Robbie

"Robbie" can also refer to the pop singer Robbie Williams.

Robbie (1940) is science-fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Super Science Stories magazine as Strange Playfellow, a title that was editorially chosen and described as "distasteful" by Asimov.

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This story is centred around the technophobia that surrounds robots, and how it is misplaced. This is not such a strange place to start, when you see that almost every science fiction story to feature a robot up until publication of this one was of the 'robot turns against creator' theme. Isaac Asimov has consistently held the belief that the Frankenstein complex was a misplaced fear, and the majority of his works attempted to provide examples of the help that robots could provide humanity.

In 1998, a mute RB series robot, nicknamed Robbie, is purchased by the Weston family as a nursemaid for their daughter, Gloria. Gloria's mother, however, is a local socialite and her opinions rest constantly on the opinion of the surrounding populace. When publicly available robots were the newest craze, she was glad that they had the possibility to afford one and gladly purchased Robbie. However, anti-robot sentiment quickly rose throughout the world (A combination of religious fanaticism and labor unions) and suddenly Mrs. Weston became concerned about the effects a robot nursemaid would have on her daughter. She claimed to be worried about the long-term societal effects, since Gloria was more interested in playing with Robbie than other neighborhood children and would not learn proper social skills, and eventually convinced her husband to return Robbie to the factory.

Since Gloria was so attached to the robot, who she saw as a personal friend and not a toy/nursemaid, she ceased smiling, laughing, and enjoying the most minuscule aspects of life. Despite continued effort on the part of her parents, who purchased her a new dog when they resold Robbie, she could not forget her friend and her state grew progressively worse. Her mother, who rationalized that it would be impossible for Gloria to forget Robbie when she is constantly surrounded by places where she and Robbie would play, decides that Gloria needs a change of scenery to help her forget. Imploring her husband to take a trip for the sake of their daughter, conveniently forgetting that the sake of her daughter did not matter enough to her when public opinion was against robots, Mrs. Weston convinced her husband to travel to New York City. Unfortunately, the plan backfired when Gloria assumed that they were going to New York to find Robbie, believing that they were going to hire private detectives for the job.

Though the Westons took their daughter to every conceivable tourist attraction, including to the top of the half-mile tall Roosevelt Building and an under-water voyage, Gloria paid even the simplest of robotic contraptions more attention than the most fascinating adventure. Almost out of ideas, Mr. Weston approached his wife with a thought: Gloria could not forget Robbie because she thought of Robbie as a person and not a robot, if they took her on a tour of a robot construction factory she would see that he was made of nothing more than metal and electricity. Impressed with his shockingly in-depth revelation, Mrs. Weston agrees to a tour of the US Robots & Mechanical Men, Corp facilities. However, during the tour, Mr. Weston requested to see a specific room of the factory: Robots constructing robots. Within that specifically requested room was a surprise for Gloria and Mrs Weston: Robbie working along with other robots, apparently waiting for Gloria to stumble upon him. After an unplanned and potentially fatal experience, where Gloria ran before a moving vehicle in an attempt to get to Robbie, Mrs. Weston confronted her husband about the entire situation: He had set it all up. Robbie was not a construction robot, he had no business being used for such a purpose, and Mr. Weston knew that if he managed to get him and Gloria together again there was no way Mrs. Weston would be able to separate them. When Robbie saved Gloria's life when she ran in front of the vehicle, an unplanned part of the reunion, Mrs. Weston agreed that he might not be a soulless monster, and it would be okay for him to stay.

The version published in the book I, Robot is slightly revised from the original text, and includes a brief paragraph which depicts the first appearance (in the stories' internal chronology) of Susan Calvin.

Included in:	Series:	Followed by:
I, Robot The Complete Robot	Robot Series Foundation Series	Runaround

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