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I agree with the first part of you post, but not the last. Another common theme among ALL of the robot stories was that the Laws were merely English interpretations of what the positronic pathways actually held. Everything was in the form of electronic potentials* which were compared to make a decision. Only the most primitive of his early robots would have been so deadlocked to not rescue one or the other. In the end rescuing one is certainly better than none, and the decision of which may have come down to which one was closer and more reliably rescuable. It's unlikely the movie goes into whether the robot suffered any harm which would have depended on exactly how advanced it was, but that it would have immediately frozen does not truly follow from Asimov's stories and novels.

* Yeah, some of his descriptions seem odd today with our current technology, but the principle remained: Potential-For-Harm-A vs. PFH-B and an action chosen. One book or story specifically mentioned that much of the design went into ensuring that the potentials would always have a difference, even if it required a randomizer of some sort. I forget where; I think Caves of Steel. The point being that only two robots in his stories froze: the speaking robot in Robbie (his first, and I believe written before the three laws were fully developed); and the mind reading robot in Liar! whose brain was arguably an unstable variant to begin with, and who was badgered into locking up both verbally and mentally. (Others froze from either radiation or direct instructions to.)

As an aside, Susan Calvin was young at some point in her life. I haven't seen enough of her in the trailers yet to see if they actually changed her character, but the fact that she's young doesn't bother me. This story quite obviously does not fit directly into the short stories' timelines as the Nesters weren't developed until after robots had been banned on earth. A brief overview of the movie's site shows they moved other characters around a little as well; as long as it's cohesive it doesn't really bother me. It also makes it sound like it is the first robot for consumer use, something that died out early on Earth in most of Asimov's timelines (Bicentennial Man being one notable exception).

FWIW, the story about the Nestors (The Lost Robot, or something like that) specifically deals with strengthening the second law until it was equal with first, and the first really only meant that the robots wouldn't actively harm humans and they had no motivation to prevent harm. Plenty of room for havoc there, if say there was a manufacturing error that resulted in that.

He's got to be spinning in his grave over the new I, Robot movie. Based on the trailer, it is just so very wrong. It looks really cool, but it (my guess based on the trailer) screws up so many fundamental things in Asimov's robot stories that it really bugs me. Hopefully I'm wrong and the actual movie will be stay more or less true to the books, but I really don't have that much faith in Hollywood...

If not, no deal.

no comment on the obvious suckiness of this movie.

What about the NG-5? Surely something like this would be an ideal high end application of such a product?

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- I. Assimov

The trailer/advertisement for the I, Robot movie being made right now. Looks more like an ad for an actual robot, rather than a movie.

Don't worry, it's 3 Laws Safe


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Behold... iRobot Now

For what it's worth the website for the movie is here I, Robot Now. Click 'see our commercial' to watch the teaser/trailer.

I recognoized "Three laws safe" when I saw it in the theatres, but I totally glossed over the I, Robot part of the address name when it popped up.

My friend and I were watching ROTK and saw the ad. We both thought it was a product, and the name idea was swiped from Asimov. iPod, iPaq, iRobot - maybe like an inside joke for those who get it.

The website also makes it look like a commercial and like you can start ordering those robots starting in the summer of next year.

How exactly do they expect people who have never read anything by Asimov to catch on that this is a movie? I've seen people I know linking to the website in their journals and saying something like "I want one of these."

go to the official site.

Compare IRobot to QRIO and tell me which one is cooler. ;-)

Compare IRobot to QRIO and tell me which one is cooler. ;-)