I, Robot

Author's Note: I am about halfway through my book and it's time for a response! At first, I thought the book extremely confusing until I found out it was a book of short stories all relating to each other. I am going to write a response about one thing that all of the stories have in common, robots.

Robots are slowly taking over the world and everyone knows it.  Robots exist everywhere we go.  I am typing on one right now and I am not afraid to admit it.  I'm not here to say that robots are going to become greater than humans, like the characters in the book, but just to help acknowledge their existence here on earth, before they travel to more places humans have not been.

I searched my mind for a place free of Robots.  As hard as this was, I finally found an organization I thought was completely robot free.  Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor museum of Wisconsin's history.  Old World Wisconsin is a reenactment of how people used to live before robots.  But as I was recalling the memories I have of visiting there as a child I remembered the men out farming using pitchforks, shovels, and rakes and the women using spinning wheels and wood stoves.  Some people may call these tools simple machines, others call them early robots.  I have learned from watching Pokemon every morning with my brother, that everything evolves into something else, so what do simple machines evolve into? Robots.  Pitchforks, shovels and rakes evolve into jackhammers, lawnmowers, and drills.  Spinning wheels and wood stoves evolved into sewing machines and ovens.  Everything's a robot. Look up and you will see more.  So be aware that robots do exist and they surround us all.

Little boys play at recess merrily pretending that they have super strength.  Little girls have playdates and spend the entire time carrying around babydolls and wishing they could fly.  Is anyone familiar with the super hero dream?  The dream where you waltz around the city, saving citizens until your alarm clock jars you to reality. Don't try not to admit it, we have all had it.  I'm also positive that all of us have longed for the ability to read another's mind. In the story, i, Robot, a robot has been designed--like all others-- to do a specific task and feel no emotions in order to do so.  But one robot, Herbie, goes wrong.

In addition to being capable of feeling human emotions, Herbie can read and feel emotions of other people as well.  His creators are desperately trying to find a job fit for him and his talent, but for now he sits quietly until someone approaches him with a problem.  Mathematical, scientific, personal, emotional, he can solve each one without hesitation or without words.  Herbie helps everyone, but who is there to help him?  What would happen if your phsycologist discussed her problems while you were in session?  Who would calm your mind, reduce your stress, fix your insecurities?  Agitated, stressed, and insecure he is not.  But what will happen if he someday is? With great power comes great responsibility and I have yet to find out whether Herbie will be able to take care of his needs as well as the scientist's.

Author's Note: 


 "A cargo vessel had  landed the previous day and had delivered us two robots for our laboratories.  It had sixty-two robots.  We are certain as to that figure." 
"Yes, and the connection?"
"When our missing robot failed of location anywhere- I assure you we would have found a blade of grass if it had been there to fine-we brainstormed ourselves into counting the robots left of the cargo ship.  They have sixty three now."
"So that the sixty-third, I take it, is the missing prodigal?"
"Yes, but we have no way of telling which is the sixty third."


A robot  is ordered to lose himself.  By the second law of robotics, he cannot disobey.  To make matters worse, this is a special robot who has experimentally had the first law or robotics removed from its brain.  The first law states that no robot may harm a human being, or through inaction, let a human being come to harm.  So not only is there a robot losing himself somewhere on the ship, but a dangerous one that is ready to harm any human being that  comes in its way of fulfilling the command he was given.  

Concerned, puzzled scientist rush frantically around the ship wondering what the best solution is.  Do they destroy each robot, thirty thousand dollars a piece?  Or question each one, losing work time, wasting their own time, and MAYBE finding the right one?  Is there a solution?  What can they do besides set up experiments that may harm human beings as well as robots? So they decided to hold a human hostage and set up a field of gamma rays in between all robots and herself. But what the robots do not know is that the gamma rays will deactivate when they cross the field, so the robots will travel unharmed. The scientists hopes are that the normal robots rush up to help, jeopardizing their health, but the hidden robot--with its knowledge of gamma rays-- finds itself superior to the others and remains in its seat.  When a giant weight was dropped upon the woman, intending on her death, all of the robots jumped, but one.  Problem solved, goodbye Nestor 10.  The woman was saved, the robot destroyed.  The earth men were called and there was to be no robot brain experimenting any more.