“I,Robot” by Issac Asimov
Posted on | June 5, 2007 | No Comments
“I,Robot” by Issac Asimov
I finished reading “I, Robot” by Issac Asimov. Most people already know of the more recent movie starring Will Smith. The book is composed of a series of short stores which only make the slightest references to each other. None of the plots of these short stories matches the movie in anyway. The short stories take the form of logic puzzles that the characters must solve in order to solve some sort of the problem regarding robots.
The logic puzzles result from how the “3 Rules of Robotics” bounce off each other. These 3 rules take the form of 1. A robot must not harm a human being or through its inaction allow a human being to come to harm, 2. A robot must follow the orders of a human being unless doing so would violate Rule 1 and 3. A robot must act to preserve itself so long as doing so does not violate rule 1 or rule 2. I found that there were times when the reader could be one step ahead of the characters in trying to solve some of the puzzles that the characters were trying to solve. I found myself that I would put down the book from time to time and try and think of a solution to the problem that they were facing. It was then particularly interesting to see how the characters then solved the same problem.
Oftentimes, books and movies about things in the future lose their luster with time because of the way that the technology is described. As a result, I was a bit hesitant when I realized that the book had been written in 1950. Books set in future, especially the distant future like this one is, can often over-describe the technology involved and then quickly become outdated. However, with “I, Robot” only passing reference is made to the technology itself and far more emphasis is placed on the psychology (or rather robo-psychology) involved. Made up names are made for some of the parts of the robots that are references, but one can easily overlook that these names may not entirely match up with current technology.
I, as someone who has never really enjoyed reading science fiction books, really enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it others.
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