The Subtle Substitution of Robots for Humans in Isaac Asimov’s I Robot

Abstract

I Robot is a collection of nine short stories by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov that imagines the development of humanlike robots with a form of artificial intelligence. The stories originally appeared in science-fiction magazines between 1940 and 1950, the year that they were first published together in book form. Asimov’s treatment of robots as being programmed with ethics rather than as marauding metal monsters was greatly influential in the development of science fiction. This paper explores the substitution of humansfor robots. Isaac Asimov’s stories depict a gradual and often unnoticed replacement of humans by robots in various domains of human activity such as labor, law, politics, religion, and art. Isaac uses three laws of robotics, which are designed to protect humans from harm, as a narrative device to show the paradoxes and dilemmas that arise from the interaction between humans and robots. This paper explores the prevention of human calamities by using robots with specific laws.