A movie like "Star Wars" has appealed to all types of people and over many generations, however taking pleasure in a few Scifi films such as "Stars Wars", "Star Trek", and "Aliens" makes someone a science fiction
When choosing "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov I was hoping to rebound from my not so enjoyable experience reading my first scifi novel, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Asimov, the godfather of science fiction, wrote hundreds of books based on this subject and was Vice President of Mensa International at one point during his membership there according to "I Asimov, A Memoir". He's SMART. I'm Joey Tribbiani brainy from "Friends" compared to him, but that is a moo point. You know it's like a cows opinion, it doesn't matter. It's Moo! My wife and I, however, enjoyed that Will Smith movie with the same name and I do rather enjoy a good futuristic tale so have at it.
I will start by saying to those who might read "I, Robot" that besides a few of the same characters(Dr. Lanning, Susan Calvin, the robots) the book and movie are like angus beef burger and Boca burger to each other.
"I, Robot" the novel.
The year is 2057 and the advancement of robot technology has created a world where robot machines exist together with humans inharmoniously. The ability of the robot to mimic every movement besides facial expression and the installation of a positronic brain(giving the robots the ability for critical thinking) had to be balanced with the 3 Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not harm a human, or , through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by humans except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect it's own existence as long as it doesn't conflict with the first 2 Laws.
The Laws programmed into this positronic brain prevented the robots from overpowering the humans with their superior intellect and physicality.
The novel is a collection of 9 quizzical stories explained in an interview by Susan Calvin on how these 3 Laws have been applied throughout the technological advancements of Robotics. 7 out of the 9 stories required humans to investigate the actions of their robot counterparts to get make sense of their dire dilemmas. Each story and each chapter brought in a unique robot with it's puzzling situation requiring the robopsychologists(Susan Calvin) help. One robot's a mind reader that aims to tell each person it comes into contact with what they want to hear to make them happy. Another robot was ordered to get lost by a frustrated human which it did but its first law was slightly manipulated for the purposes of the government(what a surprise) so it became an expensive liability. Here's a funny one. A robot who didn't believe humans created him, instead believing this mainframe machine was his master bringing a consequence to the first law of robotics. Robots' logic states that it's not probable that a inferior life form can create something superior to themselves.
I had some fun reading this science fiction novel but I had to make sure to have take aspirin
beforehand due to the amount of make believe technical terms used by the author. I had to keep reminding myself to just follow the story but I had to look up others thoughts on some peculiar sentences. It drove me nuts sometimes. I have ADHD and I just learned that we read differently then normal readers in the fact we read word, word, word, and not whole sentences with fluidity. How easier my goal would be if I tackled books that way. If only there were a CCKV(community college kids version) or NDDV(new dumbed down version) I would have enjoyed it much more.
It is unfortunate that we haven't figured out a way for people to see your videos if they are on a mobile device
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