NationStates Jolt Archive

You've got a small child, a cute little girl, who needs plenty of love and attention that you just can't give her. After all, you've got a full-time job that you need to keep so that you can provide for her future. So, you decide to hire a nursemaid to watch her while you're busy at work. Here comes Robbie.

Robbie is a nearly perfect answer to your problem. He will love your daughter beyond his own life, will never grow tired of playing with her, will never allow her to come to any harm, and will do his best to get her home in time for dinner. Unless, of course, they're out playing in the meadows together and getting plenty of exercise and sunshine. It seems like the perfect solution. Except for one small thing: Robbie's a robot.

Such is the quandry that faces the small suburban family in the Isaac Asimov sort story, Robbie. Here, a slightly psychotic woman feels that it's simply criminal to leave her daughter in the care of a robot. Of course it was fine when having a robot was new and trendy, but now that it's no longer 'cool' the robot has to go, for the good of their daughter. After all, he's likely to knock something loose one day and go berserk and do something horrible, despite the fact that the First Law of Robotics, which is hardwired directly into his brain, forbids harming any human being. Still, she might not have any mechanical training whatsoever but she knows what's going to happen to Robbie, no matter what the professionals who actually built him have to say.

But let's say it's your decision, not hers. Would you hire Robbier to be your daughters nursemaid?

No. Social skills own.

Is hire necessarily the word to use when robots are owned? ^_^;

For that matter, is someone necessarily psychotic for thinking that experts may screw up? All the experts once thought that washing hands before delivering babies was a waste of time and unwholesome. Isn't too strong a belief in "experts" a rather unwarrented worship of men who live in the present day as though technological progress were something that could not possibly happen beyond our day? :rolleyes:

Personally, I wouldn't mind having a robot around for doing housework, and to interact with my children, but i wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my children alone with him/her/it for more than, say, 15-20 minutes; but this is probably because I wouldn't trust my children in the hands of anyone except some of my most trusted friends. This would likely change when my children reached the age of 12 or so, when i'd feel more comfortable leaving them on their own anyways. At that point Robbie would be an added security measure that would help put my mind at ease.

Note: this is all hypothetical, as I am only 19 and don't have any children, but it is the way that I feel.

What is it with the Asimov threads?

I feel a merge coming on...

It would depend on the child's age, a small child, sure, save a bit on babysitters, as for an older child, well, that would depend largely on it's programming, Ethics, that sort of thing.

(on a related subject, in Your opinion, what was the essential difference between Herbie and Giskard that, despite their similar abilites one functioned normally, while the other rapidly failed?)

Airlandia, the 'experts' are the one who built Robbie and installed the Three Laws. Now, just in clase you're unclear about the Laws, the First Law is : You shall not harm a human or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Violation in any way, shape, or form, results in total mental shutdown. These laws are physicaly hardwired into a robots brain, to remove it you have to destroy the robots brain and then it can't violate the laws anyway, since it doesn't have a brain and is thus 'dead'.

Is hire necessarily the word to use when robots are owned? ^_^;

For that matter, is someone necessarily psychotic for thinking that experts may screw up? All the experts once thought that washing hands before delivering babies was a waste of time and unwholesome. Isn't too strong a belief in "experts" a rather unwarrented worship of men who live in the present day as though technological progress were something that could not possibly happen beyond our day? :rolleyes:
I hate when other people post what I was going to say…

uh NO!

babies and children need human interaction. if it cant be mom or dad, it at least has to be HUMAN.

Sure, I would hire Robbie. He/She/It is no excuse for me not paying attention to my daughter if I have the time but Robbie is better than no one paying attention to her. Besides, I would trust the mechanics because these rules are part of what makes up the robots themselves.