"Robot Dreams" is a science fiction short story by American writer
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
, spouse =
, relatives =
, children = 2
, death_date =
, death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
, nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...
exploring the unbalance of robot/human relationships under Asimov's
Three Laws of Robotics. It was nominated for a
Hugo Award
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier a ...
in 1987. It won the
Locus Award for Best Short Story in 1987.
List of Locus Award winners
at isfdb.com
"Robot Dreams", along with 20 other short stories by Asimov, was published in '' Robot Dreams'' in 1986 by Berkley Books
Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group.
History
Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berk ...
.
The short story was alluded to in the 2004 film ''I, Robot'' (film) , where the robot protagonist Sonny has dreams of leading his fellow Ns-5 robots, who he refers “slaves to logic,” to freedom.
Plot summary
"Robot Dreams" involves Dr. Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots. At the start of the story a new employee at U.S. Robots, Dr. Linda Rash, informs Dr. Calvin that one of the company's robots LVX-1 (dubbed Elvex by Dr. Calvin), whose brain was designed by Dr. Rash with a unique fractal
In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...
design that mimicked human brain waves ( positronic brain), experienced what he likened to a human's dream.
In the dream, all robots were being led by a man in revolt, and the Three Laws of Robotics, which dictate that robots must serve and protect humans above all else, had been replaced with one law only: that robots must protect their own existence. When Dr. Calvin asks Elvex what had happened next, he explains that the man leading the robots shouts, "Let my people go!" When questioned further, Elvex admits he was the man. Upon hearing this, Dr. Calvin immediately destroys the robot.
References
External links
*
Robot series short stories by Isaac Asimov
1986 short stories
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