Back in 2016 in
The Year of Reason, I discussed
Isaac Asimov's story about positronic robots, "Reason". In the very next issue of
Astounding Science-Fiction,
May 1941, Asimov had another robot story called "
Liar!". Asimov set the events of "Reason" in 2016 and "Liar!" in the far-off year 2021. I was introduced to Asimov's robot stories through the compilation
I, Robot which was first published in 1950. Later, Asimov admitted to making "
significant changes" to his story "Liar!" when it was re-printed in
I, Robot. Here in 2021, I finally read the original 1941 version from
Astounding.
When writing "Liar!", Asimov was a young nerd who had not yet been on a date with a woman. Looking back at the original version of "Liar!" from the perspective of 1950, was Asimov self-conscious about his original depiction of the romantic thoughts of
Dr. Susan Calvin? What changes did Asimov make to his own story?
One of the changes that Asimov made was the age of robot assembly line director Milton Ashe; a change from 30 to 35. There was a
discontinuity in marriage behavior during WWII, so Asimov may have been trying to keep up with the times. According to Asimov's timeline, in 2021, Susan Calvin was 38 and older than Milton.
In "Liar!", Asimov depicted Susan as having a romantic interest in Milton. I've never sat down and watched the entire 2004 film
I, Robot, but I think Kathryn Moynahan was a reasonable choice for an actress to play Dr. Calvin. For the film, Moynahan was 33 and Smith was 36.
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NS-5 robot and Will Smith
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However, the film
I, Robot is set in 2035, which plays havoc with Asimov's imaginary timeline of future robots and Susan's career as a robo-psychologist. According to Asimov, Calvin would have been 52 years old in 2035. I don't mind changing the timeline... the whole film was "inspired by" Asimov's fiction and need not be faithful to Asimov's original guesses about the pace of robotics research and development. There is something in the film about the Great Lakes being dry in 2035 and I'd hate to learn that the timeline was shifted simply to introduce the needless plot element of dry Great Lakes.
I was rather shocked to see the interior art from 1941 in
Astounding by Charles Schneeman depicting Susan and the lying robot from the story (see the image, above). In my mind, I never pictured either Susan or the robot as looking like that. The most intriguing thing I have learned about Schneeman is that about the time when
I, Robot got published, there was an aborted effort to create “
Star Empire,” which would have been a
comic strip, written by Asimov and with Schneeman doing the illustrations. Apparently the first page of that comic was published in 1989 or 1990 in
Argosy. Maybe in an alternate
Reality that Sci Fi comic by Asimov would have been continuously published all through the 1950s and might have inspired a film!
Lies, Damned Lies and Robotics (
etc)
In "Liar!", Susan and Milton are both single professionals in the same workplace (U. S. Robot & Mechanical men, Inc.), but she has never discussed with another human being her romantic attraction to Milton. Susan's secret yearnings for Milton don't remain secret when a mind-reading robot, RB-34, comes off the assembly line. The first 33 of the new RB units were all perfectly normal. Readers of "Liar!" never learn how it was possible for RB-34 to "read minds". All Asimov says about the matter is that there was "
a mistake -somewhere" in the manufacturing process.
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The demagogue Mr. Tyrone from "Liar!", 1941.
In reality, what we got for 2021 was Mr. Trump.
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Later, Asimov developed the idea that there might be another such "mistake" resulting in a second mind-reading robot (
Giskard) who was smart enough
not to tell humans about his ability to "read minds". However, fresh off the assembly line, poor RB-34 had no idea that mind reading was unusual, so within minutes of his "birth" he gave away his great secret to the first person he met. RB-34 soon got himself into trouble when he tried to use his telepathic powers.
Asimov depicted U. S. Robot & Mechanical men, Inc. director Dr. Alfred Lanning using the word "telepathic" in his 1941 story "Liar!". Lanning issues orders to Susan to study RB-34 and: "
See what else is tied up with his telepathic powers, how far they extend, how they warp his outlook, and just exactly what harm it has done to his ordinary RB properties."
As told in
The Robots of Dawn the term "telepathic" is again used in the context of an ancient legend about Susan Calvin from the far past.
Han Fastolfe, a roboticist on the planet Aurora is infatuated with the legend about a robot who could read minds. Fastolfe tells detective
Baley about, "...
a robot manufactured in those primitive days that, through some accident on the production lines, turned out to have telepathic abilities".
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in the 1950 version, Susan no longer smiles at RB-34
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Fastolfe provides a nice one page synopsis of "Liar!" and states his belief that just as Susan burned out the positronic brain circuits of RB-34, something similar must have happened to Jander Panell, a humaniform robot on Aurora. It is the mystery of Pander's death that has brought detective Baley from Earth to Aurora.
Mind Control
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Smart and snarky vs. blond and slinky.
In 1950, "slinky" became "slim".
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When RB-34 lies to Susan and tells her that Milton loves her, Susan is skeptical. She knows that Milton has never shown the least interest in her as a woman. One of the unanswered questions about "Liar!" is the extent to which RB-34 can control the minds of humans. Does RB-34 use telepathic mind control to make Susan believe that Milton loves her or is she simply willing to believe that because she loves him?
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First Law of Robotics
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Susan asks RB-34 (A.K.A. Herbie) about a woman who she had previously seen Milton falling all over while showing her around the robot factory. The robot lies and tells her that the mystery woman was Milton's cousin and of no romantic interest. At that point, Susan begins fixing her hair and wearing makeup, believing that Milton likes her. In reality, Milton refers to Susan as "the old girl" when not in her presence.
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| self-consciousness |
The passage shown to the left was radically changed by Asimov when he altered "Liar!" for re-publication in 1950... everything but the first sentence was deleted. I believe that the "voice of Herbie whispering" is all in Susan's (and RB-34's) mind and tells readers that the robot was adjusting her thoughts.
Another big change was made in the passage shown above about the First Law of Robotics. In the 1950 version Susan says: "Surely you know the fundamental First Law of Robotics." Bogart says: "Certainly, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow him to come to harm." Asimov did not fully formulate his famous "Laws of Robotics" until 1942.
Snark
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Milton was originally 30 years old in "Liar!",
but Asimov later changed his age to 35.
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It was in "Liar!" that Asimov introduced the recurring character Dr. Susan Calvin. The first words out of her mouth are directed to three male co-workers: "
If we're going to start by trying to fix the blame on one another, I'm leaving." Later, after she has realized that RB-34 has lied to every human that he knows in a misguided effort to make each of them happy, she tells two senior co-workers: "
There's irony in three of the greatest experts in robotics in the world falling into the same elementary trap..."
The Second Law of Robotics says that robots must follow orders given to them by humans. Susan mercilessly destroys RB-34's positronic circuits by forcing him to realize that he is trying to simultaneously 1) follow the orders of 1 human who will be harmed if Herbie remains silent and 2) not hurt the feelings of other humans (they will be emotionally harmed) when Herbie says something that will hurt their feelings. Facing these contradictory demands, Herbie's circuits freeze and he never says anything ever again.
Before his circuits blow, poor Herbie's last words to Susan are: "
Stop! Close your mind! It is full of pain and frustration and hate! I didn't mean it, I tell you! I tried to help! I told you what you wanted to hear. I had to!"
Need Dr. Calvin have destroyed the mind of RB-34 or was she taking revenge because of her own humiliation at having been tricked by Herbie into believing that Milton loved her? With help, might RB-34 have learned to keep is mouth shut?
Vulcan wisdom: "
It is not a lie to keep the truth to oneself."
There are important implications in the possibility that RB-34 could have survived. Susan believes that RB-34 knows exactly where in the robot manufacturing and assembly process something went "wrong" and caused RB-34 to attain telepathic abilities.
I despise science fiction stories in which there is a magical technological breakthrough that can not be repeated. I know that it was popular in the 1940s for Sci Fi story tellers to throw up their hands and say "
Mutation!". However, what sort of mutation or manufacturing "error" could convert a regular robot into a telepathic robot? When Asimov later tried to account for the telepathic "
Mule" as a mutant, readers could fall back on the fact that a population of telepathic
Second Foundationers already existed in the galaxy. I feel the same way about Herbie: there must have been other telepathic robots around, lurking unseen on Earth, at least that is the premise in my
Exode Saga.
I can't stop wondering if Asimov's major source of self-consciousness over the 1941 version of "Liar!" came from his recognition of the fact that even if some sort of super-electroencephalography technique allowed a positronic robot to detect human thoughts and "read minds", that did not mean that it would be possible for a robot such as Herbie to take control of a person's brain and change their thought patterns. Asimov did dabble in the idea of technology-assisted telepathy, depicting the Mule as using a device (
visi-sonor) to amplify his biological telepathic powers. Tricks for technology-assisted technology are at the heart of "
The Alastor Network". Even the weak type of
twitino-based telepathic communication that existed for
Neanderthals was only possible because of
nanoscopic devices inside human brains, put there by aliens.
In Asimov's
Robots and Empire, Giskard seems to avoid using the term "telepathy" and describes his special powers as "mental detection and control". 200 years after altering Giskard's brain, Vasilia suddenly has a revelation: "I converted Giskard into a telepathic robot..." I suppose Asimov did not like to use the term "
telepathy" because it may not convey the fact that Giskard could go beyond mere communication of thoughts and could control the minds of other robots and humans. Asimov sometimes used the term "
mentalics", but that never caught on.
Next:
part 13 of "The Alastor Network".
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