I, Robot

I spent my train rides reading The Economist last year but after my subscription ran its course this year I decided to get back to reading fiction during my commute.

I found myself rereading Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation (also the thinnest book I had lying around). His Foundation series is essentially about saving the Galaxy using the psychohistory to predict human behavior. I had never read any of his Robot series until a few weeks ago.

I, Robot introduces us to the 3 Robotic laws.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The rest of the book is composed of short stories where something goes wrong with one model of robots and no is able to figure out the reason for the malfunctioning without understanding how the Three Laws work. I enjoyed the fact that there was a mystery as well as sci-fi component to the book. All in all a great way to avoid dwelling on pest control issues in my apartment :)