A Conversation for 'The Complete Robot' by Isaac Asimov
Helpful to society?
Zathras (Unofficial Custodian of H2G2 Room 101. ACE and holder of the BBC Pens) Started conversation Apr 20, 2001
Nice article.
One point that I might argue is that Asimov's robots were not necessarily helpful to society. They were helpful to humans as individuals due to the three laws, but whether they were a net benefit to society was arguably something Asimov was less certain of. (See for instance the robot novel The Naked Sun)
Z
Helpful to society?
Casanova the Short Posted May 19, 2001
See for instance Multivac, The Evitable Conflict (and associated stuff).
Touché (desperately hopes not to get yikesed)
Helpful to society?
R. Daneel Olivaw -- (User 201118) (Member FFFF, ARS, and DOS) ( -O- ) Posted Nov 23, 2002
Part of the reason he begins phasing out robots in THe Naked Sun and Robots and Empire is that someone (I think an editor at doubleday) wanted him to combine the robot and foundation novels. Since there were no robots in the galactic empire, he needed a reason to phase them out. Robots seem to be helpful to society in his earlier stories and books. IE. "the evitable conflict", THe Caves of Steel,
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