I, Robot

When Issac Asimov created robots he gave them three laws that they must follow:

1) No robot may hurt a human being
2) Obey the orders given you by a human unless it violates Law Number 1
3) Self preservation, providing it does not violate Laws number 1 or 2

Now I've seen about five and a half minutes of the movie starring the seemingly ubiquitous Will Smith, and let me tell you, that five and a half minutes was more exciting than the whole of the book.

Rather than being an exciting story about how robots have managed to manuever themselves around the three above stated laws, I, Robot follows robopsychologist (he seems to love making up branches of psychology) Dr. Susan Calvin and her experiences of using the three laws of robotics to figure out what is going on with various robots that seem to have broken the laws. It is actually nine short stories that have been strung together as Calvin's memories and reflections.

The book is, by no means, exciting. It deals with the characterization of these robots and how they have managed to explain to themselves their behavior. It is fascinating to have Dr. Calvin explain why the robots are behaving the way they are behaving. It is an exploration of human behavior on the most basic level. Unlike the complicated emotions that go into human decisions, robots "think" on a much more basic existence. In that respect, Asimov is able to consider what, to a human would be a complex human desicion, but to a robot is a matter of what was said to him and how it was said. Which is something that as humans, we deal with the same issue. Obviously we have many more emotions and thoughts occuring within our brains that are not felt or considered by robots. But removing those, we're able to examine how a human might consider basic conflicts of interest at the most basic point.

I'm not 100% sure that I would consider this a great science fiction novel. It seems to me to be an exploration of humanity with a science fiction spin on it. Had I not seen any commercials for the movie, and basing my decision solely on the book, I don't think I would have seen the movie. I just don't think it would have been an interesting movie...at all. So if you are expecting the movie to be anything like the book, don't. Given, I haven't actually seen the movie, but in the five and a half minutes I have seen, it's already superly different, which could be a good thing, I guess.

Moral of the Story: Be careful about what you say, and how you say it...you have no idea the conflict it will cause in a robot's mind...