The unique feature of Asimov's robots are the Three Laws of Robotics, hardwired in a robot's positronic brain, which all robots in his fiction must obey / follow, and which ensure that the robot does not turn against its creators.

One source of inspiration for Asimov's robots was the Zoromes, a race of mechanical men that featured in a 1931 short story called " The Jameson Satellite ", by Neil R. Jones.

Many of Asimov's robot-focused stories involve robots behaving in unusual and counter-intuitive ways as an unintended consequence of how the robot applies the Three Laws to the situation in which it finds itself.

One popular theme in science fiction film is whether robots will someday replace humans, a question raised in the film adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, or whether intelligent robots could develop a conscience and a motivation to take over or destroy the human race ( as depicted in The Terminator ).

The focus of Asimov's stories was directed more towards the software of robots ( such as the Three Laws of Robotics ) than the hardware in which it was implemented, although it is stated in his stories that to create a positronic brain without the Three Laws it would have been necessary to spend years redesigning the brain itself.

Behavioral dilemmas resulting from conflicting potentials set by inexperienced and / or malicious users of the robot for the Three Laws make up the bulk of Asimov's stories concerning robots.

Robots of the aforementioned last type directly parallel contemporary industrial robotics practice, though real-life robots do contain safety sensors and systems, in a concern for human safety ( a weak form of the First Law ; the robot is a safe tool to use, but has no " judgment ", which is implicit in Asimov's own stories ).

The robots in the 1999 film Bicentennial Man ( based on one of Asimov's stories ) also have positronic brains, including the main character Andrew, an NDR series robot that starts to experience human characteristics such as creativity.

But Asimov's later Galactic Empire is populated by many quadrillions of human beings on hundreds of thousands of habitable planets ; and by very few robots ( such as R. Daneel Olivaw ).

Asimov's short story " Feminine Intuition " ( 1969 ) is an early example that showed gynoids as being as capable and versatile as male robots, with no sexual connotations.

Although working well enough as standalone stories, they share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots and morality, and put together tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics.

" Victory Unintentional " does not belong to the Robot series, even though it is about Asimov's positronic robots who obey the Three Laws of Robotics.

Stories that are about Asimov's positronic robots that do not obey the Three Laws of Robotics:

These four stories are representative of Asimov's robot short stories, following his traditional themes of aversion and distrust of robots by the general public and issues arising from the robots ' interpretation of the Three Laws.

Asimov's novels chronicle the gradual deterioration of the Spacer worlds and the disappearance of robots from human society.

U. S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. is a fictional 21st century manufacturer of robots that appears in Isaac Asimov's Robot series of novels and short stories.

Two suggested ultimate requirements for social robots are the Turing Test to determine the robot's communication skills and Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics for its behavior ( The usefulness to apply these requirements in a real-world application, especially in the case of Asimov's laws, still is disputed and maybe not possible at all ).

Unlike other robots, whose behavior is constrained by " asimov circuits "— a reference to Isaac Asimov's fictional Three Laws of Robotics, which require robots to protect and serve humans — Tik-Tok finds that he can do as he pleases, and he secretly commits various hideous crimes for his amusement.

The Robot series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.

The stories were not initially conceived as a set, but rather all feature his positronic robots — indeed, there are some inconsistencies among them, especially between the short stories and the novels.

Asimov himself made slight modifications to the first three in various books and short stories to further develop how robots would interact with humans and each other.

This concept is largely fuzzy and unclear in earlier stories depicting very rudimentary robots who are only programmed to comprehend basic physical tasks, where the Three Laws act as an overarching safeguard, but by the era of The Caves of Steel featuring robots with human or beyond-human intelligence the Three Laws have become the underlying basic ethical worldview that determines the actions of all robots.

Settings may include the future, or alternative time lines, and stories may depict new or speculative scientific principles, such as time travel or psionics, or new technology, such as nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel or robots.

Asimov is particularly known for his creation of the Three laws of robotics which he uses in his stories as both to define his robots and how these interact within the worlds he creates.

In the late 1940s Amazing began to print stories about the Shaver Mystery, a lurid mythos that explained accidents and disaster as the work of robots named deros.

While there are many humanoid robots in fictional stories, some real humanoid robots have been developed since the 1990s, and some real human-looking android robots have been developed since 2002.

Almost all previously published science fiction stories featuring robots followed the theme ' robot turns against creator '; 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.

The stories, centred on positronic robots, are all part of the Robot series, most of which take place in the Foundation universe.

Akihabara gained some fame through being home to one of the first stores devoted to personal robots and robotics.

Manual clearing remains the most effective technique for clearing mine fields, although hybrid techniques involving the use of animals and robots are being developed.

Both Batmen ended up fighting Rohtul and his army of giant robots ( resembling the ones from the comics ) when Batman discovered that he had superpowers upon being exposed to Rodon.

There is a great amount of manual work that goes into it as opposed to all of it being performed by machines and robots.

Although several androids, robots and artificial intelligences were seen in the original Star Trek series, Data was often referred to as being unique in the universe as being the only sentient android known to exist ( save the other androids created by Soong ).

Some robotic lawn mowers will adapt their programming by detecting the speed in which grass grows as needed to maintain a perfect cut lawn, and some vacuum cleaning robots have dirt detectors that sense how much dirt is being picked up and use this information to tell them to stay in one area longer.

Besides the research, humanoid robots are being developed to perform human tasks like personal assistance, where they should be able to assist the sick and elderly, and dirty or dangerous jobs.

Sound sensors allow humanoid robots to hear speech and environmental sounds, and perform as the ears of the human being.

The enthusiasm of the Japanese for fuzzy logic is reflected in the wide range of other applications they have investigated or implemented: character and handwriting recognition ; optical fuzzy systems ; robots, including one for making Japanese flower arrangements ; voice-controlled robot helicopters, this being no mean feat, as hovering is a " balancing act " rather similar to the inverted pendulum problem ; control of flow of powders in film manufacture ; elevator systems ; and so on.

Currently, robo-rats are primarily being trained to detect explosives in areas where humans and existing robots cannot efficiently search, such as crowds and cargo ships.

There being no other place for the child on Solaria, the decision of the robots who immediately arrive to investigate the loss of power is that Fallom is to be destroyed.

The Laws are incorporated into almost all of the positronic robots appearing in his fiction, and cannot be bypassed, being intended as a safety feature.

The robots are being destroyed attempting to rescue the humans who are in no actual danger but " might forget to leave " the irradiated area within the exposure time limit.

Others are based on the second clause (... or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm ) claiming that robots should openly become a dictatorial government to protect humans from all potential conflict or disaster.

The Chu Beam is used for shooting aliens, robots and other attackers while the Rescue Beam is used to rescue hostages being forced to dance.

In the Pixar film WALL-E, humans are shown to have evolved into obese, docile, and lazy people as a result of robots being able to do everything for them.

Also, there was a clamor for a return to the original idea of the Transformers, that of their being protean robots with nearly humanlike artificial intelligences who transformed into vehicles or devices.

Returning only moments after the robots ' attack at the Lord's Cricket Grounds, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his bag.

Self-awareness in robots is being investigated by Junichi Takeno at Meiji University in Japan.

With the ability to take extra prosthetics such as layers of fur or skin " to resemble a digitigrade leg, from canine and feline to fantastical demons, dragons, satyrs and even robots ", these devices are promoted as being easy to get used to, partly because they " allow for realistic and natural movement as they are jointed at the knee and the ankle.

The collection is tied together by a central theme of robots being able to do things better than humans.

Spot welders can also be completely automated, and many of the industrial robots found on assembly lines are spot welders ( the other major use for robots being painting ).