My Weekly Book

I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

I think I should begin this entry with the same words that open the book.

The three laws of robtics:

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.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 AD

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In this seminal collection of linked short stories Asimov explores the implications for humankind of developing and implementing artificial intelligence. Because our efforts in this direction have perhaps not progressed so controversially as, say, genetic or some other kinds of electronic engineering, and because Asimov was a scientist as well as an author, this 1950 collection does not feel anything like as dated as some of the other future worlds being dreamed up at this time by his contemporaries. As well as an entertaining story collection, however, it is also a breathtaking piece of reasoning. Framed as the recollections of the Earth’s first and most accomplished ‘robopsychologist’, a woman who admits freely how she prefers robots to humans, it takes us through the complete logical journey from utilising simple domestic robots who are incapable of speech through industrial and increasingly sophisticated scientific applications to the first humanoid robots so indistinguishable from humans that only a complex series of behavioural tests stand a chance of identifying them, and ultimately to our political and cultural domination by machines.

The framework that this process is built around is the piece of text reproduced at the top of the entry. Employees of US Robots and Mechanical Men Inc. must struggle with its ramifications every day of their working lives. If a robot is behaving erratically or is difficult to control the answer lies in its application of these three rules to the situation it faces - because they are hardwired into its brain, to satisfy the demands of anti-robot campaigners who hate and fear the new creations. Naturally, if you are on the baking-hot surface of Mercury, or digging for rare minerals on an asteroid, your robot assistant may be all that stands between you and certain death, so an appreciation of the finer points of these laws of robotics and they are being interpreted is a rather important skill.

But the inclusion of the three Laws of Robotics inside the very fabric of the robots is the thing that ultimately leads to humanity’s enslavement - for what happens when the technology becomes so advanced, and such a breadth of calculations and data manipulations are possible that the human brain has no chance of performing comparable tasks, is that the injunction to prevent humans to coming to harm essentially turns into an instruction about humanity and compels the robots to run the show. This is truly a lesson in the law of unintended consequences but that doesn’t mean it’s dry or difficult reading. Asimov’s skill in world-building is widely recognised but this collection also succeeds in building a cogent plot plus an engaging and believable range of characters - both robot and human - whose fates you do find yourself caring about. This saves the stories from being a dry intellectual reasoning exercise and keeps the pages turning even if the prose is occasionally a bit clunky and the worldview a tiny bit dated.

A classic of science fiction, I understand, and one that no devotee of the genre should leave unread. I certainly felt my time reading it was entertaining and extremely well-spent.

Some links:

• Wikipedia: Asimov’s Robot series
• Wikipedia: The Positronic Brain
• Isaac Asimov homepage
• Asimov’s Laws of Robotics: Implications for Information Technology by Roger Clarke
• SciFiDimensions: I, Robot review
• NASA robotics project
• Oxford University robotics project
• Robots.net robotics website
• Robot magazine
• Robot.org.uk robot builders’ website
• Lego Mindstorms

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 11:37 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge, Reads I recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.