R. Anthony Mahan heralds author of "I, Robot".
by Contributing Author on 05/17/10
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
With these three simple sentences, a young aspiring author by the name of Isaac Asimov had unknowingly changed the science fiction genre forever. When Asimov entered the world of science fiction writing, the robot followed a simple pattern: Go haywire, turn evil, and rebel against its masters. The notion of robots going wrong goes back as far as the word "robot" itself. "R.U.R.", the Czech play which coined the word in 1920, followed this plotline, yet hardly invented it. Earlier tales such as Frankenstein and the Jewish folktale of The Golem delivered the apparent moral that artificial life was an inherently bad idea.
Asimov frowned on stories of robots rebelling. He found it not only hackneyed, but unrealistic. All technology has safeguards to make sure it's as safe to use as possible. If robots of the same caliber as those in the world of science fiction actually existed, wouldn't they possess safeguards as well?
Asimov was one of the first science fiction writers to treat the genre's more unrealistic elements with an examination of how they would function in the real world, employing a technique far ahead of his time.
Over the years Asimov penned numerous short stories and novels featuring robots, nine of which are collected in "I, Robot." His first robot story (and, fittingly enough, the first story in the collection) is titled "Robbie", which features a young girl named Gloria being watched over by a nursing robot. Her mother fears Robbie, accusing it of being unfeeling, having the potential to go wrong, and many other fears that would have been considered valid in the stories of a different author from the period. However, Robbie never demonstrates such flaws, and in the end Gloria's mother must accept robots aren't the evil creatures she believed them to be. The readers of the story would need to do the same thing themselves shortly afterwards.
For the most part, Asimov treated the robot as neither menace nor pathos, but as they actually are: machines. Tools which hold no morality of their own, positive or negative, but which are created to work efficiently and be safe to use. The author was able to constantly find new ways to interpret the Three Laws and employ them in fiction. One may suspect that setting up limits for your characters, saying there are things they absolutely cannot do, would restrict creativity, but instead it granted Asimov a creative freedom unseen before. A later story, titled "---That Thou art Mindful of Him", would even go as far to use the Three Laws to induce the very thing they were created to avoid!
Asimov's attempts to embellish science fiction with the scientific accuracy of the time and natural human reactions to the genre's more fantastic elements gave the genre a refreshing dose of realism that could almost universally be agreed upon as an improvement. Many later writers would come to claim him as an influence, including this writer. He even managed to leave his mark not merely on science fiction, but science itself, with many scientists deriving inspiration from his writing. It's worth noting that he created the word "robotics."
I strongly recommend his work, though not merely his robot stories. The Foundation series, Galactic Empire series, as well as his non-fiction writing are all definitely worth a look. However, if you're unsure just where to start, I'd have to say that "I, Robot" is the way to go!
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