I, Robot — Book Review & Quotes

Review

If you’ve seen the Will Smith movie based on I, Robot, then I can easily draw a comparison — this book is nothing like that movie, beyond the three laws. While this is the third book we read in our Fiction of Future book club, it was also the oldest and slowest. You realize something about technology; once you get more than 20 years away from the technology you’re talking, you realize how very old that technology is, and how very fast technology progresses.

More than anything, this book is an interesting view into how people used to think about robots. And I think that, even just in the last few decades, our exposure to robotics and machines (more often digital than mechanical) have shed more of a light on how we react to these. There haven’t been any massive dilemmas with the machines we’ve built. Why, I can’t be certain, but it feels like the concern stem more from the implications of these machines just doing their job and what that means for us, rather than deep-seated malfunctions within a machine’s psyche.

Highlighted Quotes From The Book

“The Three Laws of Robotics:

1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;

2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;

3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;

The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

“You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason — -if you pick the proper postulates.”

“Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.”

“Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict — -its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself — -what’s the expression — -ah, yes, ‘not with a bang, but a whimper,’ as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.”

“It’s your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotion.”

“Actions such as his could come only from a robot, or from a very honorable and decent human being. But you see, you can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans.”

“All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resent domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger.”

“You are the only one responsible for your own wants.”

“There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power.”

“I, on the other hand, am a finished product. I absorb electrical energy directly and utilize it with an almost one hundred percent efficiency. I am composed of strong metal, am continuously conscious, and can stand extremes of environment easily. These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”

“It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research.”

“Because, if you stop to think of it, the three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world’s ethical systems. Of course, every human being is supposed to have the instinct of self-preservation. That’s Rule Three to a robot. Also every ‘good’ human being, with a social conscience and a sense of responsibility, is supposed to defer to proper authority; to listen to his doctor, his boss, his government, his psychiatrist, his fellow man; to obey laws, to follow rules, to conform to custom — even when they interfere with his comfort or his safety. That’s Rule Two to a robot. Also, every ‘good’ human being is supposed to love others as himself, protect his fellow man, risk his life to save another. That’s Rule One to a robot. To put it simply — if Byerley follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man.”

“People say ‘It’s as plain as the noise on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone hold a mirror up to you?”

“These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.”

“The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: “No employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.”

“All that had been done in the mid-twentieth century on “calculating machines” had been upset by Robertson and his positronic brain-paths. The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of plantinumiridium about the size of a human brain.”

“[Mankind’s future] was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand — at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war. Now the Machines understand them; and no one can stop them, since the Machines will deal with them as they are dealing with the Society, — having, as they do, the greatest of weapons at their disposal, the absolute control of our economy.”