Isaac Asimov's I, Robot

It is unfair, perhaps, to put I, Robot in the category of books newly read, for I have first read it in Russian translation some twelve years ago. About a month ago, I saw a preview in the movie theater for a Will Smith movie based on Asimov's book. In the preview, robots were fighting humans, Will Smith was your typical man in black in a role of glorified Cassandra. I was puzzled: my vague memory of the book consisted of some quiet introspective pieces rather then bombastic Us vs Them confrontations. I asked a friend of mine with better memory, who confirmed that indeed, the original I, Robot had no war. Indeed, its main protagonist was a woman. I realized I needed to read the book again -- and I am very glad I did.

The book is written a series of short stories chronicling the development of robotics on Earth. The author "interviews" the leading robopsychologist, Dr. Susan Calvin, about the state of the field and the company she worked for most of her life, starting from rudimentary robots to very human-like ones. Each chapter revolves around some controversial ethical and cultural aspects of robot existence: there is one on the nature or religion, there are some on what is essentially robot racism. There are also pieces on what amounts to program debugging (my software engineer's heart is singing). The book is engaging, and the characters are lively, including the robots. Some of the humans are stereotypically drawn, but inoffensively so, especially considering that the book was written in the fifties.

"Robots are basically decent," - says Dr. Calvin in one of the stories, and indeed the issue of "human nature" is put under a microscope in this book. If one thinks of the book as one about human race, robots become just a plot device to expose our imperfections, weaknesses, ungrateful and sometimes violent nature. The question of whether robots are more perfect, and what is more important, creator or creation, arise.

This low-key book very successfully juggles a lot of interesting ideas and questions. With this one book, Asimov has become a giant of science fiction writing (sorry, Foundation fans). Between him, and other writers like Alfred Bester and Ray Bradbury, it sometimes seems like the fifties and sixties really covered most of the interesting topics associated with our future. As for the movie, and our seeming violent undesire to consider complex issues, consider this: the new edition of the book has Will Smith on the cover and a tagline "One man saw it coming." And one man, indeed, saw it coming -- our militant ignorance. His name was Isaac Asimov.