Summary
The nine stories are linked by a framing story involving an interview with a journalist with Susan Calvin, former Robopsychologist at Us Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., whose work involved dysfunctional robots and problems inherent In human-robot interactions. The stories focus on problems that arise from ethics Programming, summary in the famous of Asimov Three laws of robotics::
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A robot cannot hurt a human being Or, by inaction, allow a human being to injure himself.
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A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except when these orders would be in conflict with the first law.
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A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection is not in conflict with the first and second laws.
The first story, “Robbie”, takes place in 1998 and focuses on a little girl, Gloria, who loves her nursing robot, Robbie. However, his mother comes to believe that robots are not sure and Robbie returned to the factory. Gloria has a broken heart. In an effort to show him that robots are machines, not people, his parents take him to see robots assembled in a factory. One of the assembly robots is Robbie. Gloria endangers her life in Robbie, and Robbie Sauve Gloria, persuading Gloria’s mother to which robots can trust.
The next three stories take place over 18 months, from 2015, and features the colleagues of Calvin, Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan, while they try to understand why robots work badly. In a case, it is a conflict between two of the laws of robotics; In another, a robot refuses to accept human orders but nevertheless does the right thing; And in the third, a robot is not able to exploit a large number of subordinate Robots.
The following story, “Liar!” Takes place in 2021. A robot named Herbie was wrongly scheduled to have telepathic capacities. In order to avoid harming the feelings of the people with whom he interacts, Herbie recounts flattering lies. In addition, although Herbie is aware of the programming error, he knows that the researchers want to solve the problem themselves and will therefore not help them. Calvin tells Herbie that the restraint of information and the realization of information will be both hurtful for humans, and the conflict causes Herbie’s closure.
In “Little Lost Robot”, which takes place in 2029, scientists working in a dangerous environment Change the programming of the first law in certain robots to prevent them from interfering with humans. After a exasperated The researcher tells one of these robots to get lost, the robot hides in a group of identical but not modified robots. Calvin designs several tests to encourage the robot to identify himself, but the robot foils it until it bases a test on its superior physics programming. The modified robots are then destroyed.
Donovan and Powell come back for “Escape!” The hyperspace jump makes humans briefly stop existing, and the supercomputer not to have to violate the first law by creating a spaceship filled with practical jokes.
The last two stories take place respectively in 2032 and 2052, and concern a politician who can or may not be a robot and if the machines which order the economic systems predict a war against humanity.