Tag: Isaac Asimov

‘Evidence’ by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov wrote extensively in his fiction about robots. One can trace the fascination with animating the inanimate back through recorded history and religious texts. Consider ‘men of clay’ and the notion of the ‘golem’. Asimov’s robots were made in the shape of men, sometimes uncannily human in appearance, with ‘positronic’ brains. They could operate autonomously, but Asimov set them up constrained by ‘The Three Laws of Robotics’, which prevented robots from harming humans or allowing them to come to harm from inaction on their part. Robots would sacrifice themselves for a human life. I was never clear that we could regard the robots as living beings. But perhaps they could be thought of as ‘sentient’. The emphasis in Asimov’s stories was on the positronic brain, but we humans don’t just think with our brains, our bodies and complex neurobiological activity are part of the story. How would the bodies and senses of a robot affect its thinking? Is it capable of emotion? But Asimov’s robots could be relied upon not to kill you, which is surely a good thing!

This one, ‘Evidence’, written in 1946, stuck in my mind, perhaps because it included a female scientist, Susan Calvin. In this story she attempts to prove the humanity of a character, the lawyer Stephen Byerley, who some believed had replaced himself with a robot after being seriously injured in a car accident.

Byerley ran for the position of mayor against an opponent who was suspicious that Byerley was not human. That he was never seen to sleep or eat was a factor. (Robots don’t need to do these things.) Susan Calvin produces an apple from her handbag. Byerley bites the apple. He must be human! (Reminds me of another story of a woman and an apple…) However, Calvin, privately, considers the possibility that Byerley has a stomach installed. Ultimately, she vouches for Byerley’s humanity, as even though she believes him to be a robot, she also believes that a robot would make a better mayor as he/it would never harm a human being. Susan Calvin lies for the sake of humanity. Byerley becomes mayor and later goes on to higher things. When he dies, his remains are atomised so that the evidence is forever hidden.

First published in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1946

‘Galley Slave’ by Isaac Asimov

On a sheer numbers basis, I’ve probably read more Asimov short stories over the years than anyone else’s, even if I hadn’t read or even reread one for about a decade before this. Modern readers can get a little sniffy about both Asimov’s style and how dated some of his views are/were. And perhaps that’s why it’s a well I haven’t returned to, but I have to admire the simplicity that others feel suggests shallowness. His writing is clean, and I’d be very happy if the same were said about my work. Having read them when I was young his originality was not diminished by countless imitations. Plus, and importantly, his short stories, involving robots or otherwise, are usually fun. Asimov wasn’t afraid to end (or indeed, to start) a story with a pun or a feghoot.

I’ve picked ‘Galley Slave’ because of the inevitable echo of the current AI ChatGPT debate/furore. In it, a robot (but why a robot? Except that’s what Asimov wrote about, able to imagine a human-sized robot with a positronic brain but seemingly unable to put that brain in a handheld device) is tasked with handling the more tedious chores of academic paper writing, but is suspected and accused of doing far more.

Asimov isn’t the only writer to imagine himself out of a job (Roald Dahl’s ‘The Great Automatic Grammatizator’most notably), except in Asimov’s case, the robot is designed specifically for proof reading and editing, and not for writing from a prompt. Yet that becomes the worry the user has, one which drives him to desperate acts, so Asimov certainly gets that aspect right.

I offer no apologies for choosing an Asimov to kick things off. It makes perfect sense, chronologically and personally. But the great thing about starting points is where you end up.

First published in the December 1957 issue of Galaxy, collected in The Rest of the Robots, 1964