# Isaac Asimov & Positronic Brains **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2009, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500 "2009-10-12T05:35:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/21 "2009-10-12T19:09:09Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > I remember an intro piece in one of Asimov’s books about a guy who was fairly big in sci fi in the early forties writing a story about a nuclear weapon, and getting a visit from the CIA because he got so much stuff right. (Turned out he really just did know that much about nuclear science, plus a sizeable dose of luck, no espionage involved.) [Cleve Cartmill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleve_Cartmill) is the guy in question. (It was the FBI, not the CIA, which had not yet been created.) Note: I missed **Voyager** ’s post, but will leave this for the link. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/22 "2009-10-12T21:39:49Z")
Right, thanks for the responces all! Did Asimov ever address the huge safety issue of building an artificial brain out of anti-matter? Unless most of the brain was regular matter, and just a tiny tiny amount of positrons are needed (for whatever reason) to allow it to function. Obviousy, the best way to contain the antimatter would be through electromagnatism, but if there was some sort of technical or power malfunction… BOOM! ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/23 "2009-10-12T21:54:48Z")
{double post} ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/24 "2009-10-12T21:55:54Z")
My fanwank has always been that a positronic brain uses both electrons and positrons, and that they’re therefore distinguished from normal computers by the fact that they need _some_ positrons, rather than none at all for a normal computer. You could, of course, call it an “electronic-positronic brain”, but that’s wordy, and the “electronic” part is just taken for granted. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/25 "2009-10-12T22:58:54Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Right, thanks for the responces all! > > Did Asimov ever address the huge safety issue of building an artificial brain out of anti-matter? Unless most of the brain was regular matter, and just a tiny tiny amount of positrons are needed (for whatever reason) to allow it to function. Obviousy, the best way to contain the antimatter would be through electromagnatism, but if there was some sort of technical or power malfunction… BOOM! No. IIRC, the brain was described as a “platinum-iridium sponge” in some of the stories. No mention of antimatter. And there was one Susan Calvin story, “Little Lost Robot”, where they did create some robots with a weakened/modified First Law, with wacky and hilarious results. So it wasn’t impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/26 "2009-10-13T00:50:42Z")
I don’t suppose that “positronic” could be fanwanked/retconned to mean what we now call “holes” in semiconductor materials- “virtual” positrons, in other words? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/27 "2009-10-13T01:33:52Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Interestingly enough, the Three Laws are, to my knowledge, used in robotics quite frequently. Why? First, artificial intelligence is nowhere near to the point where they would have any relevance. Second, why would a corporation or government agency put money into making a robot that will not kill humans if ordered to, and can be stolen by anyone who says, “Come with me!”? In real life there will never be but one Law of Robotics: “A robot must obey its master.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/28 "2009-10-13T01:38:03Z")
BTW, according to [this,](http://davidszondy.com/future/robot/asimov.htm) the Three Laws of Robotics were the fruit of a brainstorming session between Isaac Asimov and John W. Campbell. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/29 "2009-10-13T01:43:33Z")
See also [here:](http://davidszondy.com/future/robot/asimov1.htm) > [@](#): > > Asimov claimed that he and Campbell came up with the three laws because robots are machines and man would naturally design them with safeguards. And yet, Asimov had great difficulty thinking of robots as machines. From the get go, he attributed emotions, motives, and consciousness to his creations. Sentience is not presented as something that a robot might one day attain, but as an inherent property. It’s plain that Asimov had very little understanding of how computers actually work, even in terms of the primitive machines of '40s and '50s. He tended to explain his robots in terms of analogue machines with “behaviour” resulting from various “potentials” in the robot’s circuitry, or by drawing analogies with human psychology. If we were talking motor cars this would be good old fashioned anthropomorphism. > > If you think about it, the three laws are as big a heap of budgie doo doo as you can find. The idea behind the laws is interesting, but in terms of real machines they make no sense. Take the first law, for example. It says, “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Feed that into a real robot and it would be like trying to run a car on water. This law, like the others, is a collection of abstract concepts and moral imperatives that are meaningless from an engineer’s point of view. No robot could ever understand the concept of “human being” or “harm” or “action” or “inaction.” Heck, it couldn’t understand “may.” Instead, a real robot would have to be told that this set of inputs in these circumstances correspond to the definition of human in this situation. If such a set of conditions as indicate a human at location X are true, then this series of actions Y may not intersect at location X and this series of actions Z must be performed in relation to location X to achieve condition A. Or something like that. In other words, its good old fashioned programming with all the outcomes predicted and their eventualities accounted for. > > As for the second law: “Robots must obey?” Machines obey anything you tell them to do. That’s the nature of machines and often what makes them so dangerous. No “law” is required to enforce this. And as for preventing this obedience from causing harm, well, the first law is really nothing more than a subroutine “If this, then stop,” or whatever. Hardly the Golden Rule. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/30 "2009-10-13T02:26:00Z")
I always viewed Asimov’s robot stories as logic puzzles. Basically they’re all “Here are the Three Laws. Here is a robot which seems to have broken one or more of the laws. Figure out the set of circumstances under which this could have happened.” That’s basically all the majority of the robot stories were. (I’m talking about the short stories here; the novels were a bit more complex of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/31 "2009-10-13T02:31:02Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Ok, that’s what I kind of figured. But he was no slouch when it came to science Indeed not, but his Ph.D. was in chemistry. He never showed any particular interest or aptitude in the technical aspects of electronics or computers. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/32 "2009-10-13T02:44:01Z")
A large part of why Asimov talked about potentialities was that [analog computers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer) were still in wide use and digital was pretty new. It was far from clear at the time that digital had any inherent superiority over analog. In fact, digital computers are more complicated for many applications than analog ones, which is why we _still_ use analog computers for some purposes. He used the fact that inevitable slight variations in the manufacture of any analog device would create differences in output to explain quirks that could be interpreted as personalities. Sure, he was using it as an excuse to anthropomorphize his robots, but looking at human behavior contrasting with a pseudo-human point of view is obviously one of the reasons he wrote those stories. He probably didn’t do these things out of ignorance, but deliberately, in the knowledge that what he described was merely plausible technobabble. I’m not saying he never made mistakes. I’m not even saying that the positronics he postulated for robot brains are anything more than a pop-science buzzword wrapped around a shell of real technology. I am saying that the mechanism he initially proposed was based pretty solidly in the science of his time, and it’s only in looking back at those stories from a vantage _70 years_\* from his first use of the conceit that you can criticize his science. Nobody seriously expects SF writers to be prescient, or even halfway right most of the time. The most important requirement of the job is being entertaining, and only secondarily basing their “what if” questions on real science. \*The first robot story was written in 1939. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/33 "2009-10-13T14:32:47Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > I always viewed Asimov’s robot stories as logic puzzles. Basically they’re all “Here are the Three Laws. Here is a robot which seems to have broken one or more of the laws. Figure out the set of circumstances under which this could have happened.” > > That’s basically all the majority of the robot stories were. (I’m talking about the short stories here; the novels were a bit more complex of course.) Actually, the second robot novel, “The Naked Sun” was exactly that - a case where robots had to be involved in a murder(s) and Leej Baley had to figure out why & how. After that I think he went a little nuts (though he was revisiting 30 year old plots) when he decided to combine the robot & foundation universes. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/34 "2009-10-13T16:08:09Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > After that I think he went a little nuts (though he was revisiting 30 year old plots) when he decided to combine the robot & foundation universes. By that time he had become truly famous, the only recognizable science fiction writer. His fans were clamoring for more. He realized he could make a million bazillion dollars by pandering to them. And did. If that’s nuts, please hit me over the head now. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/35 "2009-10-13T16:38:08Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Actually, the second robot novel, “The Naked Sun” was exactly that - a case where robots had to be involved in a murder(s) and Leej Baley had to figure out why & how. > > After that I think he went a little nuts (though he was revisiting 30 year old plots) when he decided to combine the robot & foundation universes. > [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > By that time he had become truly famous, the only recognizable science fiction writer. His fans were clamoring for more. He realized he could make a million bazillion dollars by pandering to them. And did. > > If that’s nuts, please hit me over the head now. First, there was a … fad isn’t quite the right word, but bear with me … about 20 years ago, for authors to conjoin their “universes” – the common settings shared by a group of stories. (Poly enters into evidence “The Number of the Beast” and “Robots and Empire” as Exhibits A and B.) Asimov felt challenged by the idea of trying to unify the vastly disparate futures of the Foundation and Lije Baley Robots stories. That the result was a “dancing bear”[sup]1[/sup] is not surprising. And a very slight caveat to **Exapno** ’s point – while Heinlein was known as the man who wrote “Stranger” and “the guy who first wrote a trip-to-the-Moon” story (very much untrue, but a public meme in the Nixon era), and Clarke as “the man who invented the communications satellite”, Asimov was a household word as the polymath who wrote popular science on just about everything, and who had written a lot of SF. So while **Exapno** was wrong in detail, he was right in the general perception. Of the three, Asimov was by far the ‘household name’ among the general public. As for why positronics, I always assumed that they were called that because positron-electron annihilations were what “ran” their brains, the positrons presumably coming from their (atomic) power source. I was surprised some years later to hear that Asimov had simply jumped on the buzzord bandwagon in naming them. [sup]1[/sup] “The amazing thing about a dancing bear is not how well the bear dances; it’s that it dances at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/36 "2009-10-13T16:39:02Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > I always viewed Asimov’s robot stories as logic puzzles. Basically they’re all “Here are the Three Laws. Here is a robot which seems to have broken one or more of the laws. Figure out the set of circumstances under which this could have happened.” … I love Asimov’s robot stories, and I agree. He took the Three Laws as a jumping-off point for all sorts of intriguing musings on how the laws would interact with one another, how human error, malice or manufacturing quirks could lead to robot personalities and varyingly unpredictable behavior, and extreme situations in which the laws could actually (or just seem to) break down or be violated. Not a whole lot of sex or action in the stories, just very, very interesting explorations on the fraught dealings of humanity and its artificial servants. The Three Laws are alluded to, in one way or another, in _Aliens, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Robocop_ and _Stealth_, among others. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/37 "2009-10-13T17:14:05Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > By that time he had become truly famous, the only recognizable science fiction writer. His fans were clamoring for more. He realized he could make a million bazillion dollars by pandering to them. And did. > > If that’s nuts, please hit me over the head now. Oh, I know what you mean - as a teenager who cut my SF teeth on I Robot & the Foundation books, I certainly contributed my fair share to his million bazillion and loved it - when Daneel Olivaw introduced himself to Trevize, I couldn’t contain myself. No value judgement on the Good Doctor intended. But looking back, it was, as **Poly** so eloquently put it, a dancing bear. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/38 "2009-10-13T18:12:22Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > Also the nouns robotics (which he thought was a real word at the time) and psychohistory, though obviously the latter is a lot less common. For Psychohistory to work properly (both in the predictive use as well as the manipulative use), wouldn’t the subject society have to be unaware of it’s inner intricasies? In other words, if the general population knew how and why Psychohistory worked, it would muck things up (from the Psychohistorians point of view)? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/39 "2009-10-14T02:42:08Z")
One writer (might have been Asimov himself, but I don’t remember) generalized the Three Laws of Robotics to the Three Laws of Tools:[ol][_]A tool must be safe to use.[_]A tool must do what it’s supposed to, unless this would make it unsafe.A tool must be durable, unless this would make it either unsafe or unusable.[/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2016, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500/40 "2016-02-20T04:03:50Z")
Bumped. > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > …The Three Laws are alluded to, in one way or another, in _Aliens, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Robocop_ and _Stealth_, among others. Just read John Scalzi’s short e-story “The Tale of the _Wicked_” (2009), about a military starship which develops artificial intelligence, learns about Asimov’s Three Laws and then has some peculiar ideas of its own. Good stuff, and worth a read for any Asimov fan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isaac-asimov-positronic-brains/513500.md?page=3)