A view into the Robotic world. Review on I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

Introduction

Type Of Book: Collection of short stories.

Theme Of Book: Robots.

Essence Of Book: Social acceptance of robots into human society.

About the author

Isaac Asimov is by far the most highly respected and the most famous sci-fi writer of all times. He is the only sci-fi author ever to have recieved the Hugo of the Hugo awards for his highly acclaimed Foundation Trilogy. The most unique thing about his writings was each of his novels were connected to each other in some way or other. His famous series includes the Robot series and the Empire series apart from the record breaking Foundation Series.

Peek into I Robot

I Robot is a collection of stories involving Robots and their acceptance into the world of human society. Asimov comes up with this interesting novelty that Robots are manufactured to be driven by three basic laws (much like the three laws of Newton). These laws are:

1) A Robot cannot by action or inaction allow a human being to be hurt or killed.

2) A Robot must obey the commands issued by a human being as long as Ist law is not broken.

3) A Robot must protect itself as long as the first two laws are not broken.

Based on the interplay of these three laws the stories are a delight to read. I could not bear with the thought to put down the book till I came down to the last page.

Breif insight into some of the stories in this book:

1) Gloria, a little girl, recieves a Robot as a gift. She gets attached to her robot so much so that it makes her mother wonder whether it is good or not. She tries her best to keep her daughter from getting over indulgent with the Robot but to no avail. Then, one fine day the robot vanishes. How will the girl react? A cute little story describing how Robots will merge into human society.

2) Second law of Robotic says that a robot must obey what a man says. But what if the man gives a wrongly phrased command such as, ''Get me a glass of water and then get lost!!'' For a Robot this means get a glass of water and go into a hiding so that we can't find you, in other words 'lost'. This is exactly what happens and to make matters worse, the robot in question was a new model on which adequate testing was not done. So this could be the next big Robot disaster. Track a robot trying its best to hide from you using all your skills of Robo psychology.

Just two of the interesting stories in this book. I would be killing the fun if I would highlight the plot of the other stories. :)

There are several interesting issues raised in this book. Some of them are:

1) Feeling of insecurity amongst humans that Robots might deprive them of jobs.

2) Fear that Robots are more powerful and could kill humans if out of control.

3) How the human brain interprets things whereas what a programmed brain interprets?

Highlights

One of the highlights of all Asimov novels is that he just does not write science fictions, he writes them with a social theme in the background. And this novel highlights it best. This same kind of insecurity was felt by people when widespread computerization took place. Similarly, the amount of scientific know how of Asimov also lets him assemble real science facts into the fiction and make it gel brilliantly.

Summary

Undoubtedly, one of the best collection of sci-fi stories. A high-five star rating for this one.