Robbie (short story)

In 1982, a mute RB series robot, nicknamed Robbie, is owned by the Weston family as a nursemaid for their daughter, Gloria. Mrs. Weston becomes concerned about the effect a robot nursemaid would have on her daughter. Gloria likes playing with Robbie more with other children and might not learn proper social skills. She also believes that Robbie might malfunction and hurt her Gloria. Despite his protestations, Mr. Weston, after two years, gives in to his wife's badgering and returns Robbie to the factory and attempts to replace him with a collie dog named Lightning.

The effort fails. Gloria missing her best friend, stops enjoying life. Her mother, who rationalizes that it would be impossible for Gloria to forget Robbie when she is constantly surrounded by places where she and Robbie used to play, decides that Gloria needs a change of scenery to help her forget. Mrs. Weston convinces her husband to take them to New York City, where he happens to work. Gloria surmises, optimistically, that they are going in search of Robbie.

Among other attractions, the Westons visit the Museum of Science and Industry; Gloria sneaks away to see a "Talking Robot" (in modern terms, a computer), a giant machine that takes up the whole room. It can answer questions posed to it verbally by visitors. There is a human present to monitor the questions, he leaves the room when there are no guided tours, so when Gloria enters, she does alone. Gloria asks the machine if it knows to find Robbie, "a robot... just like you." The computer, unable to comprehend the question, breaks down.

Now Mr. Weston approaches his wife with the idea of touring a robot factory. Gloria can then see robots as inanimate objects, not "people". They take a tour of the corporate facilities of the Finmark Robot Corporation. Mr. Weston requests to see a specific room of the factory where robots construct other robots. That room holds a surprise for Gloria and Mrs. Weston: one of the robot assemblers is Robbie. Gloria runs in front of a moving vehicle in her eagerness to get to her friend, but is rescued by Robbie. Mrs. Weston confronts her husband: he had set up the encounter all along. When Robbie saves Gloria's life, an unplanned part of the reunion, Mrs. Weston relents. The two friends can stay together.

The revised version changes the date to 1998 and adds a cameo appearance by Susan Calvin, at that time a college student studying robots, during the Talking Robot scene. The framing sequence of I, Robot also provides some additional context.

Susan, then a college student, is at the Museum of Science and Industry exhibit of the talking robot; she writes down a couple of observations and leaves, as the question-monitor returns infuriated trying to find out what happened to the machine.

Other changes include:

• References to Robbie's tentacles are changed to hands.
• The Douglas expedition to the Moon is changed to the Lefebre-Yoshida expedition to Mars.
• Mrs. Weston (and the text) refers to the dog as "it", not "he".
• The Finmark Robot Corporation is renamed to U.S. Robots.
• More details are added on the description of the visvox Gloria has seen with her family.
• The reference to Mr. Weston commuting to New York via his private auto-gyro is removed.
• The reference to the effects on Mr Weston's heirloom watch of the powerful electro-magnet is deleted.
• Additional description related to the Talking Robot and its capacities.
• Various sociological comments, such as "[t]here's bad feeling in the village" and a reference to unions and dislocation (replacing a reference to Mr. Struthers' speech on "Robots and the Future of the Human Being"), are interpolated. A reference to a law restricting robots on public streets is moved.
• Mrs. Weston's justification for her conclusion that Mr. Weston engineered the reunion, starting with "Robbie wasn't designed for engineering or construction work," is interpolated.