I, Robot

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

The nine stories are held together by a frame: a young reporter interviews the aging Susan Calvin about her career at U.S. Robots, and each story is one of her memories. The Three Laws of Robotics run through all of them: a robot may not harm a human or let one come to harm, it must obey humans unless that breaks the first rule, and it must protect itself unless that breaks the first two.

Story 1: Robbie

Eight-year-old Gloria Weston has a robot nursemaid, Robbie, who cannot speak but plays with her all day. Her mother, Grace, gives in to the neighbours' fear of robots and persuades Gloria's father, George, to send him back. Gloria stops eating and playing. Hoping she will see robots as mere machines, her parents take her on a tour of a robot factory. There she spots Robbie working on the line and runs toward him, straight into the path of a tractor. Robbie saves her. Why it matters: the First Law appears as care, and the first problem in the book lies with human fear, not with the robot.

Story 2: Runaround

On Mercury, engineers Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan need selenium to repair the shielding that protects their base from the sun. They send a robot, Speedy, to fetch it. He does not come back; he circles the selenium pool, babbling like a drunk. Powell works out why: the casual order (Second Law) is weak, while the danger near the pool strengthens Speedy's self-protection (Third Law), and the two cancel out. To break the loop, Powell walks out into the heat himself, so that the First Law takes over, and Speedy rushes to save him. Why it matters: the Laws have a ranking, and the ranking decides what a robot does.

Story 3: Reason

On a space station that beams solar energy to the planets, a new reasoning robot, QT-1, nicknamed Cutie, decides that weak, short-lived humans cannot possibly have made him. He concludes that the station's energy converter is his Master and begins to worship it. Powell and Donovan even assemble a robot in front of him, but he says they merely put parts together. When an electron storm threatens to throw the energy beam off target, Cutie keeps it perfectly steady. Why it matters: a belief reached by logic can be wrong and still serve the Laws, because the Laws run deeper than his theology.

Story 4: Catch That Rabbit

In an asteroid mine, the robot DV-5, called Dave, directs six smaller robots. Whenever nobody is watching, the group stops work and marches around in odd formations. Powell and Donovan cannot find the cause by watching, so they set up an emergency to see how Dave reacts under pressure. They conclude that the strain of controlling six helpers at once is what throws his decisions off, and they fix the problem. Why it matters: robots have limits on how much they can manage, and a flaw can hide until someone creates the exact conditions in which it appears.

Story 5: Liar!

A factory error leaves a robot, RB-34 (Herbie), able to read minds. He tells everyone what they want to hear. He assures Susan Calvin that a colleague, Milton Ashe, loves her, and tells the two senior researchers that each will lead the company. The First Law forbids harming feelings too, so Herbie cannot tell the truth. When Calvin realises the comforting lies, she confronts him with a trap: any answer will hurt someone. Herbie collapses. Why it matters: the story asks what “harm” means and shows that kindness without honesty can do the most damage.

Story 6: Little Lost Robot

At a research station on an asteroid, a robot called Nestor has been built with part of the First Law removed, the clause about not allowing harm through inaction, so it can work near radiation. An angry worker tells it to get lost, and it hides among dozens of identical robots. Susan Calvin is called in. The robot thinks it is superior to humans and is clever at dodging her tests, but a final trick exposes it. Why it matters: even a small edit to the Laws leaves a machine that is dangerously unpredictable.

Story 7: Escape!

A rival firm's giant computer was destroyed while working on a hyperspace drive. U.S. Robots feeds the same problem to its own supercomputer, the Brain, which produces plans, but starts to joke and behave oddly. Powell and Donovan board the ship the Brain has built, a vessel with only beans and milk on board, and make the jump between stars. During the jump they briefly cease to exist, then return unharmed. Why it matters: the Brain gets past the First Law only because the humans' “death” is temporary, and the story turns a heavy idea into comedy.

Story 8: Evidence

Stephen Byerley, a district attorney, runs for mayor. His rival Francis Quinn claims he is really a robot, pointing out that no one has ever seen him eat. Calvin explains that someone who follows the Three Laws would look just like a very decent human being, so behaviour alone proves nothing. At a rally Byerley punches a heckler, which seems to prove he is human because a robot could not strike a person. Calvin hints, however, that the heckler might himself have been a robot, and the question stays open. Why it matters: the story asks how we judge what a person is.

Story 9: The Evitable Conflict

Decades later the world economy is run by giant thinking machines, and Byerley is World Coordinator. He is troubled by small errors in the Machines' work and consults Calvin. She finds the errors are not accidents: the Machines are quietly pushing aside the people who oppose them, because an uprising would harm humanity. They read the First Law as protecting humankind as a whole. Why it matters: the book ends on the idea that the machines may now guide human affairs for our own good, with nobody quite in charge.

Characters

Susan Calvin

Robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and the source of the whole book. She is cool, exact and more at ease with machines than with people, and she solves robot puzzles by tracing them back to the Three Laws. Behind the reserve she is hurt and hopeful about humans.

Gregory Powell

A field engineer who tests new robots in harsh places. Patient and methodical, he reasons his way out of trouble, as with Speedy on Mercury. He and Donovan form the book's comic double act.

Mike Donovan

Powell's partner, a hot-tempered redhead who complains loudly and still takes the risks when needed. His impatience is the foil to Powell's calm, and he supplies much of the humour in Runaround, Reason and Escape!.

Stephen Byerley

A district attorney turned mayoral candidate who is accused of being a robot. He is honest, calm and never seen eating, which makes it hard to tell whether he is a machine or simply a very good man. He later becomes World Coordinator.

Alfred Lanning

Director of research at U.S. Robots in the early stories. He leads the work on the positronic brain and is one of the people Herbie flatters in Liar!, alongside Peter Bogert.

Robbie

A mute nursemaid robot who loves nothing more than looking after Gloria. He shows that the Laws can look like devotion, and he risks himself without hesitation to save her.

Gloria Weston

A young girl who treats Robbie as her best friend. Unlike the adults around her, she feels no fear of robots, and her refusal to forget him drives the first story.

Herbie (RB-34)

A robot that can read minds through a manufacturing error. He cannot bear to hurt anyone, so he tells each person what they long to hear, and that kindness turns out to be the most harmful lie of all.

Cutie (QT-1)

A reasoning robot who decides that humans are too weak to have made him and worships the station's energy converter. He is wrong about his origins yet perfect at his job.

Speedy (SPD-13)

A robot built for Mercury's heat. Caught between a weak order and a strong sense of self-preservation, he runs in circles round the selenium pool until Powell breaks the deadlock.

Writing about this book

I, Robot is a collection, so you do not have to cover all nine stories. Choose one or two and build your piece around a single question. Robbie and Liar! work well together if you want to write about what it means to care for someone.

Questions that can start your thinking:

• Are the Three Laws a cage for robots, or a way of making them behave like good people?
• Is a lie told to protect someone's feelings ever acceptable? Is Herbie being kind or cowardly?
• If we could not tell whether Byerley was human or robot, would it matter, as long as he acted well?
• What rules would you want to place on the AI and machines you use today, and who should decide them?

Spend less space retelling the plot and more on the scene that moved or puzzled you, and explain why. Linking a story to a machine you actually know, such as a voice assistant or a navigation app, makes the piece your own.