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creation of new robots (sometimes complicated by inaccurate or unspecific orders, as in "Runaround"); others come about through accident. Both stem naturally from Asimov's premise that unforeseen consequences or accidents are eventualities that rational persons cannot guard against. |
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"Catch That Rabbit" concerns a master robot with six sub-robots who is created for asteroid mining but occasionally malfunctions when not watched and cannot remember why. It turns out that six sub-robots are too many for Davie to handle in an emergency. When Donovan and Powell discover this, partly by accident, they are able to pinpoint the affected part of Davie's positronic brain, the part that is stressed by a six-way order. |
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"Liar!" begins with the accidental creation of a telepathic robot, Herbie. Herbie is asked to tell each of the characters what he has learned from reading other characters' minds, and because he cannot "harm" them, according to the First Law, he tells them what they want to hear. In particular, he tells plain, spinsterish Susan Calvin that the man she loves, Milton Ashe, is in love with her. When they all discover that Herbie has been lying to them, Susan drives Herbie insane by forcing on him the dilemma that no matter what he does he will be hurting someone. |
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"Little Lost Robot" brings in a search for a hyperatomic (interstellar) drive at a base in the asteroids. A new kind of robot, the Nestor series, has been created to work with scientists in dangerous situations from which ordinary robots would pull the scientists to safety. Some Nestors have not been impressioned, therefore, with the entire First Law, and one of them is told (the Second Law) by an irritated scientist to get lost. The variation Asimov used here was the conditions under which the First Law would have to be relaxed, those conditions being when robots had to discriminate between dangers, and the possible problems this might involve. When the Nestor hides among identical robots and refuses to reveal itself, Susan Calvin attempts to force it into the open by placing a man in danger. At first, all the robots spring to save the man. In a second, slightly different experiment, they all remain seated, having been convinced by the hiding Nestor that any attempt to save the man could not succeed and they would only destroy themselves. In a final test, Susan places herself in danger. The malfunctioning Nestor reveals itself by recognizing that harmless infrared rays rather than dangerous gamma rays are involved and by forgetting, in its feeling of superiority, that the other robots have not been trained, as it has, to tell the difference. |
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