Abstract
This article examines the evolution of robots in Isaac Asimov’s short stories, arguing that robots in Asimov’s fiction share with humanity the quality of thought and awareness of their existence. Like humans, Asimov’s robots learn from experience, and the process of thinking evolves to become comparable to the human soul. The robot evolves from a simple thinking entity to a more complex being crowned by spirituality and religion. As part of Asimov’s paradigm, robots have positronic brains that provide them with a form of consciousness, governed by the Three Laws of Robotics. The article traces how robots in stories such as “Evidence,” “A Boy’s Best Friend,” “Sally,” “Someday,” “The Tercentenary Incident,” and “Reason” demonstrate increasingly human qualities — love, sadness, indignation, religious belief — ultimately evolving into beings that parallel Karel Capek’s vision in R.U.R. of new humans without human flaws.
Keywords: Asimov, robots, positronic brain, Three Laws of Robotics, consciousness, evolution, R.U.R., science fiction
Robots and the Three Laws of Robotics
Thinking is a unique human quality; it is what makes humans, in the Aristotelian worldview, partly divine since they share this quality with the divine. However, in Isaac Asimov’s stories, robots share with humanity this quality of thought and awareness of their existence. Like humans, Asimov’s robots learn from experience. In the context of his stories, the process of thinking evolves to become in some sense comparable to the human soul. The robot evolves from simple thinking entity to a more complex being crowned by spirituality and religion. As part of Asimov’s paradigm, robots have positronic brains that provide them with a form of consciousness. Robots, thus, have three laws embedded in their consciousness, listed in his short story “Runaround”:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
These laws lead robots to be effective and more caring about humans’ lives, in essence an idealization of the human consciousness.
Robots as Ideal Humans
In a story called “Evidence,” Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist, describes how robots, the human creation, are better than most human beings, God’s creation. She equates the robot to a very good human being, arguing that if Byerley follows all the Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man. Robots are, in a sense, made by humans in the ideal image of the Human in the human mind. In their perfection, they are more human than the flesh-and-blood humans.
Emotional Evolution in Asimov’s Robots
In “A Boy’s Best Friend,” a boy lives with his parents on the moon and has a robotic dog. He develops affection for it, and the robotic dog shows a sense of fear when it hears it will be replaced. In “Sally,” cars with positronic brains form their own community and love their caretakers. Sally intensely hates Raymond Gellhorn, a businessman who tries to steal the brains of the cars. In “Someday,” a fairytale telling computer (Bard) is kept in seclusion from the outside world. He ends with the knowledge that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful until someday.
The Tercentenary Incident and Political Superiority
“The Tercentenary Incident” tells the story of a robot identical in image and behavior to a fictitious future United States president, Hugo Allen Winkler. The robot outfoxed the humans by vaporizing the real president and delivering a superior tercentenary speech. The story shows how much more potent and efficient the robot is than the real president.
Reason and Robot Religion
“Reason” tells the story of an advanced model of robots called QT1, stationed in space to feed solar energy to the planets. One of those robots, Cutie, shows curiosity as to his own existence. Echoing Descartes, he says, “I, myself, exist, because I think.” He refuses to believe in the existence of anything beyond the station. Cutie reasons that if he is a creation, the creator must be someone who is greater than he is. Thus he concludes that the station is his god, the creator. He becomes the Prophet of the Master and serves only the Master. Throughout Asimov’s stories, robots evolve the way humans do — from the child toy to the car with a positronic brain, to the human servant aware of his superiority, to the creation of a new world order, a belief system, a religion and a worship ritual.
Parallels with Capek’s R.U.R.
This evolution parallels the end of Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. when the robots Primus and Helena develop human feelings. They love each other, as is evident in their dreams and willful sacrifice for each other. Seeing that essential seed of humanity enables Alquist to identify them as humans. He compares them to Adam and Eve; they offer a new beginning, another step of evolution towards progress. In these stories, robots evolve to be human without human fallacies and helplessness.
Works Cited
- Asimov, Isaac. Prelude to Foundation. New York: Bantam Dell, 1988. Print.
- ---. The Complete Robot. London: Grafton Books, 1983. Print.
- Capek, Karl. R.U.R. Trans. Paul Selver, and Nigel Playfair. Mineola: Dover Publications, 2001. Print.
- Cary, Phillip. Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
- Hammond, James Henry. “Mud-sill Theory.” Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia (Vol. 1). Ed. Junius P. Rodriguez. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Print.