Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I, Robot by Issac Asimov

A classic that deserves its fame. I had long been curious about this work (and I still haven't seen the movie) and I thought it quite worthwhile. The book is a series of loosely connected stories about robot and human interactions in the future. That I found them to be parables might say more about me than Asimov's intent.
All the stories center around the three laws of robotics and how things can still go wrong.
The Three Laws are:
  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
The first one is quite interesting to me due to the 'through inaction' part. Does this mean a newly minted robot must immediately start working on feeding the starving or trying to reduce malaria, TB, AIDS?

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