I read, for the first time, I, Robot many years ago. Reading it for the second time now it wasn’t, as it was probably expected, the same as when I first read it. Although, I still find the central idea interesting, I cannot say I am excited by the book, especially Asimov’s prose style.

The book is a collection of nine stories, first appeared in the pulp science fiction magazine Super Science Stories and in John W Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction magazine between 1940 and 1950. If read from beginning to end, I-Robot can be seen as a story of robot evolution. Each story shares a common theme: the interaction between humans and robots and the concerns about the evolution of artificial intelligence.

All nine of the stories within the book share Isaac Asimov’s “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 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.

Beyond the three laws each story focuses on a specific subject, from technophobia and telepathy to religion and the existence of free will. One can understand why the stories had such a great influence on the world of science fiction. They are full of clever and innovative ideas that only a few years ago begun to become relevant.

My favourite story in the collection is the Little Lost Robot. Susan Calvin, robopsychologist for the U. S Robots, is trying to discover an NS-2robot, called Nestor, who has taken the order to “get lost” literally. When they found that this robot thinks differently from the others it becomes a potential threat for humans and it has to be destroyed. The story shows the fear of people to include those who are different, and if this sounds familiar, it’s because we still think we’re threatened by something different or something we don’t understand. Reading the story, it came to my mind the film I-robot, which is only loosely connected to the book, but there is a scene in the film where the hero, Will Smith, is trying–like Susan in the story - to find the robot that behaves differently. I am glad that in the movie Susan let Sonny live.

Evidence is also an interesting story. The robots look like humans, and therefore it becomes difficult to identify them. Susan Calvin is asked to help identify whether a successful lawyer and mayoral candidate is a human or a robot. Clever story with hints that we have met in Blade Runner or even better in Battlestar Galactica. I liked that Asimov left open the possibility that Byerley could be a robot.

The last story, perhaps the most important of all, envisions a world dominated by the three laws and controlled by the machines. However, does not seem to be the happy future that people envisioned. Machines have expanded the first law, which now reads as:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow humanity being to come to harm.

The machines do a better job than humans, but the constraints of the first law, like all constraints, prevent them from doing all they are capable to do. It seems though that in Asimov’s world, it’s not enough for humans to make their technology powerful; they also need to keep humanity safe and they do that by keeping machines under control.

Overall, the i-robot is a book with thought-provoking ideas. There are no answers in the book, just possibilities that makes you think about the future and life overall. Reading I-Robot in the middle of a pandemic, that we knew one day could happen, but we did nothing to prevent it, I could not avoid the thought that Asimov’s machines could handle the situation better than humans. It is true, that as technology is gradually getting more powerful, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. We need, therefore, as humanity, to try to develop the wisdom and steer things in the right direction. This, of course, raises many questions that will take time and perhaps quite a few books to discuss and answer.

Read the full review at Notes of a curious mind