I, ROBOT

Dr Susan Calvin was been born in 1982. When she was 20 she met Dr Lanning of US Robotics who showed her the 1st robot with a voice. It was a large and ugly robot intended to the mines on Mercury. Susan Calvin was interested in Robots and after her final degree at University she began work at US Robotics as the 1st robot psychologist. After fifty years she was leaving US Robotics at the age of 75. Dr Calvin's views on robots: was robots helped human beings because were stronger, more useful, more capable than we are, they are also-cleaner.

Gregory Powell and Michael Donovan were engineers who were given the most difficult cases. The 2nd Mercury expedition was sent out on 2015. It consisted of 2 engineers-Powell and Donovan and a new robot the SPD robot. Robbie was a robot of the 965; it was a simple voiceless robot which was sold as a nanny.

RUAROUND: Donovan had sent Speedy after the selenium, after 5 hours he hadn't come back. On mercury the equipment was out of date and the radio room had been untouched for 10 years and the photocell banks in the walls and roof which photocell than from the full heat of Mercury's sun were badly damaged so the only thing which could save them was selenium and the only who could get it was Speedy and if Speedy didn't come back they would die. They had been sent to Mercury to repair the Sunside Station but they were in trouble because of Speedy and if they went after it their insosuits wouldn't protect them for more than 20 minutes in the direct sunlight. Powell put an atomic battery into another robot and it worked, then he asked this robot to find Speedy and bring it back, but as it was an old robot he had to ride him, it needed humans control, Donovan did the same with another robot and went though the tunnels riding the robots like horses. They reached the selenium pool and saw Speedy but it turned and ran away, perhaps something had become wrong with it and they needed to get it to find Speedy was one of the most expensive robots available so to protect the SPD's their brains were made a little differently, the 3rd Law was more strong in them “a robot must protect itself”, then, perhaps Speedy was avoiding a danger at the selenium pool.

REASON: Half a year later the sun had been changed for the cold blackness of space Donovan and Powell were faced with positronic brain which did not work well. The three Laws of robotics were in it, so QT-1-Cutie was safe because of the Laws but it looked strange since Powell had told him that Donovan and he had made using the parts sent to them from Earth. But Cutie didn't like this explanation and he was determined to discover the truth, it was the 1st robot who has ever been curious about himself. Powell took him to look through the glass into the space. Cutie said it was a black material with tiny shining dots on it. Powell told him that the Earth was the very bright dot, he also told Cutie that the solar stations like them take energy from the sun and send it to Earth in a very powerful energy beam as it is difficult for humans to work on the solar station so robots were developed to do the work and now only 2 men were needed at each station and they were trying to develop robots which can do the work of them too better. Cutie was going to investigate it himself. Now there was the danger of an electron storm. Cutie didn't believe them because the thought humans were weaker and more dependent so a more inefficient equipment. Cutie thought the Energy Converter; the centre of the solar station could be his master so from now on he would serve only him. Powell was worried about an electron storm as it could run directly into the path of the Earth beam. At the engine room Cutie and all the other robots said that there was only one master, the Converter and that Cutie was his messenger, they didn't hear Donovan to say that the converter was only a machine and they had to obey them. But Donovan and Powell were banned from the engine room. They had broken the 2nd Law. Donovan built another robot to show Cutie they had made him but it was useless. Cutie said they hadn't created the parts they had only put the robot together. Twelve hours later the storm arrived Donovan and Powell could do nothing but watch, they knew that any change in direction would destroy hundreds of kilometers of Earth and a robot with no experience was at the controls. When the storm had ended Cutie walked in and showed them the paper that said he had done it OK, he had managed to keep the beam straight all though the storm and he had directed the beam exactly at the receiving station on Earth. Donovan and Powell left the station, 2 new men arrived but there was little work for them to do as Cutie was good at control everything there.

CATCH THAT RABBIT: First Donovan and Powell went on holiday and now they were out on the asteroid. The new robot, D-V-5 with 6 subsidiary robots was designed as a team for mining on asteroids. The team worked well as long as Donovan or Powell watched it. They decided to make a test which showed that his positronic brain was working perfectly but he wet wrong only when the 2 men wear not near. Suddenly, at the screen on the wall they saw the robots were marching as soldiers with Dave in front. They tried to reach Dave by radio but the robot didn't respond. It was like a protest action but Dave explained that he didn't remember. Mike was left watching them and nothing went wrong while he was watching. They noticed David went wrong during emergencies. So, to test it, Donovan and Powell were going to create an emergency using a detonator but it failed and Donovan and Powell were trapped because their own roof had fallen. Through a hole they saw the robots going away, then Powell fired his gun and one of the robots was destroyed. Immediately Dave answered the radio and the robots rescued them. They concluded that Dave couldn't communicate with all six robots at the same time, so, his circuits get overload and he started to act crazy, When Powell destroyed one, Dave was able to communicate with five.

LIAR!: They had a robot that could read minds. The engineers and directors of US Robotics said they made sure that each robot was produced perfectly but a positronic brain is very complicated so it's possible to go wrong. Dr Calvin was given the task of studying the robot. She had to find out how it worked and if it was normal. R-B-34- Herbie read books on science very quickly but he wanted to read novels to find out how humans minds work and to know about human feelings. Herbie knew Dr Calvin's secret feelings towards Milton Ash and he told him, that Milton loved her. Herbie went on telling everybody about what he cored read in other people's minds, but he didn't tell the truth but what they wanted to hear because if he did he would be breaking the 1st Law “A robot must not injure a human being”. Herbie knew everything including the mistake when he was being produced. At last Herbie was unable to face the conflict he was in because if he told the truth he would be hurting and if he didn't tell the truth he would be hurting as well, then he broke and he would never speak again.

LITTLE LOST ROBOT: When the writer saw S. Calvin again he asked her about the robots working on the development of atomic engines for space travels on the asteroids. S. Calvin had to go to the station for 1st time because of an emergency, she wasn't happy at all. A robot had lost, work at the station had stopped and it couldn't begin again until the robot was found. Really they “had found it”. The day before, 62 new robots of the same type arrived from Earth, only two were going to remain in that station, but when they counted them, after their robot was lost, there were 63 robots, so the extra one was “theirs” but they didn't know which one. The type of their robots were robots whose brains had the 1st Law modified but it was a secret and just a few NS-2, type Nestor were made for them and they were made without serial numbers. They searched their robot by asking each one if they had worked there, of course, one was lying. Dr Calvin suggested destroying all 63 robots but it would be to destroy millions of dollars. The reason why they needed these robots was that they work with some radiation dangerous for humans. Dr Calvin interviewed the 63 robots in 5 hours and with no success. As one had deliberately lied to her she had to develop more tests. This time they tried with games, they were tests on reaction to the 1st Law and all the robots succeeded in doing what they had to do so it was impossible to detect the lost robot and wait for the other laws to work at last. Dr Calvin tried a test where the person to be saved was herself, only one of the robots reacted, then it told her that he had been told to get lost so he had to obey but he had been found, he asked not to be caught. The robot put its heavy arm on D. Calvin shoulder and she fell to the ground but she wasn't hurt and Nestor 10 was removed. They had also flooded the area with just enough radiation to destroy Nestor 10, but not enough to harm her. Dr Calvin explained her trick, they ad warmed all the robots that there would be radiation between themselves and the Humans Beings, so they didn't move, Now, the reason why Nestor 10 moved was that he knew that it was harmless. He knew the different types of radiation because he had worked with Mr. Black there. So he knew they had lied.

EVIDENCE: Dr Calvin was talking about the developments of the last 50 years Earth had become to small for nations and the change to Regions was begun by robots. She named Stephen Byerley who had died the year before. He had been a City Governor. There had been details in B's life that made scientists think he wasn't humans. He was never seen eating, drinking or sleeping. So the only answer could be “he was a robot” with a human appearance and humans characters but who had made it if US Robotics hadn't made it. One answer could be that someone had got hold of one of that brain, unlawfully and had created a humanoid robot. When he was 40 years old, he looked like a healthy and pleasant 40 years old man and laughed when Dr. Lanning suggested he could be a robot. He was told that they had to investigate him, so he asked how he could help. He was asked to sit down in a restaurant with witness present and eat. Byerley said he didn't think that he could do that because he didn't eat in public and he said Quinn had invented all that story because he didn't want him to be the city governor. Byerley asked Dr Calvin if she had taken some food with her, then she produced an apple, Byerley ate a bite but Dr Calvin said it proved nothing because he had to be a perfect copy of a human. Lanning was now sure that Byerley was not a robot as he had seen the man eat. There were two ways to prove if he was a robot, one was, ray him or study his psychology because if he had a positronic brain then he had to obey the Three Laws of Robotics, on the contrary he was only a good man . The newspapers were full of reports about the robot Byerley. If it was true nobody would vote him, so those who opposed to robots demanded new laws and public anger began to grow. City officials searched Byerley's house and wanted to search him with an X-Ray machine they had brought Byerley denied being searched because it wasn't in the letter. But the inspector had taken X-Rays to him with a tiny machine he had in his pocket.

Byerley was asked about the invalid man in his house, he told he was his old teacher, a lawyer and a scientist before his accident who was now in the country for 2 months. Quinn said that perhaps the invalid man was the real Byerley who has created him, but he said Quinn wouldn't be able to prove that. He thanked Quinn because of publicity, now he was world famous. There was violence in the city during the elections because they didn't want a robot to be Governor. People demanded Byerley to prove he was not a robot, he was compelled to hit a thin man who provoked him. This proved that he wasn't a robot because he would be breaking the 1st Law, but if the supposed thin man was also a robot it wouldn't be breaking the Law. Now, it could never be found out as Byerley had arranged for his body to be destroyed so there would never be any proof. Byerley was a very good City Governor and five years later he became Regional Governor and in 2044 he became the 1st World Governor. The writer never saw Susan Calvin again. She died at the age of 82.

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