During the Golden Age of science fiction, many writers were using robots in their stories. The idea of a robotic man was not created by Isaac Asimov, but Asimov was one of the few writers who explored the implications of robots. And he was the first to explore what it meant to be a robot. His Three Laws of Robots were one of the first attempts to clarify how robots and humans should work together. Asimov’s short story collection I, Robot set the standard for human-robot interaction for years. Many of the themes Asimov encountered presage a lot of Philip K Dick’s work on what it means to be human (or robot). So, let’s see what Asimov came up with.

The book is a collection of short stories that had been previously published, but, for the book, Asimov added in a framing section with a reporter interviewing lead robopyschiatrist Susan Calvin. Calvin is one of the great Golden Age characters. Not only does Asimov have a woman as a major character in his stories, but he, for the most part, made her talented, prickly and supremely capable. Susan Calvin is unquestionably the star of the book. The stories are a collection that tells in somewhat chronological order, the rise of US Robots and Mechanical Men and a one world government. There are several stories that touch on various aspects of what it means to be a robot.

I’m not going to touch on all the stories, but simply mention a few of my favorites. In “Runaround”, a mining robot is seemingly crazy and going in circles talking nonsense. As our heroes investigate, they realize that a casual order to the robot caused a conflict between two of the Robot Laws. This conflict caused the robot to circle around unable to decide what to do. This conflict is similar to what happened to HAL in 2001, A Space Odyssey (as revealed in 2010, The Year We Make Contact).

Many of the stories, follow the discovery of various glitches in the robotic brains. In “Reason”, a robot controlling an all robot power plant decides through some glitch that humans aren’t worth following and has created it’s own religion. In “Liar” a glitch causes a robot to have telepathic powers and the Three Laws end up hindering the investigation into what happened to cause it.

Probably my favorite of the stories is “Evidence”. This story is a direct descendant of a lot of Philip K Dick stories where he deals with what it means to be human. In Evidence, a popular political candidate is accused of being a robot. The laws protecting humans make it nearly impossible to prove that he is a robot. The story deals with Susan Calvin trying to psychologically determine what he is. It is a well told tale that leaves both possibilities open and shows a different side of Susan Calvin.

Asimov is a master of telling stories where all the action is off-screen, but the story still has a lot of drama and tension. These stories are some of Asimov’s earliest and one of the best compilations of robot stories ever written. Do not mistake this as being any relation to the Will Smith movie I, Robot(I much prefer the Harlan Ellison unproduced screenplay) which has some of the same characters and a couple of the same themes. I, Robot  is classic science fiction at it’s best. Highly Recommended.