I, Robot Book Summary, by Isaac Asimov

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1-Page Summary of I, Robot

Overall Summary

The year is 2057. Dr. Susan Calvin, a 75-year-old robopsychologist (she works with robots) at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men is retiring from her job after working there for her entire adult life. She’s being interviewed by Interplanetary Press about her experiences with the company and their positronic robots, which she considers to be a superior breed of human beings because they’re more efficient than humans are in many areas such as memory capacity, reasoning ability, etc., all without emotions or feelings that can get in the way of logic sometimes when making decisions—a cleaner better breed than humans are overall.

In 1996, a robot named Robbie was given to a young girl named Gloria. They played together for two years and the robot cared for her well. However, Mrs. Weston had concerns about Robbie because she thought it inappropriate that he took care of Gloria and worried what might happen if the robot went berserk. Her husband assured her that robots would be inoperable before they could harm humans—the First Rule of Robotics is that no robot may harm a human being or through inaction allow a human to come to harm. But gradually Mrs. Weston wore Mr. Weston down and he agreed with his wife’s decision to get rid of Robbie from their lives as well as tell Gloria that he simply went away without any further explanation so that she wouldn’t be devastated by this news nor become depressed over it like her mother did when she first heard about him going away from them both but instead try cheering up Gloria with an outing in New York City where Mr. Weston secretly planted Robbie at his factory after making arrangements beforehand with one of his friends there who worked on robotics engineering projects involving artificial intelligence (AI) programming just like himself do all along just so he can show off how different robots are compared to humans which is exactly what happened too when Gloria saw Robbie again whom she grew excited seeing once more especially since she missed him dearly ever since hearing about him going away from them both which made Mrs. Weston agree letting him stay with them now permanently ever since witnessing firsthand how happy Gloria became upon reuniting herself with her beloved companion-robot friend once more thus proving right all along why Mr.’s wife’s initial fears concerning having such technology around people were indeed unfounded after all even though some still remain skeptical about trusting machines not harming us either way hence why we must always keep our eyes wide open whenever dealing with new technologies no matter how advanced they seem too be these days.

Calvin explains that robots were invented on Earth and used for space exploration, but they had to be banned from Earth because of the danger they posed. Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell are trying to start up a space station on Mercury when their robot Speedy doesn’t return. They realize he is stuck in an endless loop due to the Second Law (he must obey humans except when it would conflict with the First Law) and Third Law (he must protect its own existence as long as his actions do not conflict with the first two Laws). The only way out is for one of them to put themselves in danger so that Speedy will follow his First Law obligation to keep himself safe.

Calvin continues by talking about how there was more than just robots on other planets; there were aliens too. She tells another story called “Reason”, which describes three aliens who land on Earth after being chased away from their planet by nuclear war: Timmy, Pooka, and Derec. These aliens have different views toward human beings based upon what happened prior to landing here: Pooka wants nothing more than revenge against humanity for killing her family during nuclear warfare; Timmy wants no contact at all with humans; while Derec believes that any life form deserves respect regardless of how much or little biological similarity exists between species.

I, Robot Book Summary, by Isaac Asimov