I, Robot

Dr. Susan Calvin is born in 1982. That same year, US Robot and Mechanical Men Inc starts up. As a graduate student at Columbia, Calvin learns about founder Lawrence Robertson’s invention of the “positronic brain” that controls a robot. With a PhD in the field, she begins working at US Robot as the world’s first robopsychologist.

In 2057, when she is 75 and newly retired, Dr. Calvin talks to a journalist from Interplanetary Press who wants to do a feature article on her life. She says the robots her company has built are a boon to humanity, and that those who called her fellow workers “blasphemers and demon-creators” were completely wrong (98/4170). She recalls a non-vocal robot, built in 1996, who was very good with children.

Eight-year-old Gloria plays hide-and-seek with Robbie, her nursemaid robot. She then tells him the story of Cinderella; she gets to the part where the clock strikes midnight, but her mother interrupts with a call to dinner. Robbie brings her in; Mrs. Weston is curt with him as always, but he bears it calmly and departs.

Gloria’s father, George, relaxes with the Sunday paper. His wife interrupts him to complain about Robbie, “that terrible