Robbie by Isaac Asimov Short Story Analysis

Ever since Isaac wrote the novel about Robbie it has made us think, are things like that actually possible to have in our future? Imagine a world with robots like Robbie. Where could find out the weather or the temperature in your room, along with millions of songs and jokes. A robot can keep you company if you are feeling down! If not for Isaac Asimov writing about Robbie in the 1940 science fiction novel Talking Robot, we may not have Talking Robots today.

How did Isaac Asimov even think about a talking robot like Robbie?...

Isaac Asimov is best known for his foundation series on robots. He even made 3 “laws” of robotics. First, a robot may not injure a human being, second, they must protect its own existence as long as it does not interfere with the first or second law., and finally, a robot must obey the orders given to it by their human. In fact Isaac has many collections of books about robotics (Britannica). Like “The Caves of Steel”. A book about two people who had nothing alike. A city police detective and Elijah Baley, a spacer robot. They had to work together to solve the murder of a Spacer and while doing it hide it from the general public. During the 40’s people enjoyed movies, going to dances, watching tv, listening to the radio, and going to sporting events (WIKI NOT WIKIPEDIA!!). I think Isaac might have gotten his inspiration from the invention of TV’s. Which was invented in 1927. I think he got the idea by watching television and hearing any sports games or movies come from it, almost as if it were alive and talking. Maybe he got the idea of technology actually being real and being able to talk to us from the tv. 

Sometime during the book, Isaac wrote about a robot that can do math problems, tell you the temperature currently, and many other pieces of information that you could find useful, “It may be nice to know that the square of fourteen is one hundred ninety-six, that the temperature at the moment is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air-pressure 30.02 inches of mercury, that the atomic weight of sodium is 23, but one doesn't really need a robot for that. One especially does not need an unwieldy, totally immobile mass of wires and coils spreading over twenty-five square yards.”

Robots like this would be so useful! Do we have anything like it today?

Ever since Isaac wrote the novel about Robbie it has made us think, are things like that actually possible to have in our future?

Talking robots like “Robbie” in 1940 was the first time anyone ever mentioned talking robots. But in 1954 George Devol made it possible that we could have technology like Robbie in this world. In 1954 George made the first version of a talking robot. It was called Unimate. Unimate looked not much like an actual robot, but one of those machines that work in buildings that wrap chocolate and stuff. According to the text, Unimate was used by autoworkers for metalworking and welding processes (Unimate-ROBOTS). Saldy, Unimate was sold to Westinghouse in 1980 and shortly after Unimate started to disappear. Eventually in 2011, Siri was born! She/He was invented by Adam Cheyer. Siri was a feature of the Apple IPhone 4S. Siri is a robot who can sound like a male or female with an accent of your choice. Siri was great but many questions you asked her/him could not be answered (The History of Apple's Siri.). Then, in 2014 Alexa came into our world. Invented by Jeff Bezos. Alexa is like Siri as she can also have accents and she can go by different names like “computer”. Alexa, unlike Siri, can answer almost all of your questions and she is best known for playing music. However, she can also set alarms and turn on lights. As you can see this idea has advanced a lot over the past years!

As of right now there are no predictions of what robots will look like or be able to do in the future. But according to the text, they expect to have something like Robbie in 2050. Not just a small device that can tell you the weather or play music but a robot that can walk and even cook (The Robots Are Coming). I think this could be easily accomplishable. They have the technology, they just need to build a physical body for it to do things like take care of your house and cook. "Actions such as his could come only from a robot, or from a very honorable and decent human being.”-Isaac Asimov. I think Isaac is trying to save that maybe robots could even be able to do things we can’t today! LIke the ability to fly, break hard stuff, and even see tiny microscopic things. I am so excited for Robbie to soon be born into our world!

This information shows us that talking robots like Robbie could be possible in our future, seeing how much we have grown in just 82 years and that we do have a Robbie but we just didn’t see it!

Without Isaac we might not have the electronics we have today. It's possible that nobody would even think about something like a talking robot in your very own home. We have grown so much in the past 82 years. We now have Alexa’s to play music and do so much more! We can find the weather and turn on lights by just saying, “Alexa what's the weather?” or “Alexa turns on my outlet.”. Our technology kept advancing until we got where we are today. In the past Robbie wouldn’t even be thinkable. But thanks to modern technology today we have things like Robbie!