I
imamartian
Anyone remember, or know about this guy? seems he was a prolific writer... and i seem to remember him in the Omni magazine.... anyone else remember that?
I robot....formulated the three laws of the positronic brain...whatever they were.
I
imamartian
oh come on Sooey, explain your gibberish !!!
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
He wrote lots of SciFi, short stories and science articles/books. I like his stuff but it isn't spectacularly profound literature, more of a light read before bedtime type of stuff.
A lot of his books all tie in with each other even though they can be read on their own. Thus in Foundation and Earth the sixth "foundation" book he introduces another Law of Robotics.
He calls it the "Zeroth Law" because it comes before the first law and it states -
"A robot may not injure humanity or , through inaction,allow humanity to come to harm" and of course the other laws are then modifiedso they do not come into conflict with this law.
I Robot was of course made into a film with Will Smith but frankly it's horse plop
J
joinerjohn
I Robot , starring Will Smith, is a cracking film. Special effects are great. I bet this film couldn't have possibly been made 20yrs ago. I particularly liked the tie in with US Robotics The company that sold us all those 56k modems when the interwebthingumajig was in it's infancy.
To be honest John I 'm not a big fan of Will Smith anyway. I suppose I robot is a bit better than the god awful Independance Day but when a film is so unlike a decent book I rarely heap praise on it.
I Robot , starring Will Smith, is a cracking film. Special effects are great. I bet this film couldn't have possibly been made 20yrs ago. I particularly liked the tie in with US Robotics The company that sold us all those 56k modems when the interwebthingumajig was in it's infancy.
US Robotics was the name of the fictional company in the Asimov books - which were written decades before the real life modem manufacturing company was formed.
I
imamartian
Science fiction in the 50's and 60's was rife.... and kind of accurate... but what is today's science fiction? is there any?
J
joinerjohn
Modern Sci Fi is seen in the form of Stargate, Star Trek etc. I must confess to not having seen anything in 50's Sci Fi that was remotely accurate, nor anything in modern Sci Fi that could ever be termed accurate. Although to be fair, if I live to be 300yrs old, I may well change my mind.
There's tons of new scifi out there. Greg Bear, Neal Ascher, Iain M Banks to name but a few authors. And there are still quite a few pulp scifi writers too but fortunately I can't remember any of their names.
When I was a teenager I read the entire series of yellow "Gollanz" SF books. Most of the authors' names I forget but how about Poul Anderson, Roger Zelanzy (or Zelazny?), Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert, Frederick Pohl.
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My grandfather happliy devoured all of his books, a bit way off the mark for me, but I was 10-13 years old at the time.
