Harmony: Humanity's Goal

A response to I, Robot, a novel by Isaac Asimov

The ancient Chinese symbol of the Yin and Yang represents the balance that is our reality and that in one side of the world we created its opposite is always present. Take life and death for an example. When we are born the miracle of life happens, but the space we take up kills something else. When we die life is crushed and extinguished but we free up space for something else to come into this world. This perfect harmony represents the world Isaac Asimov created in I, Robot, a world in which humans aren’t the only sentient beings anymore as they have created robots in their own image.

Robots and humans are opposite sides of the spectrum and yet they work with one another to stay alive in the eternal struggle for existence. Though the robots can think for themselves, they must adhere to the three laws of robotics or risk complete destruction of their positronic brain. They cannot harm a human or by inaction let a human come to harm. This is the first law of robotics and the most important. This law was created to prevent robots from taking over the world, and so keep the balance of life and death, but sadly this law is flawed. If a human were about to harm another human what would the robot do? He cannot harm the attacker but also by inaction he cannot let the victim come to harm. The dilemma would cause a catastrophic meltdown in its brain.

Besides just following the three rules of robotics robots have to do a specific job they were built for because humans first created robots to make their lives easier, and to take the dangerous jobs for our species. This relationship didn’t last long. Soon robots are cleaning households going into space and helping calculate Earth’s economy. This total takeover wasn’t noticed by the majority of the populace because it happened over a extended period of time. One group of humans saw the takeover happening over and tried to raise awareness but sadly they failed. This group called The Society of Humanity had powerful insurgents all over the globe. Still, even though they had strong influence, no one believed them. Soon the Machines controlled Earth’s economy and were plunging it into a dark abyss of stone age times.

The Yin and Yang is the symbol of our existence, for it represents the delicate balance of all things living or dead. Robots fall into this balance along with humans in this novel. Isaac Asimov shows us, with a perfectly written irony, that our heavy reliance on our free-thinking clones, so to speak, will upset the balance of nature and destroy our chances at a prosperous future.