this story has a robot built for the moon or mars to operate an initially undescribed device - the disinto - escape (accidentally, it wasn't actually trying to break out or anything) from the factory, wander through an earth town, happen upon a modern day tinker, build his disinto out of spare parts, use it - which involves removing a nearby mountain top - and in doing so scare the tinker out of his wits who then commands the robot to destroy the machine and forget everything that happened today (so that the tinker can escape liability) - which the robot then does much to dismay of the just arriving US Robots search party who recognizes a massive improvement in energy consumption of the new disinto (apparently the human designed ones require massive amounts of energy whereas the now destroyed disinto was powered by flashlight batteries)
1. asimov continues with creating the impression that humans will be not just distrustful of robots but incredibly fearful of them - despite robots having existed for some years people run or attack on site of the wandering robot ... i understand a movement toward banning robots and i understand distrust ... but visceral fear? ... this seems extreme
2. the robot as worker - the robot feels compelled to work, immediately goes out in search of the tools he needs to conduct his tasks - this says a lot more about the psychology of the robots than the three laws alone - something sinister i can't quite describe yet ... hmmm ...
3. the robot as midlessly obedient - the robot is told to forget, and he forgets ... this also seems extreme ... with modern day materials it's virtually impossible to erase computer memory and human memory is highly indelible if also incredibly unreliable ... to be able to command forgetting, it seems like a workaround of the three laws could be accomplished here
4. energy issues - this is the first story to bring out asimov's interest in energy issues, something which i gather will be a kind of undercurrent of his later works (i've read foundation and he stresses the importance of "nucleaics" there) ... despite this he never actually seems to explain how the robots are powered
Asimov seems somewhat distinct from other science fiction writers as he's not so much concerned with the science as he is with the ethics/psychology/philosophy ... not once does he explain how a robot actually works, how it's gained self awareness or consciousness or artificial intelligence ... he says very very little about the development of robots or any of the real science behind it ... the only thing we really get is the three laws - almost perfectly designed to overcome the fear he sees humanity embracing in the face of robots
One has a sneaking suspicion that if mass produced AI robots are ever created, they will somehow have the three laws wired into their brains ... to assuage human fears ... although asimov seems to believe that will be unsuccessful anyway, despite his long robot advocacy ... but asimov appears to have little else to robotics than these ethical concerns and a few vocabulary words and he seems bound by only the most rudimentary elements of science
more on this line of thought later
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