(Note: This essay contains some very light spoilers, but ... these stories are more than 75 years old. The statute of limitations has passed. Sorry!)
I recently finished reading I, Robot, written by Isaac Asimov, for the first time. I was fortunate to be able to borrow a copy which was printed in 1970. That places this physical copy at more than 55 years old - significantly older than this author. The pages are yellow and brittle, the binding stiff, the text dense and compact. There's a personal note, from one friend to another, stapled inside the cover. The book possessed the reverent odor of ... old books.
In this edition, it cites the copyright date as 1950. According to Wikipedia, the stories were actually written individually between 1940 and 1950. That places the stories as being between about 75 and 85 years old, as of this writing.
As someone who appreciates speculative fiction, I've always enjoyed the works of Asimov. And, although I'd never gotten around to reading it, I was familiar with the premise of I, Robot. Or at least, I thought I was.
My understanding was that all of the stories were set in the same universe, but they were otherwise mostly unrelated. Each story was largely a mystery story, where a robot was "violating" one or more of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, and it was the work of the protagonist to discover that there was, in fact, a greater context or circumstance at work that was forcing the robot into a particular action because of the Three Laws. In fact, they were being rigidly, and perfectly, adhered to. I haven't seen it in years, but if I recall correctly, the 2004 I, Robot film with Will Smith follows this template, perhaps with an extra helping of action.
This understanding was incorrect. Or, at a minimum, does not, in this author's opinion, do justice to the Asimov's actual vision for the collection.
Asimov wrote many Robot stories beyond those in the I, Robot collection. However, those in this specific compendium are held together by a framing story where one character is interviewing another "robopsychologist" character, Dr. Susan Calvin. The stories discuss her role during many pivotal moments throughout the development and maturation of Robot technology. As such, rather than being a collection of separate stories, the I, Robot book is technically a single story told in an almost-epistolary format. Each story is framed (albeit loosely) as a story retold by the interviewer based on their conversation with Dr. Calvin. Then there's a bit of glue text between each story that describes bits of the interview interactions themselves.
While most of the stories did have some of the mystery I expected, and most of those mystery stories did pertain to the Three Laws, the mysteries were not as clever or consistent as I had expected. They rarely were based on a surprising-but-logical intepretation of the Three Laws that led to an inevitable behavior of the robot. More often they relied on some entirely different missing context.
For example, in one story ("Catch That Rabbit") a robot seems to misbehave, but only when it manages all six of its minion robots simultaneously. It turns out that it doesn't have the cognitive capacity to manage six minions at a time, only up to five. So when managing all six is required, things break down. Did it violate the Laws? Sort of. But was there some tricky interpretation of the Laws to understand? Not really. The cognitive limitations were not revealed until the protagonists discovered it themselves, based on information that the reader couldn't really know.
This is not to say that it was an underwhelming story, although I thought it was at the time. Rather, it was an underwhelming mystery. But its story that was an important part of the total I, Robot story.
Each of the stories uses its mystery (when they had mysteries) as an excuse to explore a particular moment of the continued development of Robotics.
Thus, the mysteries are not actually the important part of the story. They're largely just something to talk about as Asimov explores these, and other, higher-level themes and issues. I didn't understand this until I was well into the second half of the book, and I nearly abandoned it because I was finding the mysteries uninspiring.
I'm glad that I stuck with it. Having reached the end, I can see why I, Robot is lauded as one of the Great Works of science fiction.
(stop here if you want to avoid any mention of current events!)
With the rise of generative AI and LLMs, the themes from I, Robot are more relevant today than ever before.
Asimov presents an optimistic future, one where humanity overcomes the challenges of automation, and thrives in a unified, near-utopic society. But that optimism is predicated on the Three Laws being in place. In his fiction, the Laws are an iron-clad contract that forces robots to be fully in service to humanity, for the benefit of humanity. In our real world, with LLM-based AI, our "safeties" are a lot more ... loosey-goosey.
By pure coincidence (seriously), this review is written just days after the release of GPT-6 Astra by OpenAI. Various tech leaders have announced that that we're entering the "AGI Era" (e.g. https://venturebeat.com/technology/welcome-to-the-agi-era-openai-launches-gpt-6-astra). Regardless of whether they're right or wrong, we're clearly already deep into our real-world story of AI and "robotics", and these same leaders appear to be plowing ever forward with minimal thought to real safety mechanisms or to the implications for humanity and our society.
How should humans treat these intelligences? What is sentience? What responsibilities are appropriate to be entrusted to the robots? What is the role of humans? What will our real-world society look like at the beginning, middle, and end of the story? What should it look like? What are the other possibilities or options?
I don't consider myself an AI Doomer. But I do think our relationship with AI is complicated, and it's more complicated because of the industry's inability or unwillingness to address these types of questions in a responsible way.
If only someone had thought about these questions ahead of time ... maybe 75-85 years ahead?
