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Questioning Human Existence through the Non-Human: I, Robot

The question “What does it to be a human?” seems to be an easy one at first glance.

However, when we try to give an answer to it, we realize that there is no exact answer to this

question. And this is what scientists and sci-fi literature have long speculated and discussed

about: the nature of our reality. In order to give an answer to it, sci-fi literature takes

contemporary developments in science and what may happen in the future thanks to these

developments as its subject matter. Likewise, Isaac Asimov, in his novel I, Robot, tries to

produce an answer to this key question by comparing future robots and human beings. In this

short essay I want to demonstrate these comparisons in the chapters “Liar!” and “Evidence”.

The stories in the novel take place in a corporation named U.S. Robots and

Mechanical Men, Inc. which produces robots with positronic brains. Dr. Calvin, the

“robopsychologist” of the corporation, tells the frame story of the novel to an interviewer

when she retires which covers her memories. We see the entire history of robotics in the short

stories chapter by chapter. Since the creators of the robots have always known their creations

can be harmful to human beings, they invent the three laws of robotics which dictate:

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come

to harm.

2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would

conflict with the First Law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the

First or Second Law.

These laws are all encoded to the robots’ positronic brains. It can be said that the corporation

aims to create better creatures than humans in every possible way, as Dr. Calvin in the
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introduction chapter states that robots are all loyal to human beings and that “They're a

cleaner better breed than we are"(2). Dr. Calvin retires around the year 2057, and the fact that

she is a robopsychologist gives us the assertion that now robots have a psyche and emotions.

We can say that emotions, survival instinct, the need to tell stories as social animals, choices,

conflicts and free will are some of the factors that define human existence. However, all these

factors are not unique to us; they are all applicable to the robots in the stories.

Katherine Hayles, in her essay “The Life Cycle of Cyborgs”, makes a comparison

between humans and machines as: “Human beings are conceived, gestated and born; they

grow up, grow old and die. Machines are designed, manufactured, and assembled; normally

they do not grow, and although they wear out, they are always capable of being disassembled

and reassembled either into the same product or a different one” (322). There is a sense in

these words that our creations not only look like us but also they are certainly better than us.

Moreover, unlike us, they are “intellectually old” and “technologically new”, which creates an

ideal for human beings, although it is impossible for us to be both wise due to experience and

be young and energetic at the same time. Having analysed some cyborg stories in her essay,

she reaches the conclusion that “humans are becoming more like androids, just as androids are

becoming more like them” (334). She further states that “humans are not the end of the line.

Beyond them looms the cyborg, a hybrid species created by crossing biological organism with

cybernetic mechanism… From the beginning it is constructed, a technological object that

confounds the dichotomy between natural and unnatural, made and born” (321). According to

Hayles, they are not so different than and distant to human beings: “Cyborgs actually do exist;

about %10 percent of the current U.S. population are estimated to be cyborgs in the technical

sense, including people with electronic pacemakers, artificial joints, drug implant systems,

implanted corneal lenses, and artificial skin”(322). So, it can be said that when a biological

part of our body is replaced with an artificial one, we become cyborgs. All types of the
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artificial existence, whether it is a cyborg, an android, a humanoid or a robot, are becoming

more and more human like and they seem to surpass us in many ways in the near future.

Donna Haraway, in her essay “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and

Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” states that “A cyborg is a cybernetic

organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature

of fiction… The cyborg is a matter of fiction… but the boundary between science fiction and

social reality is an optical illusion. Contemporary science fiction is full of cyborgs- creatures

simultaneously animal and machine, who populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted…

The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality” (604). In other

words, she asserts Hayles’ idea that most of the 20th and 21th century human beings are

cyborgs because of their lifestyle that have been shaped by technology. Sci-fi literature does

nothing other than reflecting contemporary society and social realities, as well as making

possible predictions about the future. Although cyborgs are our own creation, living with

technology everyday makes us cyborgs. She further supports her argument by stating: “Late

twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural

and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other

distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines. Our machines are disturbingly

lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert” (606).

Just like all the sci-fi literature does, the novel I, Robot also imagines a future in which

robots, androids and humanoids will surpass human beings through evolution. Throughout the

other stories, we see that the robots evolve throughout the time enormously that people start to

have a difficult time distinguishing them from human beings. For example in the first story

“Robbie”, a robot which was created as a nursemaid for a child named Gloria, appears to be

the most loyal and loving companion of her. They have an emotional bond that prevents

Gloria from making any other friend. Moreover, it is also Robbie who saves her life. It can
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also be said that the robots in the novel are better in relationships with human beings because

of their encoded three laws. They risk their lives no matter what in order to save a human, and

this kind of loyalty and self-sacrifice are things which hardly any human being possess. I

propose that in this novel Asimov not only compares human beings and robots but also

demonstrates that robot and human distinctions will become lesser and lesser in the near

future, that is, people will become more robot-like and robots will become more human-like.

In the story “Liar!” a robot called Herbie was created with an ability to read minds,

although unintentional and by mistake. Alfred Lanning, Peter Bogert and Dr. Calvin speculate

on how such a malfunction happened but they cannot find out. Because Herbie can read

minds, he tells people what they want to hear, even if it costs telling lies, just like humans do

most of the time. For instance, having read Dr. Calvin’s mind, Herbie realizes that she has

some feelings for Milton Ashe but she cannot put them to words. She tells him that she is

neither young nor beautiful and that Ashe would not find her attractive. In order to make her

happy Herbie tells her that Ashe also has feelings for her and that there are other kinds of

attraction rather than physical. He also tells her that the blonde woman Dr. Calvin saw with

Ashe is in fact his cousin. Ashe realizes that Dr. Calvin, who had a masculine and cold

appearance before, has started to pay attention to her looks. When Ashe announces that he

will soon marry the blonde girl, Calvin realizes she has been tricked by a robot. After that,

Herbie still tries to persuade her that Ashe loves her, assuring her that it is only a dream,

though in vain. Further, Ashe tells Bogert and Lanning that Herbie is a mathematical genius

while they are arguing over math. As they cannot come to any solution, Bogert goes to ask

Herbie about it. Herbie tells Bogert two things: a) you're much better at math than I am; and

b) Lanning is retiring and naming you his successor (63). Herbie knows that Bogert doesn’t

want to be inferior in maths to a robot; that is why he tells a lie. Bogert and Lanning start

fighting over this and Dr. Calvin sarcastically states: “It is just that I am not the only one that
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has been caught. There is irony in three of the greatest experts in robotics in the world falling

into the elementary trap, isn’t there?”(67). In this story the robot Herbie shares one of our

most humane needs, that is, the need to tell stories, and this assures the novel’s general idea

that robots have evolved to be identical to human beings.

The second story I intend to mention is “Evidence”. Stephen Byerley runs for mayor

(mayor of what we are not sure, probably New York) in the year 2032. But Francis Quinn,

also a politician, does not want him to become a mayor and starts a rumour that Byerley is a

robot in that nobody have seen him eating, drinking or sleeping. Quinn goes to Alfred

Lanning because he wants U.S. Robots to investigate whether he is a robot or not. Lanning

wants Byerley to sit and eat at a public place to prove that he is a human, but Dr. Calvin states

that it would prove nothing in that because humanoids are perfect imitations of human beings

he could easily act as he is eating. Rather, she tells Quinn that “[The] two methods of proof

are the physical and the psychological. Physically, you can dissect him or use an X-

ray…Psychologically; his behaviour can be studied, for if he is a positronic robot, he must

conform to the three Rules of Robotics” (109). She further says that “if Byerley follows all the

Rules of Robotics, he may be a robot, and may simply be a very good man” (109). Quinn tries

to get evidence by taking an x-ray picture, but he cannot succeed in that Byerley wears a

protective shield. So, instead, he calls Byerley and lays out his theory: the cripple named

John, whom he calls his teacher, is the real Stephen Byerley, and after the car accident, he

built a replacement robot for himself. Quinn cannot get any true evidence. However, during

the election, a man comes near Byerley on stage and dears him to hit him. Byerley hits him

and Dr. Calvin says this proves he is a human in that he has broken the first law. Just as it is in

the story “Liar!” this story gives the reader the idea that in the near future, robots are going to

evolve to be identical to humans, and they may even be better than us. Dr. Calvin states, we

“just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans” (110).
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The two stories I have mentioned and the novel I, Robot in general imagine how life

would be like with robots that resemble us more and more every day. Like all science fiction

literary works, it tries to give the exact meaning of human existence through comparison and

ends up with the conclusion that in the near future, it will become inevitable for us to share

our human characteristics and faculties with our non-human creations.

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WORKS CITED

Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot. Street and Smith Publications, 1941.

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the

Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women. Taylor and Francis Group, 1991, pp.

604-621.

Hayles, Katherine. The Lifecycle of Cyborgs: Writing the Posthuman.” A Question of

Identity: Women, Science, and Literature. Rutgers University Press, 1993, pp. 321-335.