Book Review ~~ I, Robot ~

Today I read the book “I, Robot,” by Isaac Asimov, a compilation of interesting short stories about robots and the various dilemmas that come with them, as well as the Three Laws of Robotics. In one story, a mind-reading robot is created, but, because it wasn’t supposed to cause harm to humans, lies and can’t give any information of use. After all, telling humans something they didn’t want to hear would hurt them emotionally. The robot had learned why it could read minds, information which could be incredibly useful to the company that created it, but he couldn’t tell them, because even the most skilled mathematicians in the company couldn’t figure it out, and explaining it would embarrass them and hurt their ego that a robot had managed something a human couldn’t. In the end, the robot went insane because the “robopsychologist” had discovered this and was angry at the robot for lying to her; she tormented it with the dilemma and it broke down. In another story, a new and expensive robot had had its potential to avoid danger increased so that staying safe was almost as important to it as following human orders. It had been given a order that wasn’t phrased so that it seemed urgent and involved a relatively risky amount of danger, inducing a drunken state that caused the robot to leave the area he was supposed to do work at as the potential for being damaged increased and begin to return as it lessened. Eventually, one of the field “roboticists” sent to test it sent himself into danger, because, since the First Law was to keep humans from harm at all times and was a great deal more important than the other two, to the robot, the robot had to save the human. I really enjoyed the many stories in this book and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or other stories of Isaac Asimov’s. I would rate it 9.7/10.