I, Robot

“‘Fifty years,’ I hackneyed, ‘is a long time.’ ‘Not when you’re looking back at them,’ she said. ‘You wonder how they vanished so quickly.’”

At age 75, Dr Susan Calvin’s long career in robotic psychology does not seem long at all. That career also covers most of the history of robots, and the speed of change in that field conjures a feeling of time compression that typifies rapidly advancing technologies. Robots have come a long way very quickly since the first ones stepped off the assembly line.

“To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons.—Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner better breed than we are.”

Dr Calvin looks back on her career as one of the most important influences in the development of robotics. She believes her company’s mechanical servants are not prone to the foibles of people, and that, despite the naysayers and doomsayers, robots are a great boon to humanity.

“Robbie was constructed for only one purpose really—to be the companion of a little child. His entire ‘mentality’ has been created for the purpose. He just can’t help being faithful and loving and kind. He’s a machine—made so. That’s more than you can say for humans.”

George Watson, owner of Robbie the nursemaid robot, defends the device, which has always served their child Gloria well and faithfully. George’s wife, though, has begun to doubt the wisdom of giving the girl over to the tender care of a robot. She feels left out and decides to blame the robot for doing what it cannot help but do. She makes his automatic good behavior into evidence of wrongdoing.