I found an interesting piece of history while looking exploring some old sci-fi yesterday, an adaptation of one of Asimov’s stories, ‘Little Lost Robot.’

This was from a short lived British series called ‘Out of this World.’ They made thirteen episodes, mostly based on stories from popular sci-fi writers of the time, but this is the only one that survived to the present day. Apparently the BBC had a habit of recording over old tapes back in the day to save money. Thankfully this one never was. Its a fun little investigation into the three laws of robotics that Asimov first laid out in ‘I, Robot’ (a collection that included this story). There’s a great attention to detail in the thorough exploration of the logic behind the laws that the robots operate on, making for a tightly focused story with a robust structure to it that I can’t help but to admire.

The premise is that a research group on Hyper Base, an asteroid research base working on hyperdrive technology, made the rather questionable decision to modify some of their robots by altering the first law that they adhere to, that no robot may harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm through inaction. That second part of the law led to some productivity issues because humans and robots couldn’t work together in dangerous conditions. The robots were constantly trying to remove the humans from potentially harmful situations and nothing could convince them to stop. Naturally the solution was to irrevocably alter some of the robots’ core programming and remove the condition that they must never allow a human to come to harm. This let them work together, but leads to some nasty, unforeseen consequences.

In the first scene, the lead engineer at the station gets frustrated with one of the robots and tells it to ‘get lost.’ It interprets this literally, and, finding another group of robots ready to ship out to Saturn, hides among its fellows. These twenty identical robots however do not have the modified first law, and the base can’t possibly ship out a dangerous robot that doesn’t adhere to the basic principles that all robots are supposed to have. Since all the robots are identical, it’s impossible to figure out which is which.

To find a solution other than killing all the robots, the researchers at Hyper Base call in Dr. Susan Calvin, the foremost robot psychologist. She tries to determine which robot is the one with a modified first law through a series of tests where a human is put in harm’s way. These tests are the crux of the story and I encourage you to watch the episode if you really want all the juicy details. It explores how a seemingly small modification can completely alter the robot’s operating principles and ultimately turn it into something uncontrollable.

I’ve always found Asimov to be a little dry, but it makes me want to go give the rest of those stories in ‘I, Robot’ another try. His ideas are so cool, but all of his characters are kinda lackluster by any standard. Maybe if I focused on consuming the ideas rather than expecting any sort of character development it’d be more worthwhile.

Thank you for watching,

Benjamin Hawley