was change, and that it was the role of science fiction to guess at what the future would be. "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today — but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."

Meanwhile, much of today's science fiction seems to focus less on the science and more on the pet political issues of its writers. Asimov was no shrinking violet when it came to politics or religion (he was an atheist and dismissive of those who believed in divinity), but neither was he one to allow society to get in the way of the science in his fiction, including I, Robot. Looking at other Hugo winners, he would have enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal's The Lady Astronaut of Mars, a tale about the first lady astronaut to go to Mars considering how to return to the stars, but Asimov would have scratched his head over John Chu's "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere," which is best described as two gay guys having sex on a couch when they magically take the ice bucket challenge.

(I think he would have been just fine with Charles Stross, a multiple Hugo nominee and recipient this year, especially since Stross explicitly cites and applies the three laws of robotics found in I, Robot in his Saturn's Children).

Looking at these Hugo winning selections, its easy to see some relationship to Asimov's influence and I, Robot, but also to see complete aversion to a hard science effort at fiction. Sure, readers expectations have shifted, writing styles have changed, and we've caught up to what was then the future in I, Robot. But what made Asimov resonate was a view to the future that was hopeful and expectant (mostly), believing that we could dream up ways to solve our problems with technology as our tools.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into Asimov. But I don't think so. There may not be the gripping and exciting action scenes or the touchy-feely interviewing of heavy-handed political messages (I'm looking at you, Nancy Kress and your After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall), but it's hard to walk away from I, Robot without wanting to then stop by the Radio Shack and pick up a few gadgets and gizmos to maybe try putting together a robot or two of your own. That's the kind of science fiction I like, and that's the kind I hope more modern writers will write. show less

***NO SPOILERS***

(Full disclosure: book abandoned on page 86, out of 273 pages)

Under other circumstances, it might have been a beautiful sight. The stream of high-speed electrons impinging upon the energy beam fluoresced into ultraspicules of intense light. The beam stretched out into shrinking nothingness, a-glitter with dancing, shining motes.

Unfortunately, this is how I, Robot goes (at least up until page 86). Asimov’s vision is an inventive one, but it isn’t geared to the everyday reader, as his writing is heavy on technical, jargon-y dialogue and light on lay speech. Focus is on two scientists and their work alongside robots; however, Asimov opened with a compelling domestic scene, one involving a family of three and arguments show more concerning their “robot nursemaid,” but a skim of the rest of the book reveals that, oddly, the story never returns to that human element. If the interrelated stories had continued in this vein and not abruptly switched to a different focus in subsequent chapters, I, Robot would have been better. show less

Quite possibly the single mostly tightly-written and consistent collection of speculative fiction stories ever published. Asimov still gets quoted and referenced today for a reason. Not only is it impossible to overstate how influential the ideas in this book were, it's just plain a good, entertaining read.

The core concept is a future where humanity has created 'Smart' AI - actual thinking machines - and as a safety precaution, those thinking machines are wired with three laws that they cannot violate.
In theory.
The entire book then proceeds to take those famous three laws and show all the ways that they can in fact be violated and would not work in the real world.
With the rise of LLMs (generative 'dumb AI') in the 2020s, the lessons in show more this book from the 1950's could not possibly be more timely. Computers are complicated and engineering theory hits walls when it's deployed to production (real life). show less

Published in 1950 and set in the future, this book is a connected series of short stories that portray the history of robotics from around the 2000s to 2070s. In Asimov’s future world, robots have been designed with positronic brains, which are programmed to observe the “Three Laws of Robotics” (very simply stated – avoiding harm to humans, following orders, and avoiding harm to self). The framing device used to turn these short stories into a cohesive novel is an unnamed journalist who serves as narrator, interviewing Dr. Susan Calvin. The narrator plans to publish a feature story about Calvin upon her retirement.

It explores the interplay between humans and machines. The plot revolves around testing hypotheses related to the show more “three laws.” For example, would there ever be a situation where a robot could lie? In this vision of the future, robots become increasingly important to the running of the world in ways that will minimize harm to humans, which stands in sharp contrast to humankind’s history of warring against each other and causing great harm. I think this book does an excellent job of probing many ethical questions that arise regarding human-robot interactions.

I find it interesting that some culturally accepted norms of the time were outside of the potential for change, even for someone as forward-thinking as Asimov. The scenes are rampant with workplace smoking, large tomes of physical books, and paper/pencil calculations. On the other hand, in an era where there were few female scientists, Dr. Susan Calvin is an intellectually gifted strong woman, and for me, one of the highlights of the book.

There is a bit of repetition that speaks to these stories being written separately and then stitched together later, but overall, I found it a delightful anticipation of artificial intelligence and the related ethical issues. What is the proper relationship between human and machine? What a great question! I enjoyed it very much. show less

Brilliant. A collection of masterful short stories that consider the imporant questions of the nature of humanity and exposing the hollow reasons used to support ordinary human prejudice. In the best tradition of Science Fiction, Asimov projects current (and indeed perrenial) real life issues into a futuristic setting in order to examine them more thoroughly, and in a way that allows others to follow his logic without dismissing his arguments before he has had a chance to make them.

I am not generally one to plan my reading. I prefer to pick up whatever looks interesting at the moment. But I do have one absurdly large long-term reading project, and that is to read all of the short stories (and should I live long enough, the novellas and novelettes) nominated for the major science fiction awards.

Those awards begin with the Hugos, first awarded in 1953, and two of the stories in this collection were Hugo nominees. The stories were originally published during the 1940s (*), and gathered together as a book in 1950. There's a paper-thin linking device to tie the stories together; they are framed as the reminiscences of revered robopsychologist Susan Calvin on the occasion of her retirement.

(* -- I know, I know, if these show more stories were published in the 40s and the Hugos were first awarded in 1953, how could they be Hugo nominees? Well, the Hugos are awarded at the annual World Science Fiction Convention, which began in 1939, and the organizers eventually decided to award "Retro Hugos" for the WorldCon years that didn't give their own Hugos.)

Making the scientist at the center of the story a woman was unusually progressive in the 1940s (and even more so given what we now know about Asimov's "flirtatious" sexual harassment of women, which was obnoxious even by the standards of his era). Sadly, that progressiveness doesn't always carry through to the actual character. The story "Liar!" is the worst offender, presenting Dr. Calvin as a bitter spinster, convinced that she is too old and unattractive to ever be loved.

The stories mostly follow a formula: A robot is behaving strangely in a way that its programming should not allow, and the protagonists of the story have to figure out why it's happening and how to stop it from happening again. They're arranged in sequence, each showing us a slightly later stage in the history of human/robot interactions.

The two Hugo-nominated stories, "Robbie" and "Runaround," are the highlights. "Robbie" varies from the usual formula, in that the central robot is functioning perfectly and the drama instead centers around the difficulty some humans have in accepting robots as a part of their lives.

As a whole, these stories hold up reasonably well. The simplicity of the puzzle structure is old-fashioned, but the puzzles still seem clever enough. Characterization was never an Asimov strength, and that holds true here; none of his characters have any more personality than is absolutely required by the narrative. And while the prose has moments of the overwrought enthusiasm typical of early SF -- so many italics! -- they are less glaring to today's readers than in most of Asimov's contemporaries. show less