I, Robot

Work Title: I, Robot
Medium: Novel
Episode Title:
Year: 1950
Writer(s): Isaac Asimov
"Original" Writer: Yes Own work?: No
Summary:

from amazon.com I, ROBOT is an unabridged narration of Isaac Asimov's short story collection, often counted among his best work. The stories are connected by discussions between "robo-psychologist" Susan Calvin (the main character in most of the stories) and a reporter who is putting together a profile of her career.

Era/Year of Portrayal: distant_future
Distinctive characteristics of the world in portrayal:

It is the year 2057. Robots are commonplace workers and machines run the world. There is no more war or famine. Earth is peaceful.

Technology

  • Name of portrayed presence-evoking technology: The Machines
  • Description of the technology: Robots have positronic brains, capable of logic. Because of this, and advances in technology, the brains evolve. They are advanced in intelligence ten times past human brains. These super brains, called Machines, run Earth. They make all decisions, control the economy, and due to their adherence to the 3 laws of robotics, can only do what is best for humanity. People interact with the Machines by speaking to them, and feeding them data. They do have a human form, but thier exact appearence is never detailed. They do not have emotions, but can speak. They can respond with confusing answers, but only do what is best for mankind.
  • Nature of task or activity: When running the economy, the co-cordinators feed data into the Machines, which then issue answers.
  • Performance of the Technology: Works well, but sometimes causes distrubances in economy humans cannot understand.
  • Description of creator(s): US Robotics, a large corporation that invented the positronic brain.
  • Major goal(s) of creator(s): To advance technology and make profit.
  • Description of users of technology: The co-cordinators are mostly men, and one woman. They are from differernt regions of Earth. race and age are unknown. Generally, only men interact with all of the robots, in the workplace. This can be attirbuted to being written in 1950, when not that many women worked, particularly in science.
  • Type(s) of presence experience in the portrayal: social_presence
  • Description of presence experience: It is similair to using a computer today - inputing data and reciveing a response. However, the Machines only have the best interest of humanity, so their responses are skewed to favor people. The presence experience is neither good no bad, although sometimes it can be confusing - humans sometimes cannot understand why the machines make the decisions they do.
  • User awareness of technology during experience: yes.
  • Valence of experience: pleasant. It is fine.
  • Specific responses: intense parasocial relationships, confusion, thought provocation.
Long-term consequences:

The ending is ambigous. The Machines are chaing the future to benefit humanity. But it is unknown what is the best for humanity - is it the current state of technology or a return to an agraian culture? or the stone ages?

Other:

This book, and the 3 laws of robotics, are the basis for many of the science fiction stories, films, and books that followed.

Coder name: Amanda Scheiner
Coder email: amandags@temple.edu
Coder affiliation: Temple University