Reason - I, Robot "Reason" Summary | I, Robot by Isaac Asimov- Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

Originally published in 1941.

• Half a year later, Powell and Donovan are still working with robots, still trying to figure out how positronic brains go wrong, even when "the slide-rule geniuses" say that the robots can't go wrong (Reason.1). (Maybe the problem is that they're using slide-rules. Man, science fiction writers in the 1940s loved their slide-rules.)
• This time, they're on Solar Station #5, which absorbs sunlight and converts it into energy. This energy is then shot in a beam down to Earth and the other human colonies in the solar system.
• They're dealing with a new QT model robot, which is supposed to manage the space station.
• The only problem is that Cutie doesn't quite believe what Powell and Donovan tell it; the story that Powell and Donovan told it about Earth and humans and robots doesn't quite make sense to it (11).
• Cutie isn't convinced when Powell explains that they built him to run the space station because it's too dangerous for humans (23). Cutie goes off to think it over for himself.
• Two days later, Cutie comes back to discuss what he has reasoned out:
• First, Cutie knows it exists, because it thinks. (This is Descartes's first philosophical move, as Powell notices.)
• Second, robots are awesome and humans aren't, so humans couldn't have built robots. How could weak humans build awesome robots? It doesn't make any sense to Cutie (56-7).
• Third, everyone in the space station is focused on the Energy Converter, so that must be God. Cutie calls it "the Master" (63). Which is slightly problematic because humans are supposed to be the masters.
• Sure enough, Cutie spreads his new religion/philosophy to the other robots and they stop taking orders from people.
• This seems especially problematic because there's an electron storm coming that will screw up the energy beam to Earth. Basically, if no one is at the controls, the energy beam will destroy large sections of the Earth's surface. (Boy, if they spent so much time thinking about how to engineer safe robots, maybe they should've spent some time thinking about how to engineer safe energy beams.)
• Because hot-headed Donovan spits on the Energy Converter, the humans are kept away from the controls.
• They try to convince Cutie by building a robot in front of him. And they succeed in making a living (well, not living living) robot. But Cutie reasons that the parts of the robot came from somewhere else, so they didn't really make the robot.
• So Cutie keeps the humans away from the controls during the electron storm. Powell and Donovan think that the beam has destroyed large parts of the earth (192).
• But then Cutie comes and shows them the read-outs from that day, and it has done a very good job of keeping the beam in focus. Of course, Cutie doesn't think in those terms—he merely "kept all dials at equilibrium in accordance with the will of the Master" (211).
• So Cutie can run the station successfully, even though he doesn't believe in Earth, says Powell (222).
• And so Powell and Donovan can go home. Or at least, they can go test a new robot, a multiple robot.