[Mb-hair] NYTimes.com Article: We, Robots

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We, Robots

July 18, 2004
 


 

Now that "I, Robot," a technophobic thriller starring Will
Smith, has hit movie screens nationwide, it's worth
remembering Isaac Asimov's accomplishment in the book of
the same name, which was first published in 1950. True, the
humans in Asimov's book seem more than a little robotic,
despite their snappy, Batman-like dialogue. ("Holy space!")
Donovan and Powell - the robot-testers - resemble Cub
Scouts in adult bodies. And as for Susan Calvin, the rather
dried-up robopsychologist, well, it's simplest to say that
she bears as much resemblance to her screen counterpart,
played by Bridget Moynahan, as Asimov's robot stories do to
this movie. 

As machines, Asimov's robots are not very important. Asimov
invests almost nothing in imagining how they look. What
makes them interesting isn't sentience or consciousness or
a human appearance. It's the fact that the machines embody
three hierarchical laws that require robots to protect
humans from harm, to obey humans and, a distant third, to
protect themselves. Each of the stories in "I, Robot" works
out a problem in the application of these laws, usually
caused by an unforeseen implication or contradiction.
Asimov's robots are perfectly logical, and therefore all
the real problems are caused by humans, who are shockingly
unaware of the way their intentions and emotions run
counter to logic. What look like manufacturing flaws in the
robots nearly always turn out to be faults in the way a
command was articulated. Humans, it turns out, are mainly
good at bossing other humans around. Our computers remind
us of this every day. 

There may be nothing subtle about Asimov's prose. But there
is a great deal of subtlety in the strangely narcissistic
relationship he creates between humans and robots. The very
existence of robots leads, in Asimov, to immediate
questions about human nature - not as it's expressed in the
robots themselves but as it's expressed in their
relationship with humans. After all, those three ironclad
laws create a framework for decency that - as Susan Calvin
might say - few people ever display. It's no wonder
Hollywood prefers simply to fear robots, as it does in "The
Terminator," "The Matrix" and now "I, Robot," to name only
a few examples. It's vastly easier and more thrilling than
introspection. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/opinion/18SUN2.html?ex=1091175043&ei=1&en=468e6cf4f58d8e52


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