Fear of Robot Superiority

In Thursday’s class, we discussed how the anxiety about the human role increases with each chapter. The second half of I, Robot continued with this theme of human anxiety and vulnerability. The human fear of robots, however, is not necessarily primarily that robots will harm them. After all, they technically never could because of the First Law. Although robot-themed literature often depicts robots as dangerous or threatening, I, Robot shows that humans may fear robots more for their innate superiority. On page 119 (in my version), Stephen Byerley asks Dr. Calvin: “Oh, are robots so different from men, mentally?” She replies, “Worlds different… Robots are essentially decent.” In I, Robot, robots display characteristics that humans strive for, but can never really attain. To be “decent” requires an unconditional sense of good that only robots are programmed for. The robots do not only appear morally better than humans. Humans fear them also for the extent to which they displace the human race in labor and achievement, yet remain technological mysteries. Dr. Calvin later says, “Perhaps roboticists as a whole should now die, since we can no longer understand our own creations”(135). This assertion stems back to the whole complex of the impossibility of man creating something better than himself. In this quote, Dr. Calvin seems to acknowledge that this complex is possible, and she seems to trust a world run by machines more than her human counterparts. At the end of the story, she says to the journalist, “I will see no more. My life is over. You will see what comes next”(148). Though this quote acts as a demonstration of Dr. Calvin’s readiness to let go of the consuming world of robotics, it figuratively speaks to the greater audience that reads I, Robot. Whether it is a warning, a generalization, or just a fictitious statement, we can understand it as it applies to our technologically progressive society today.