I, Robot Response

Author's Note: This piece is a response to what I have read so far in I, Robot. I focused on Organization and Conventions, because I focused on the other sections of the writing rubric i my last piece. I decided to summarize in the body paragraphs and not in the author's note because I thought it would be easier to make connections and insert my thoughts. 

Imagine a world with billions of chunks of metal walking around helping humans. These objects, or more referred to as robots, would look similar to us, but different enough so we tell which is which. The robots could also be programmed to do anything. Anything. They could be your doctor, your best friend, your babysitter, or your personal assistant. The list goes on and on. I, Robot takes this setting and tells you about different instances with different kinds of robots and people. But one  question is the theme throughout the book. Are robots helpful, or harmful to humans.

The first story is about a little girl and her friend (robot) Robbie. They would play and tell stories and do anything that any set of best friends would do. That is until it is forced to be taken away by the child's mother. The following parts of the story are very astonishing. The girl is completely devastated and depressed. She begins to lose weight and is extremely antisocial. Based on the outcome this was a terrible decision by the parents to have the robot even be a part of their child's life, let alone allow her to be emotionally attached to it. Because she is so young and immature, she doesn't even know the difference between the robot and an actual living person with a soul and a beating heart, so taking it away would be the same as killing her best friend in her in her mind. It's amazing  how the parents could be so lazy as to allow there daughter to be connected to something so artificial. Maybe the makers of the robot did too good of a job. Maybe they made it so human, so much like a person that it could trick a little girl into thinking it was a real person. It would probably of been better to make it more like a pet or a toy, than a robot that you can relate to as a person.

There are more mistakes that the family made.  Robbie cost a fortune for the parents. It was mentioned by the dad to of cost half of his salary. That's more than a new car in modern times.  The girl eventually gets so fed-up with the absence of the robot in her life that she goes to the extent of going to the factory that Robbie was taken to try to talk to him. There ends up to be an accident in which the girl is almost run over by a tractor, but Robbie swoops in the save the day, saving the little girl's life. This earns the trust from the parents and Robbie comes back home. That is completely pointless, because if Robbie wasn’t even introduced to the child none of this would of even happened, and she would live to be a normal person with real friends.

Reading this book, you have to keep in mind that it was published in 1950. 62 years ago. So the whole thing is an interpretation of what he thinks the world would be like in the future.  I saw some of this when he mentioned “jet cars” and even the main idea of robots being so abundant.  Even though it was interesting back then to wonder and dream about the future, it is still very much so to do it now, especially about robots