I, Robot | Literary Precedents

I, Robot Literary Precedents

The story of artificial men reaches back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and Karel Capek's R.U.R., which first used the word "robot." By the 1940s, the robot in science fiction was usually treated as a monster who would turn on his creator and destroy him and try to take over the world.

Asimov's own robot stories are a reaction against this attitude. Asimov's belief in the value of science impelled him to depict robots sympathetically, as rationally serving human needs.

Asimov was not the first to do this, however. Ear and Otto Binder, writing as Eando Binder, had written a sympathetic robot story in 1939 also titled "I, Robot." But Asimov's robot stories were far more influential in creating a new and more benevolent portrayal of robots.